Carbon / AVB performance woes

[martthie_08]

so I'm moving back and forth between the HDX rig in my recording studio, headphones on the road with Airpods and my mix / edit room with Carbon.

It is simply insane the amount of CPU Carbon needs for sessions that run absolutely smoothly on HDX (hardly using any DSP plugs) or even on the road with CoreAudio. A rough estimate would be I have to reserve 25% of CPU just to not have 9173 errors on the Carbon rig.

While I do understand this seems to be more of an issue with Apple's implementation of AVB it is nevertheless super annoying.

It would be seriously useful for me to have a plugin that eats up the appropriate amount of CPU doing nothing (while on HDX) to be able to continue working on my Carbon rig without 9173's.

Just out of curiousity, is this something Apple / AVID are working on improving? I'm still on Ventura, but had the same experience on Monterey..

sorry for the rant, but just wanted to point this out and would be thankful for any advice, thanks. btw. buffer size is fixed for me at 256 and I don't want to change it.

[jeam25]

Hi, that sounds weird, are you using the same computer on the 3 scenarios? Not seeing poor performance issues here.

[martthie_08]

thanks for your reply, ok intersting, that's good to know!
Did you compare Carbon vs. "native" or HDX?

Yes, I am using the same computer, a M1 Macbook Pro with 10 cores, connecting to the Carbon with the double stacked Apple adapters and connecting to HDX with a Sonnet chassis...

EDIT: I'm not ruling out this is plugin related, just curious to see if anyone out there has had similar experiences!

[Darryl Ramm]

If you are getting 9173 errors the cause is almost certainly plugins (as you mention). There are multiple KB articles pointing this out and what troubleshooting to do. You need to follow them and try to find the problematic plugin(s).

Nobody can add plugins to "reserve" CPU or anything like that, that is not how any of this works.

[martthie_08]

ok thanks, I think I'll first try switching over my HDX to hybrid engine to see if I get similar (reduced) CPU usage as on Carbon.

Before going plugin hunting I'll need some guidance as to which manufacturer might see increased CPU usage on a Carbon system and why that would be the case. I've got at least 600 installed at this point, so it'll very hard to go through them all.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by martthie_08

ok thanks, I think I'll first try switching over my HDX to hybrid engine to see if I get similar (reduced) CPU usage as on Carbon.

Before going plugin hunting I'll need some guidance as to which manufacturer might see increased CPU usage on a Carbon system and why that would be the case. I've got at least 600 installed at this point, so it'll very hard to go through them all.

No you don't need and cannot get any guidance or explanation. Nobody else can guess what plugins you are using, or which might have problems, or what errors might be in some plugin implementation . You need to just do the work.

With these errors and what you are seeing the suspects first are the plugins you have instantiated in a session that shows the problem. So you can test first by deactivating/reactivating those plugins. So look what plugins are common to sessions showing this and start there. Again, start by looking up the KB articles for dealing with these errors.

If that does not help then you might get into moving out .aaxplugin bundles from the plugin directory, which yes might be more work.

[Third Eye Studios]

Originally Posted by martthie_08

ok thanks, I think I'll first try switching over my HDX to hybrid engine to see if I get similar (reduced) CPU usage as on Carbon.

Before going plugin hunting I'll need some guidance as to which manufacturer might see increased CPU usage on a Carbon system and why that would be the case. I've got at least 600 installed at this point, so it'll very hard to go through them all.

Solid suggestions above!

When troubleshooting for bad plugins, I remove them all from the plugin folder over to the un-used plugins folder. I then put them back in in batches (20 or so at a time), opening and testing Pro Tools with a session each time plugins are added back in. If Pro Tools throws an error, you will know what "batch" the plugin is in. Then narrow it down from there. It's time consuming, but the only way to do it.

[martthie_08]

It seems STL Controlhub is the culprit on my system, will get in touch with them to find a solution.
Even in projects that sit comfortably at 60-70% one instance of this plugin creates spikes that yield 9173's