Activity Memory at 100% on One Plug In

[aftermid]

Hi Everyone,


So I recently bought a virtual instrument called VIR Harmonic Cello. When I install this one plug in on one track, the activity monitor shoots to 100%, even if this is the only plug in and the only track in the session.



The kicker is, if I close the session it stays at 100%. I have to quit Pro Tools and restart to get the activity monitor at its default starting level of about 17%. No idea why this happens with this plug in. Doesn't happen with Logic.


Any ideas?



Mid 2012 Mac Pro, Processor: 3.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
RAM 16 Gb, OSX 10.13.8, Pro Tools Ultimate 2020.12.1 HDX, Omni HDX interface

[Darryl Ramm]

It's telling you the plugin likely has a problem, if usual troubleshooting (trashing prefs, checking the plugin is claimed to be compatible with your system/setup, you have the latest plugin, trying a new empty session etc.) does not fix it the place you should be taking this is the plugin vendor.

[aftermid]

Hi Darryl,


I've tried what you've mentioned. I have no doubt, like you say, the plug in is the issue. I was wondering, if there was a way in Pro Tools to bring down the activity monitor, despite the plug in. Not very hopeful, but maybe there is a trick or workaround.

[Darryl Ramm]

You did mean 100% CPU not 100% memory right?

What did VIR harmonic support say?

Are you actually getting DAE CPU errors? At what HW Buffer size? If not I'd try to get work done as is and see what happens.

VIR Harmonic are a small boutique vendor, with seemingly impressive products and technology, which hopefully means they provide good technical support. But as quick look at their website shows no way to demo a product and a ****ty refund policy which would likely keep me well away from them.

You really have no direct control over anything the plugin is doing, except stopping using it. You can try tuning CPU use by increasing H/W Buffer size as always.

It's a VI so not likely suffering from denormalization issues, not that modern plugins tend to, or in ways you can easily fix, (which cause high CPU usage in some plugins).

[aftermid]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

You did mean 100% CPU not 100% memory right?

What did VIR harmonic support say?

Are you actually getting DAE CPU errors? At what HW Buffer size? If not I'd try to get work done as is and see what happens.

VIR Harmonic are a small boutique vendor, with seemingly impressive products and technology, which hopefully means they provide good technical support. But as quick look at their website shows no way to demo a product and a ****ty refund policy which would likely keep me well away from them.

You really have no direct control over anything the plugin is doing, except stopping using it. You can try tuning CPU use by increasing H/W Buffer size as always.

It's a VI so not likely suffering from denormalization issues, not that modern plugins tend to, or in ways you can easily fix, (which cause high CPU usage in some plugins).

It's the activity memory on the system usage window in Pro Tools. The 8 CPU's are almost at 0%. Played with H/W Buffer and playback engine with every combination I could think of. The pop up error window, Pro Tools gives, is the use of too much RAM. Which you can only click OK to. It's a shame, because this cello sounds impressive, but it's not too happy with Pro Tools. Have to keep hitting play over and over again. Not sure what you meant by "denormalization issues". What is it and maybe I can look into that too.
Thanks

[aftermid]

Oh yeah, forgot, their tech support suggest downloading a codec, I've never heard of, but this didn't make any difference either. So, they really have come up with any viable answers after many emails back and forth.

[Darryl Ramm]

Ugh so it's memory not CPU. It is very easy to misread (as I did) "Activity Memory" and you whole first post as "Activity Monitor" (which you should be lookign at) and assume % refers to CPU. Is VIR Harmonic support clear you are talking about memory use?

For memory usage, the Playback Engine H/W Buffer will have no relevance.

And forget the frequently useless Pro Tools meters. And who has any idea what *exactly* this meter is measuring?

Are you actually having any AAE errors or other problems? What *exact* ones? A VI plugin might well malloc or mmap a large amount of memory, and not actually use it all. No idea how Pro Tools meter would show that.

What does macOS Activity Monitor show for memory pressure? If it goes amber for sustained periods of time then you have likely a problem. That is the first thing you should be looking at if suspecting memory problems. Do not look at percent free or other metrics which don't imply what you might suspect.

What CODEC? Details you know kind of matter...

[tonwurm]

@Aftermid

you have only 16GB of RAM installed ? maybe that´s the problem

[aftermid]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Ugh so it's memory not CPU. It is very easy to misread (as I did) "Activity Memory" and you whole first post as "Activity Monitor" (which you should be lookign at) and assume % refers to CPU. Is VIR Harmonic support clear you are talking about memory use?

For memory usage, the Playback Engine H/W Buffer will have no relevance.

And forget the frequently useless Pro Tools meters. And who has any idea what *exactly* this meter is measuring?

Are you actually having any AAE errors or other problems? What *exact* ones? A VI plugin might well malloc or mmap a large amount of memory, and not actually use it all. No idea how Pro Tools meter would show that.

What does macOS Activity Monitor show for memory pressure? If it goes amber for sustained periods of time then you have likely a problem. That is the first thing you should be looking at if suspecting memory problems. Do not look at percent free or other metrics which don't imply what you might suspect.

What CODEC? Details you know kind of matter...

[aftermid]

Yeah,

The only pop up error I get is from Pro Tools, saying it's running low on RAM. A previous post mentioned adding more RAM, that could be my next move. But you bring an interesting point about the meters. I've heard there is a way on Mac's to fool the meters to avoid these errors, partly, because as you mentioned sometimes the meters are giving false or inacurate values. Have you ever heard of this trick?