CPU Overload / Out of Power..... i'm stuck

[tohmit]

I've been cruisin the forums and looking at troubleshooting pages and I've not come up with a solution.

I am getting 2 different errors. One says A CPU Overload Error Occured - increase buffer size. The other says You're Running out of CPU Power. Remove some plugins or increase the CPU Usage limits.

When receiving these errors, I am only using 10% of my CPU (using iStat to monitor), but I am using 3.7 of my 4GB Ram. Not sure why. I don't have anything running but ProTools. PT is using 1.8GB,
SystemUIServer is using 400MB, Window Server is using 100MB. Those are the top 3.

My session is pretty minimal at this point, only 5 tracks.
- Instrument track (drums w/ Xpand2,Dyn3 Comp, Air verb)
- Recorded bass track (w/ Air Eq, Bomb Factory comp)
- Recorded Ac (no plugins)
- Recorded El (no plugins)
- Instrument track (synth w/ AIR Mini Grand, RectiFi)

I normally receive the errors when getting to a new block, either virtual instrument or recorded track.


Here's my configuration:
- iMac 2.66GHz i5, 4GB Ram
- OSx 10.6.3
- Digi Eleven Rack
- PT LE 8.0.3cs1
- Laci d2 Quadra 1.0TB External HDD for recording/playback

FW Configuration is iMac->FW800 -> OWC Mercury Elite Pro 500GB -> Lacie d2 Quadra 1.0TB -> FW400 -> Lacie d2 DVD RW Lightscribe -> Canopus ADVC110

All FW Devices are powered externally, not using the FW bus.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!


Also, H/W Buffer Size is set to 128
Host Processers set at 4
CPU Usage Limit is at 95%

[tohmit]

Anyone have any ideas?

[mhelm01]

For what its worth, try setting you processors for 7 at 99%. I run this all day with no problems. For some reason PT does better with an odd number of cores and since you're not running anything else you can bump up the processors.

[dave911]

No idea really, but I would knock it down to a minimal config to troubleshoot. Just your record drive on the firewire.
Would also test with only the PT supplied plugins loaded and removing xpand 2.

[tohmit]

Thanks guys. Xpand 2 did come with ProTools. So far I've not added any 3rd party plugins. I did try switching to 3 cores and going 99%, but that didn't help. I did notice that the errors only occur when my memory is all used up. What I don't understand is why my memory is all used up. If I restart the computer and start ProTools, my sessions run fine. If I close all other programs and then start ProTools, then I am out of memory.

Can anyone make sense of that. Any idea how to clear used memory without restarting the computer? I don't want to have to reboot everytime I want to use ProTools.

[tamasdragon]

Couple of things.
First, I don't think the new i5 machines are qualified yet. Nor 10.6.3.
I know many reported that it is working fine, but also some reported to have problems.
You can try incactivate the plugs one by one to see which causes the problem. Also check the plugin compatibility. Although you might not have any 3rd party plug, still, that doesn't mean that all your plugins are up to date.
You can also try to use your eleven rack on an other port to see what happens.

[docscholl]

To add what mhelm01 said, I had a similar problem until I configured my iMac dual processor to use just one processor during a Pro Tools session.

After I did that, all was good.

[huzzam]

Three things:

4 processors at 95% doesn't really leave any (ok, much) power left for other system tasks, like running the OS itself. If you're gonna give PT all 4 procs, they should max around 80%, give or take. Better is probably 3 procs at 90-95%, as someone else also said. Also, unless you're tracking at the moment, bump the buffer up to 1024 and forget about it (until you go to track again).

If that doesn't help, you could try bouncing one or both of the instrument tracks to an audio track, since audio tracks use much less power (both ram & processor). In case you don't know how:

1. disable (in the track menu) all the other instrument tracks
2. make a new audio track (stereo or mono depending on the instrument's output)
3. route the instrument's output to a new bus, and the new audio track's input from the same bus
4. record enable the new track & do a record pass
5. disable the instrument track, re-enable all the other ones you disabled.

In response to your other question, Mac OSX intentionally keeps memory pretty full, so that programs & other resources that you've quit will be available more quickly next time (ram is much faster than HD). However, it's pretty smart about letting go of things it doesn't need anymore. The only time I noticed hitting the memory limit (i have 3gb), and PT stuttered, it worked fine the next time i hit play, i guess because OSX had released the memory.

~peter in oakland

[tohmit]

Alright, I've given those things a shot. Running 3 processors at 90% now, disabled VI tracks and plugins.

The problem seems to be 100% memory related. I don't think ProTools is pulling from inactive memory at all. Once Free memory is used up, ProTools gives me those errors. The amount of inactive memory doesn't change from before I start ProTools to when I'm running it with problems, telling me that ProTools isn't pulling from Inactive memory.

Hopefully this is an i5 or 10.6.3 issue with PT that is being corrected.

Thanks for the responses. Any know any memory related tricks that might help in the meantime? Otherwords I'm stuck rebooting if I'm out of Free memory.

[nst7]

Have you tried removing the dvd drive and the canopus to see if that makes any difference?