Reason 10: crazy cpu eater

[Stupid American Pig]

I never thought I would be posting this. Reason is eating CPU. Like in a ridiculous way. Even launching reason 10 it idles at around 40% cpu on my 2014 MacBook Pro. I have a project I’ve been working on. It’s 9 tracks. 3 audio 6 reason devices. All efx are uad plugins. When I load this project it uses 350% cpu before we even start playing audio. I can’t even play the project unless I set my Apollo’s buffer to max. Something is very wrong. I can play 36 track audio in logic no problem. I can play huge projects in fl studio for MAC no problem. Reason 9.5 was fine so I can’t blame vst support. Anyone else seeing this?

[Anosou]

I never thought I would be posting this. Reason is eating CPU. Like in a ridiculous way. Even launching reason 10 it idles at around 40% cpu on my 2014 MacBook Pro. I have a project I’ve been working on. It’s 9 tracks. 3 audio 6 reason devices. All efx are uad plugins. When I load this project it uses 350% cpu before we even start playing audio. I can’t even play the project unless I set my Apollo’s buffer to max. Something is very wrong. I can play 36 track audio in logic no problem. I can play huge projects in fl studio for MAC no problem. Reason 9.5 was fine so I can’t blame vst support. Anyone else seeing this?

Make sure you try with hyper threading both on and off in the preferences. Additionally, we've seen some issues with UAD plug-ins that we're currently investigating. Does it behave the same with other plug-ins?

If your MacBook Pro has a retina screen, try setting Reason to open in low-res mode by right-clicking the application, choosing "Get info" and ticking the box to open in low-resolution.

[Stupid American Pig]

I never thought I would be posting this. Reason is eating CPU. Like in a ridiculous way. Even launching reason 10 it idles at around 40% cpu on my 2014 MacBook Pro. I have a project I’ve been working on. It’s 9 tracks. 3 audio 6 reason devices. All efx are uad plugins. When I load this project it uses 350% cpu before we even start playing audio. I can’t even play the project unless I set my Apollo’s buffer to max. Something is very wrong. I can play 36 track audio in logic no problem. I can play huge projects in fl studio for MAC no problem. Reason 9.5 was fine so I can’t blame vst support. Anyone else seeing this?

Make sure you try with hyper threading both on and off in the preferences. Additionally, we've seen some issues with UAD plug-ins that we're currently investigating. Does it behave the same with other plug-ins?

If your MacBook Pro has a retina screen, try setting Reason to open in low-res mode by right-clicking the application, choosing "Get info" and ticking the box to open in low-resolution.

Thank you for the response. I actually tried to send a support request to the props website and it would never “submit” on chrome or safari.
I had a feeling it was related to either the UAD or the resolution. I do have a retina Mac but it’s actually closed and running a 28” 4K monitor. I tried switching color profiles as I remember the default Mac color profile was causing issues for some users. It didn’t make any difference for me on any of the profiles.

[Stupid American Pig]

Thank you Anosou! Using low res and turning off hyperthreading has reduced the CPU usage by half on the project I mentioned in my first post. That said, its all UAD plugins and this is while its not even playing audio so it seems like there is a UAD issue looming. Let me know if there is anything I can try or info you need. This definitely improved things, but its still using ~275% cpu on playback and Im getting a nice warm breeze from my laptops fan.

[Anosou]

Thank you Anosou! Using low res and turning off hyperthreading has reduced the CPU usage by half on the project I mentioned in my first post. That said, its all UAD plugins and this is while its not even playing audio so it seems like there is a UAD issue looming. Let me know if there is anything I can try or info you need. This definitely improved things, but its still using ~275% cpu on playback and Im getting a nice warm breeze from my laptops fan.

Thanks for the update! Will definitely keep prodding the UAD issue internally. Glad the hyperthreading and low-res helped.

[cimmay]

Problem is solved when options "Use multi-core audio rendering" and, "Use hyper-threading audio rendering" is disabled. Windows still uses all of the cores with Reason. But CPU does not crash with "computer is too slow for song" message. Tested on a two core AMD A6-7400K and Omnisphere 2.5 VST with Windows 10 in Reason 10.1. I had used a sampled Keyscape patch in Omnisphere that previously lasted only a few seconds. It works fine now even if sample thinning is not utilized. In my search for solution, it looks like any cpu, any system is overloaded in Reason. Those options should be removed, and let the OS manage the CPU. I'm also a user of Universal Audio hardware and plugins on same computer.

[jens]

I noticed that the CPU usage of most of the built-in devices is almost unbelievably low - however with VST plugins and especially with sample-based VSTi it is exactly the other way around. With some REs I demoed it is somewhere in between, often still much rather on the high side though...

I would assume PH use some very specific hacks and architecture to achieve the low usage of the built-in devices which perhaps tends to counteract a good VST performance.

[EvilDragon]

I would assume PH use some very specific hacks and architecture to achieve the low usage of the built-in devices which perhaps tends to counteract a good VST performance.

Or they're just showing their age. Majority of those internal devices are more than a decade old, no? Malström was included in Reason 2, which was before 2003... Thor was in 2007...

[jens]

Even then... you can literally load several dozens of instances of several of these plugins at once without stressing your CPU much and they don't sound half bad... there must be some pretty clever parallel processing going on, I would guess

[antic604]

Even then... you can literally load several dozens of instances of several of these plugins at once without stressing your CPU much and they don't sound half bad... there must be some pretty clever parallel processing going on, I would guess

I doubt that. When most of those devices were created, dual core CPUs were still a thing of the future and multi-threaded programming is even newer "trend" because computing has hit the wall in terms of clock speeds... and porting PC games to multi-core consoles (PS3/X360 and current gen) required creative programming tricks.

It's really because those synths are (positively!) simple and don't attempt to model density of plastic used to build the knobs, that impacts the friction when you turn them and thus the filter response curve

[jens]

Actually I was rather referring to their FX - I can't say much about their synths, since I typically don't use synthesizers...

[EvilDragon]

Same thing antic mentioned would apply to those FX too.

[EnGee]

PH has clever developers that write efficient code. It is clear from their Europa VSTi as it is the same low CPU usage as in the RE one. It also applies on all their (not old) synths like Parsec 2 and Grain.

For some VST plugs, Reason is not that compatible. I have recently a problem with Softube Modular that every time I want to use the Preset manager (Softube) it freezes Reason! So, the only way is to select a preset from the list loaded in Reason! Anyway, it works fine like in other hosts. Most of the VST plugins I have (if not all) works fine in Reason. However, I did a comparison with Cubase, Reaper and FL Studio using a preset from Korg ARP Odyssey and the result was less tracks (instances) in Reason concerning the CPU overload.

Anyway, I use it daily with VST plugs without problems, but for VST only plugs I prefer Cubase/Reaper, but not by far really as Reason loads as fast as Reaper so I use it even for just fast testing an idea or a plugin

[jens]

Same thing antic mentioned would apply to those FX too.

Well, I only meant I can not say much in regards to how CPU consuming they are, but I did not mean to agree
that they are all old / low quality, so in regards to the FX I can clearly say that this is not the case.

Some stuff is very old, some is medium old, some is newer. RV7000 is rather old, but that in no way means it could not be compared with never reverbs. And e.g. the Audiomatic Retro Transformer is not that old at all.

So I don't think it makes much sense to talk about their age. Let us instead talk about how CPU intensive they are for what they do / how the sound - and my point still stands: I think they use incredibly little CPU cycles, especially when using multiple instances.

[EnochLight]

Problem is solved when options "Use multi-core audio rendering" and, "Use hyper-threading audio rendering" is disabled.... Those options should be removed, and let the OS manage the CPU. I'm also a user of Universal Audio hardware and plugins on same computer.

Oh good grief NO! Do you know how long we've pestered Props to actually give us those options??!

For some of us, having hyperthreading and multi-core audio rendering helps tremendously. It just depends on your system, as no two are alike these days.

Let the users have the options, and let us change them if needed. In the meantime, we'll hopefully see a new version of Reason by the end of the year that addresses VST performance (as well as UAD plugin issues in Reason).