End of Cubase? Performance Meter Average picking to 99% with very few Fx plugins

[mduke123]

IME Cubase doesn't like 2048, certainly, and when I needed that there were issues
certain plugins set to use multiprocessing have historically not been agreeable with Cubase doing that, so that's one thing to see if we can eliminate.

but reaper performs with the same plugins, at 11% ok. with tracks armed by the way?

reaper does only do the trick with non-armed tracks, like cubase. the pre-render trick, which reaper does very efficient, that is why it works so well..

Armed or non armed it takes te same CPU. It´s only two tracks and the master track (Mastering project)

[jancivil]

please sort your quoting, I'm not doing Reaper proselytizing in a thread asking behind a Cubase issue

[jancivil]

yeah, Fernando can potentially eliminate the majority of suspects, take him up on it

[mduke123]

Which version?
I've had a horrible time with 11 Pro, .0, .1, .2. However it's not using all that much CPU here, my buffers ranged from 128 to 256 this year.
I have 8 cores/16 logical, 64GB, MBP 16,1. Does it perform as badly with multi-processing off? Performs worse with ASIO Guard off or at High here.

I have in projects currently far more going on than that 27 (NB: VE Pro), but for some reason(s) its stability has been honestly the worst it's ever been, including being way under recommended hardware spec. So, I'm guessing something was done I don't understand or know anything about, since 10.5 was stable and slightly better performing (in an A/B straight comparison via same project).

I'd say that nededing to go to 2048 samples in buffer is a sign of something pretty wrong.

I have tried it all. Asio guard on - off, multicore on - off. I have upgraded graphic card drivers. It is a HP Envy and the motherboard drivers where updated some moths ago.

[jancivil]

my issue is probably not yours, but it too is pretty much a mystery. I can pretty much conclude it's no fault of my hardware in itself or my video capture of a certain visualizer would be dropping hundreds and hundreds of frames, and the performance in both video applications is literally shockingly fast.

did you uninstall, though, your answer to that is not clear

[jancivil]

One thing a support channel will do is you give them the project and they DON'T have the plugins you do, which points to 'probably one of the plugins'. Or they do, or the next step is eliminating culprits, so Fernando can eliminate a non-trivial part of it, or replicate it.

[mduke123]

I have requested for help to Steinberg however I do not have any hopes. I did not want to reinstall Cubase as this is a thing that is causing very bad Cpu management in my system. Anyway, there is life after Cubase. I am pretty happy with my Reaper until I save money for a Mac Mini. Thanks for all your answers.

[WasteLand]

Which version?
I've had a horrible time with 11 Pro, .0, .1, .2. However it's not using all that much CPU here, my buffers ranged from 128 to 256 this year.
I have 8 cores/16 logical, 64GB, MBP 16,1. Does it perform as badly with multi-processing off? Performs worse with ASIO Guard off or at High here.

I have in projects currently far more going on than that 27 (NB: VE Pro), but for some reason(s) its stability has been honestly the worst it's ever been, including being way under recommended hardware spec. So, I'm guessing something was done I don't understand or know anything about, since 10.5 was stable and slightly better performing (in an A/B straight comparison via same project).

I'd say that nededing to go to 2048 samples in buffer is a sign of something pretty wrong.

I have tried it all. Asio guard on - off, multicore on - off. I have upgraded graphic card drivers. It is a HP Envy and the motherboard drivers where updated some moths ago.

aha, a laptop, that explains more.... also have a HP, but 6 cores... not envy, but performs o well, i don't anymore... for cubase...

which HP envy. try disabling wifi, for instance..

[egbert]

If you are running a laptop, first thing to do is downoad LatencyMon (free utility) and check the DPC latency. This app will give you a clear indication of the suitablility of your system for low latency applications. If DPC latency is too high with all the drivers activated, then you may need to shut some things like wifi off. Some systems/motherboards are never going to work with low latency audio - is the HP Envy well regarded as an audio platform?

Can you confirm that the audio driver you are using is the ASIO driver for your Audient hardware and not some other default driver for that hardware? The other thing is that you will get CPU throttling on high spec laptops if the cooling is inadequate.

[mduke123]

Hi. Not a laptop. Desktop

[BertKoor]

Not a laptop. Desktop

Still, running LatencyMon won't hurt...

[egbert]

Yep.

[4damind]

I wouldn't go above 512 sample buffers and Asio Guard on "high". For me, that is the upper limit for recording. If you activate "Constrain Delay Compensation" when recording, it works even better, because then all plug-ins with high latency are deactivated.
For larger projects, I'm at 50% audio performance (without mastering chain). However, I use VST3 plug-ins almost exclusively where possible and only 1 plug-in still runs via jBridge. I also use Plugin Alliance, Slate and all the other usual plugins that many probably have.
My CPU is not even very powerful, a now somewhat older i7 3770 without any activated overclocking and a Steinberg/Yamaha USB audio interface.
To be honest, I can't see any big advantage in the power scheme... except that HDDs don't always have to spin up first. I've often forgotten to deactivate the balanced mode and didn't notice any difference when working

Currently with the latest version of Cubase 11.0.20 there are no problems as far as I know. But there are (were?) bugs with the sleep mode with VST3 plugins and also with very high CPU load... that's why Steinberg recommends deactivating it in the settings.

Ok... what can be done? With the system itself, it is often better to "optimize" less. In my experience, this often only makes things worse.
In the DAW you sometimes have to change something in the workflow. If the mastering plugins need a lot of power, just put a simple limiter (without oversampling) on the master to make it a bit louder when working and then master in a separate project.
Plugins that need a lot of power have to be frozen... and if the track is not changed much anymore, render to audio and deactivate the plugin... this can be done quite easily and quickly in Cubase, e.g. via a keyboard command.

[jens]

I think it's pretty safe to ignore all the typical generic standard advices given here if the problem is specific to Cubase - and especially if it's so severe.

I would assume someone else must have stumbled upon the same problem/bug as you before so it might be worth it to do some digging.

Also here's a Couple more things to try:

- replace one by one every single plugin you use by another plugin of the same type and see if that makes any signifinant
- re-build the project bit-by-bit and observe if and when the CPU-drain re-appears

[jens]

Here they talk about what the Perfomance Meter actually measures:

https://forums.steinberg.net/t/cpu-vs-a ... not/111545

And they link to this helpful explanation:

https://forums.steinberg.net/t/cpu-vs-a ... not/111545

Reading that something else to try comes to my mind:

It may be worth to give ASIO4All a shot to see whether adiffrent ASIO driver with your exact same system makes any significant difference. If it is a lot better, you know there is some problem with the Audient driver (at least in combination with Cubase and you can file respective reports both at Steinberg and Audient.

https://www.asio4all.org/