Wondering about low performance of PT HD Native on PT 9.0.5

[marcoustic]

Hi guys,

nows that the HD issue worked out good I wonder about the overall performance of the system.

Here are the main specs:
Mac 8-core 2,4 GHz
6 GB of RAM
1 HD for the system
1 HD for audio files
A fresh install of OS 10.6.8
A fresh install of PT 9.0.5

Many sessions concerning a recent project look like this:
1 instance of addictive drums on a stereo instrument track
1 instance of structure on a stereo instrument track
2 instances of xpand2 on 2 stereo intrument tracks
and
about 10 audio tracks with digi eq activated

thats it

at the settings of

14 processors in use
64 samples buffer
level 2 disc cache

i get a cpu usage of over 50 %!!!

Can that be?
What do you guys think?
Regards
Markus

[filosofem]

Drop the Processors to 10 leaving 6 for offline duties. Then max the CPU Usage to 99%. Also try changing the DAE Memory Cache Size to Minimum.

[marcoustic]

Hi there,
I already did some experiments with the number of processors used and the cpu usage in %, but with no luck so far.
I´ll try your hint. We´ll see...

Regards Markus

[marcoustic]

Hi there,

I just tried turning the playback engine to 10 processors and 99% usage.
With this I tried all settings concerning cache size.

I´m sure, there´s no possible setting in the playback engine I didn´t try.
Still no positive effect on the cpu usage.

Sometimes I even get spikes that will end up in error warnings...

Any other ideas?

Regards
Markus

[lennieh]

Try disabling the plugins one at a time untill you find the one that's causing the problem. You would kind of expect structure and xpand to play ball with protools so I'd start with Addictive Drums.

If taking it out makes your session behave then you need to investigate settings in there.

I just built a new PC and had issues with Kontak and Superior drums, both of which were caused by those plugins trying to control cpu performance at the same time as protools...

[marcoustic]

Hi lennieh,

I also had this idea and kicked out one plug after another...
you guess right; with no luck.

I ended up with some about 12 audio tracks with digi eq and some digi dynamics and still about 45% cpu usage with spikes up to 70 %.

The next step will be disabling the digi plugs and see, where I get.

It´s really weird because I had better performance with PT LE 8 on the same machine just 3 weeks ago.

Regards Markus