Anyone using cubase 10/10.5, windows or mac, getting ASIO internal processing overloads??

[Milkman]

Hello -- anyone use those versions of cubase, or any older, and seeing that ASIO processing overload problem that generates pops and clicks? Using ASIO guard ON or OFF, with small projects or large projects?

Ive been troubleshooting this for 2 months, and the conclusion, for me, has been to disable all virtual cores on my CPU. Im on an intel x299 chipset MB, i7 7800x CPU, 32GB RAM, focusrite 8i6 gen3, cubase 10.5. Steinberg ran me around in email and on their forums for months, and brand-protectors on their forum tried to suggest it was someone else's issue, but the bottom line is the multithreading/multimedia-multithreading issue stops many people from using virtual cores on many platforms.

Here is steinberg claiming hyperthreading "usually results in performance improvements when using ASIO guard". https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/en-u ... ASIO-Guard

Does anyone have any experience with this? Right now I am angggggggry at Steinberg, and am stuck with half my cores, like I was..... in 2003 when I used cubase sx2, lol.

[jancivil]

I have seen it once or twice, and dicked around with ASIO Guard behind it.
This is anecdotal and correlation ≠ cause, but I guess it was a factor. I should note this was rendering in realtime; and that 99% of the plugins were hosted in VE Pro. and that this was Mac OSX.
IE: VSL advises not to use ASIO Guard w. VE Pro, generally, per Mac OS particularly

[jancivil]

And I should also note that 1) the article is perhaps outdated; and 2) the issue of enabling multiprocessing in both host and instrument (back to the earliest days of multicore, both Steinberg and Native Instruments recommended not enabling in both Cubendo and Kontakt) and ASIO Guard are not exactly the same problem. I didn’t have an issue in 2019 having both set to use multiple cores. So, three things set to use multiple cores, and turning it off in Kontakt did not appear to change things, while ASIO Guard = off seemed to sort me.

So, certainty going to be hard to come by here, it’ll depend on your system.

AND that Cubase 9 and Cubase 10 behaved differently as pertains to both factors.

[Klinke1]

Make sure to install 10.5.12 Hotfix, which fixes ASIO overloads.

[Milkman]

And I should also note that 1) the article is perhaps outdated; and 2) the issue of enabling multiprocessing in both host and instrument (back to the earliest days of multicore, both Steinberg and Native Instruments recommended not enabling in both Cubendo and Kontakt) and ASIO Guard are not exactly the same problem. I didn’t have an issue in 2019 having both set to use multiple cores.

So, certainty going to be hard to come by here, it’ll depend on your system.

Thank you.

Yeah I have a great deal of experience with all of this, being a 30 year network/sysadmin who has built render farms, audio production environments, and even live streaming events at pro S&E venues. Ive been following the issue since 2003, and back then I knew not to use multicore.

The article may be outdated, yeah, but look around in the associated articles for a more recent date. You cant find one, and those articles are what they roll out when replying to support emails about the issue. And here is a later article:
https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/en-u ... CPU-setups
See how it contradicts itself? "for versions PRIOR to cubase 10" and then "Cubase 10 is automatically adapting the amount of real-time threads to the system."

Something isnt right here, and I am very frustrated that they dont have bulletins or pinned posts about it. I guess no hyperthreading 20 years ago, and none today.

Hope this helps others, who see my note about disabling virtual cores. My experience was night and day, with the average load going down about 30-40% and removing all overload peaks.

[Milkman]

Make sure to install 10.5.12 Hotfix, which fixes ASIO overloads.

Yeah, lol. I got the latest version as an image, and did not need to update. Im on 10.5.12, and it does NOT fix the ASIO overload issue at all. This is part of my frustration -- articles and updates on their pages that claim stuff like this, and do NOT resolve the issue. Or at least not for a big cross-section of users.

[jancivil]

n/m that

Frankly this is one of the big factors in my decision a decade ago to use VE Pro to host instruments. When I was hitting the ceiling last yr, I was not seeing Cubase (10.05) use more than 2 cores. I don’t need to pay attention to it normally.

[Milkman]

Yes, the last paragraph states that generally ASIO Guard tends to help, after stating a couple paragraphs back it said it “can” be an issue.

You feel my pain lol.

Ive tried to use ASIO guard, and initially it gave hopeful results. Sometimes when doing realtime stuff it can help. But I can even load ONE instrument into ONE midi track (Halion, groovebox, whatever), and play back something, and sometimes get those realtime peaks. Sometimes not. On a crystal clean, stock, 15 month old system that I built myself.

[Milkman]

n/m that

Frankly this is one of the big factors in my decision a decade ago to use VE Pro to host instruments. When I was hitting the ceiling last yr, I was not seeing Cubase (10.05) use more than 2 cores. I don’t need to pay attention to it normally.

Is VEpro one of those cool standalone hardware VST hosts? If so, Ive looked at a couple. I think I saw someone on the steinberg forums last week with one of those hosts, tho, and he was also getting the ASIO overload inside cubase.

[jancivil]

One thing you might interrogate is, is there a component in your system that’s fvcking w. your realtime performance; ie., your system can spec out like a dream but performance is crap. I couldn’t find hanything except the onboard audio as a possible culprit.

[jancivil]

n/m that

Frankly this is one of the big factors in my decision a decade ago to use VE Pro to host instruments. When I was hitting the ceiling last yr, I was not seeing Cubase (10.05) use more than 2 cores. I don’t need to pay attention to it normally.

Is VEpro one of those cool standalone hardware VST hosts? If so, Ive looked at a couple. I think I saw someone on the steinberg forums last week with one of those hosts, tho, and he was also getting the ASIO overload inside cubase.

No, it’s a software host connecting via ethernet or “local host”.
But, I was rendering as realtime using it as an FX rack where it’s an external device to Cubendo, ie., it won’t print anything in this case unless.

[jancivil]

We’re def in an area of teh dark arts and above my pay grade.

[Milkman]

One thing you might interrogate is, is there a component in your system that’s fvcking w. your realtime performance; ie., your system can spec out like a dream but performance is crap. I couldn’t find hanything except the onboard audio as a possible culprit.

Yeah. Ive even rebuilt it twice in the last month or so, first because I wanted a fresh start before loading a new cubase, and second because cubase crashed during loading a project one day... and resulted in some sort of licensing glitch that made it so I couldnt load NI plugins inside cubase.

Ive tested EVERYTHING I can test. Everything is stock, TurboBoost is disabled, SpeedShift disabled, memtest86 and onboard testing for RAM, CPU, cache. All looks ok. Now that HT is disabled, cubase works like a charm, with lowest CPU usage Ive seen on it possibly ever.

In this system's prior embodiment, I was playing games at 4k. Also spectacular performance. I had an older version of cubase prior to this (cubase studio 5), and it also worked fine, but was getting old and lacked features.

[Milkman]

We’re def in an area of teh dark arts and above my pay grade.

LMAO!! No doubt, and mine, too!

I am going to look at that software/network VST host thing right now.

[jancivil]

VSL. It’s not real cheap, but now it comes with some of Vienna Suite Pro “mastering suite” plugins. The big thing is it does multicore much better than Cubase. And it hosts in a process that is unburdened by Cubase’s processes, which is huge if you use many VIs at the same time or have a heavy samples load.