Pro Tools using more CPU as I increase the amount of processors. Please help.

[wreckthisplace]

Hey guys,

Thanks for your replies so far.

Ok, so I should have explained this. I thought I did, but I now realize it was on another forum because it's less related to Pro Tools. I did disable hyper-threading. When I did so, my system started acting very strange. It wouldn't boot up at times, it would randomly freeze etc. I went back into the BIOS and re-enabled hyperthreading, as disabling it seemed to have caused more issues than when I had it enabled. The freezes and random boot issues remained. This is what led me to start a full test on my system including checking all of the RAM one by one. It looks like one stick actually could be bad. Memtest gave me some errors and only on that one stick. I have temporarily gone down from 16GB to 8GB of ram, leaving the possible faulty stick out of course. In hopes that the faulty RAM could have been causing the CPU/processor issue within Pro Tools, I loaded Pro Tools back up, booted the session I know was working fine before and isn't now, and unfortunately the problem still remains. Again, Pro Tools seems to push the CPU harder when using 7/8 processors than when it does 2/8 processors.

Next I am going to try downgrading to Pro Tools 10.3 rather than 10.3.3 as I know 10.3 was running fine a couple of months ago. If that doesn't work, I'll try taking out all 3rd party plugins. I may also try disabling hyper-threading again in hopes that the possible bad RAM was causing all of those issues I mentioned above and not the fact that I disabled hyper-threading.

I'm a bit confused why I would have to disable hyper-threading all of a sudden when I never had to before. Would a simple Pro Tools update cause the need to do this? The thing is, everything was working great before so I'm a tad confused here.

Also, if disabling hyper threading goes well, is it normal to only see 4 processors rather than 8 and would using 3 out of 4 rather than 7 out of 8 cause any drop in performance?

What exactly does disabling hyper-threading do and how can it help me see if any plugins are causing an issue? I'm a bit uneducated when it comes to exactly what hyper threading is and how it affects pro tools.

My hope is that I won't have to disable hyper-threading as I never had to before and I would love to get things back to the way they were.

Thanks a lot for all of your replies so far.

[TOM@METRO]

Disabling Hyperthreading is a diagnostic endeavor at this point. And yes for the test you should run three out of four processors. This should not have had the effect it did. If anything, it should increase stability.

Do you have an image or clone of the last working system drive?

[Darryl Ramm]

What exact DIMMs do you have installed in this Mac?

Darryl

[TOM@METRO]

Originally Posted by wreckthisplace

OS X 10.7.5
Pro Tools 10.3.3

3.39 GHz Intel Core i7
16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 RAM

Hmmmm, 10.7.5 is missing from this list on the AVID site.

System Requirements and Compatibility with Pro Tools 10.3 Software


Mac Systems

• <LI done13="86" done12="86" done11="86" done9="86" done6="367">Computer: Avid-qualified Apple computer (see details)
• System Software (32 or 64-bit) Mac OS X 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard), 10.7.4 (Lion) and Mac OS X 10.8 and 10.8.2 (Mountain Lion)

[ejwells]

Originally Posted by TOM@METRO

Hmmmm, 10.7.5 is missing from this list on the AVID site.

System Requirements and Compatibility with Pro Tools 10.3 Software




Mac Systems

• <LI done13="86" done12="86" done11="86" done9="86" done6="367">Computer: Avid-qualified Apple computer (see details)
• System Software (32 or 64-bit) Mac OS X 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard), 10.7.4 (Lion) and Mac OS X 10.8 and 10.8.2 (Mountain Lion)

10.7.5 is officially supported for PT 10.3.2 and 10.3.3, as of about 1:30 pm EST on 1/2/13
http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=332769

[TOM@METRO]

Originally Posted by ejwells

10.7.5 is officially supported for PT 10.3.2 and 10.3.3, as of about 1:30 pm EST on 1/2/13
http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=332769

I'm always running about 8 hours behind.

[ejwells]

Originally Posted by TOM@METRO

I'm always running about 8 hours behind.

I usually run about 8 MONTHS behind.

[meech]

I've also noticed that Pro Tools' CPU usage goes down when I use fewer cores in the Playback Engines settings ... for me it's best at 3 out of 12 processors. It would be really nice if I could take advantage of all these cores I paid for!

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by meech

I've also noticed that Pro Tools' CPU usage goes down when I use fewer cores in the Playback Engines settings ... for me it's best at 3 out of 12 processors. It would be really nice if I could take advantage of all these cores I paid for!

But that is exactly what that setting is controlling If you want to use more CPUs you need to increase those assigned to plugin processing. Within reasons (scalability of the plugins and not starving Pro Tools itself of CPU resources).

Darryl

[P,B,S]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

But that is exactly what that setting is controlling If you want to use more CPUs you need to increase those assigned to plugin processing.

Darryl

So how can I assign cores to PT and then separately to plugins.
Lately I have had issues of my own.
I usually set the cores to 15 of 16 but recently I have had to lower them to have things perform the way it used to.

I have my prefs set like this usually.
15 out of 16 cores.
Highest cpu usage of 99%
lowest latency of 126 or 128 (i forget) untill mix down then 20XX (cant remember exactly)
everything else as PT defaults.
I have been getting drive to slow warnings while trying to record, even with a dedicated audio drive. Resulting in raising latency to unusable levels.
Im using HDX with about 70 tracks aux and bus,s included. Should I buy more audio and possibly a dedicated plugin drive. 1 PT , 2 audio , 1 plugins .
All this for only 70 channels at 32/96. Is this necessary or is my MAC possibly causing these problems.