Pro Tools BS CPU Usage Numbers

[jspence444]

How exactly is Pro Tools 11 calculating CPU usage?
It claims 1% CPU usage, but my fans are spinning up and the activity monitor shows a hell of a lot more than 1% usage [114%]. And this is with ONE TRACK in the session.
Not impressed.
Any answers?

See screenshot

[Bharath]

First, PT is showing CPU usage of the audio engine.
Second, do you know what activity monitor is showing exactly?

So fan goes down after you quit PT?

[jspence444]

1) ok, didn't realize that.
2) it shows over 110% CPU usage for PT 11. With one track (44.1kHz, 16 bit). When it's not even playing.
And yes the fans spin down when I quit PT.

[ronwasserman]

Originally Posted by jspence444

How exactly is Pro Tools 11 calculating CPU usage?
It claims 1% CPU usage, but my fans are spinning up and the activity monitor shows a hell of a lot more than 1% usage. And this is with ONE TRACK in the session.
Not impressed.
Any answers?

See screenshot

Are you on a G4?

[TOM@METRO]

Interesting, I have a fairly large session up on PT11 With a few Xpand2 and Structure free Inserted and CPU is under 12%.

[Mark Dann]

Originally Posted by jspence444

1) ok, didn't realize that.
2) it shows over 110% CPU usage for PT 11. With one track (44.1kHz, 16 bit). When it's not even playing.
And yes the fans spin down when I quit PT.

What computer, OS version, ram, etc? Without that info, no one can help you.

[jspence444]

Originally Posted by ronwasserman

Are you on a G4?

Nope.

Originally Posted by Mark Dann

What computer, OS version, ram, etc? Without that info, no one can help you.

System Specs:
MacBook Pro (2010), OS 10.8, 2.66 GHz Quad Core i7, 8GB RAM, etc.

[Mark Dann]

I'm not sure what the issue is, but I'd update to 10.8.4 and see how that goes. There were a lot of sandboxing issues prior that have been cleaned up.

[jspence444]

I've reinstalled both Pro Tools 10 and Pro Tools 11. The issue is a lot better but still not getting expected performance. In fact, I created and setup the exact same session in both PT 10 (10.3.6) and PT 11 - and I get better performance from PT 10 (surprising).

With PT 11 - Activity Monitor shows 24.6% usage.
With PT 10.3.6 - Activity Monitor shows 17.2% usage.

It's not a huge difference, but I expected PT 11 to be more efficient, even if only by a little.

Don't believe me? See screenshots here:
Pro Tools 10 Screenshot
Pro Tools 11 Screenshot

I would also love to know why Pro Tools 11 needs to hog 21% of my memory for a session with one track and no plugins loaded into memory.

Originally Posted by Mark Dann

I'm not sure what the issue is, but I'd update to 10.8.4 and see how that goes. There were a lot of sandboxing issues prior that have been cleaned up.

Thanks for the tip, I'll try that when I get a chance.

[Tweakhead]

If you do update to 10.8.4, don't use Software Update - but download the Combo Update from here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1659

Install manually.