Pro tools 2020.3 Crazy Cpu and Ram %

[JeroRomero]

Originally Posted by falcowe

Sure thing feel free to DM me here.

In response to the tests you preformed.
1. How much ram does your machine have? Can you include a more complete specification list for your computer? It sounds like it has either 8GB or 16GB. Maybe try limiting how much ProTools provisions for itself under Setup -> Playback Engine -> Disk Playback "Cache Size" and changing it from what I assume you have it set to Normal right now to something like 512MB or so and see if that helps.
2. Are you getting any errors when ProTools stops/crashes? What is your buffer size at? Does increasing your buffer size help? As unlikely as I think this is it could be that ProTools is having trouble pulling audio from your drive. Are you running this session off a Hard-drive or an SSD? If the former is the hard drive fast enough? And, again however unlikely, you could try running a disk check via disk utility in OSX to make sure your disk isn't failing.
3. Does the high ram usage behavior follow for only one omni loaded (after a restart of ProTools)? To me the ram usage seems reasonable considering ProTools might just be holding the previous session in RAM until it needs to remove some information from RAM or ProTools provisioning off the RAM it thinks it needs causing the system to think it's in use. This would also explain why RAM usage is so much lower after a restart. It also could be a bug in omnisphere. I have a reverb plugin that works fine in 2019.12 but after updating to 2020.3 it won't work because there is a bug preventing it from opening in 2020.3. Have you contacted Spectrasonics to see if this is a bug?
4. Depending on your system specs I wouldn't be surprised to see CPU spikes causing issues here and there. And even crashing the session as ProTools might freak out for a moment as it tries to figure out the computations to make playback happen. If a higher buffer settings helps the CPU issue then it could be your CPU that is your bottle neck. It could also be your audio interface drivers having difficulty keeping up with low buffer sizes. What if your Audio interface?

1. Im currently working on a i7 3.6ghz and a 16 GB 1777 MHz DDR3 of ram on High sierra, its a hackintosh. Ill try to change the cache size.
2. No errrors when it crashes. Currently i have a SSD for the system and other for the SESSIONS.
3.Haven't contacted Omnisphere, I'll try that.
4. Yeah, maybe the cpu spikes could be the reason for all of this, i will try reducing a litte bit the session to see what it happens. Im going full VEP tho, as soon as the cuarenteen ends ill get a new computer for that, u made my day!
How are u guys taking the covid isolation??

[falcowe]

Originally Posted by Skytouch

Which VEP version are you running? I'm still on VEP6 in High Sierra and wondering if the VEP7 upgrade is worthwhile. I've held off due to licensing and support policies that seem odd to me (if I've read them correctly).

Thanks,
Sky

I’m also using VEPro 7. Although there doesn’t seem to be that big of a difference between 6 and 7. But I do find the cpu read outs of each of the instances to be useful and I am sure the team at VSL have made quite a few optimizations and improvements to both RAM and CPU usage. And to be perfectly honest I feel like its well worth the upgrade since, so long as you aren’t trying to upgrade more than a couple of machines it isn’t that expensive. And it keeps VEPro funded so they keep making improvements to the platform. So I saw upgrading as a way to support VEPro and its development in addition to benefiting from the newer code.

[dankin]

I got a "pro tools is running low on memory" message today. I've had few of them with 2019 as well. This was in a session using 60 something voices. With no VI's. Memory usage was showing around 80%. Disk Cache is set to normal, I actually haven't used disk cache since going to all SSD. I'm noticing that if I just boot up PT with no session loaded, the system usage shows memory at 46%. That seems really high for not even having a session open.

[XJENSEN]

I also started to have quite a lot of 'mini freezes'. This never happened to me before. Will keep an eye on that.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Skytouch

Which VEP version are you running? I'm still on VEP6 in High Sierra and wondering if the VEP7 upgrade is worthwhile. I've held off due to licensing and support policies that seem odd to me (if I've read them correctly).

Thanks,
Sky

Licensing is pretty straight forward. You only get a license for one computer in VEPro 7 instead of three like in VEPro 6. You can buy extra licenses as needed. Both versions can exist on the same machine at the same time. You also need a Vienna/Steinberg dongle to hold the license although the demo of VEPro 7 doesn't require one at this time. Current upgrade price from 6 to 7 is $103 US direct from Vienna.

What about support baffles you?

One bummer on Macs for VEPro 7 is it no longer supports 32 bit plugins. This is due to OSX changes with Catalina; Windows users still can access their 32 bit plugins.

[lesbrunn]

Originally Posted by dankin

I got a "pro tools is running low on memory" message today. I've had few of them with 2019 as well. This was in a session using 60 something voices. With no VI's. Memory usage was showing around 80%. Disk Cache is set to normal, I actually haven't used disk cache since going to all SSD. I'm noticing that if I just boot up PT with no session loaded, the system usage shows memory at 46%. That seems really high for not even having a session open.

That's not normal at all. Try uninstalling PT, cleaning up and reinstalling.

[dankin]

Originally Posted by lesbrunn

That's not normal at all. Try uninstalling PT, cleaning up and reinstalling.

I think I'm going to do a complete reinstall and OS upgrade in a few days, just need to get past some work. Which while this is annoying, it's not keeping me form finishing anything.

[crandallwarren]

I am also having this problem. Luckily, I was smart enough to keep 2019 on my computer when I installed 2020.3

If I open the session in 2019, my cpu hovers around 10%. If I open it in 2020.3, it constantly redlines at 100% with even a single VI loaded.

Avid support for Pro Tools is an absolute joke. Particularly given the fact that we all pay for this "support plan".

I used to operate an Avid console and those support guys were the real deal.

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by crandallwarren

Avid support for Pro Tools is an absolute joke. Particularly given the fact that we all pay for this "support plan".

How exactly do you think Avid should help you with your 3rd party plugin? Sorry if I misunderstood, but Avid Support only deals with Avid software problems.

[crandallwarren]

Originally Posted by JFreak

How exactly do you think Avid should help you with your 3rd party plugin? Sorry if I misunderstood, but Avid Support only deals with Avid software problems.

That's a ridiculous response and pretty indicative of my comment regarding Avid support.
I'm an Avid Certified Pro Tools Expert Instructor. So let me understand you correctly...

You're saying that: if a session in 2020.3 is showing wildly different CPU usages vs the exact same session, with the exact same 3rd party plugins, in 2019... That's not an Avid problem? Are we to expect that Avid support only covers questions about sessions running nothing but Avid products?

Beyond that, my comment was fueled by my own ongoing conversation with Avid support about another issue in 2020.3-- for which I have received uneducated and slow responses.

Right now, I'm having an issue where frozen tracks will have audio mixed from different tracks in 2020.3. Avid support's response was to explain to me how the feature of track freeze works (which in no way answered, or even acknowledged the issue I'm having):

"Those tracks have an enabled Track Freez feature that enables the ability to render any track and its processing to an audio file at a click."
--Avid Support (also, they misspelled "Track Freeze")

#winning