KVR Audio

Jolaff · Post by **Jolaff** » Sun Mar 19, 2023 3:29 am

Hi,

If I open Ableton Live on my Macbook Pro M1 I get 0% CPU usage.

Then if I add one instance of Fabfilter Pro L the CPU usage goes up to 6-7% even if I don't press play button.

I'm working on 2 projects and even without pressing play I get a 24% CPU usage on average when one of them is loaded and I notice my MBP battery drains out very quickly. I'm not experiencing that with Logic.

I concluded that it's because Live is more for Live performances and plugings like FabFilter Pro L with a look ahead always process things to be ready to play....

Is there something to do to avoid that ? Is that normal ?

Thanx

PS. I'm running Monterey and not on Rosetta.

sQeetz · Post by **sQeetz** » Mon Mar 20, 2023 5:14 am

MacBook Pro M1 16GB and loading Pro L2 in Live does increase CPU usage by 1%-2% while idle over here

Jolaff · Post by **Jolaff** » Mon Mar 20, 2023 6:58 pm

sQeetz wrote: Mon Mar 20, 2023 5:14 am MacBook Pro M1 16GB and loading Pro L2 in Live does increase CPU usage by 1%-2% while idle over here

What OS ? Rosetta or not ?

sQeetz · Post by **sQeetz** » Mon Mar 20, 2023 6:59 pm

Ventura 13.2.1 Native Live Beta 11.2.10b3 and native ProL2 2.11
No problem on the Mac mini M2 Pro either... loading Pro L2 in Live does not stress the CPU above 3% with a latency of 128 samples on a Focusrite Scarlett 4i4

Jolaff · Post by **Jolaff** » Mon Mar 20, 2023 7:22 pm

sQeetz wrote: Mon Mar 20, 2023 6:59 pm Ventura 13.2.1 Native Live Beta 11.2.10b3 and native ProL2 2.11
No problem on the Mac mini M2 Pro either... loading Pro L2 in Live does not stress the CPU above 3% with a latency of 128 samples on a Focusrite Scarlett 4i4

ok thanx ... I found out that it only does this with AU and vst2 versions of Pro L2 (6-7% CPU increase). So I guess you are using vst3.

sQeetz · Post by **sQeetz** » Mon Mar 20, 2023 7:23 pm

Nope. AU

Jolaff · Post by **Jolaff** » Mon Mar 20, 2023 7:29 pm

sQeetz wrote: Mon Mar 20, 2023 7:23 pm Nope. AU

OK ! Here Monterey 12.6.3, Live 11.2.10 (not beta), proL2 2.11

MBP, 16 go ram, M1 pro

sQeetz · Post by **sQeetz** » Mon Mar 20, 2023 7:34 pm

Jolaff wrote: Mon Mar 20, 2023 7:29 pm MBP, 16 go ram, M1 pro

You have the same MacBook as I do, so it's either a Monterey thing, or something Ableton did with the beta?
Can't remember L2 ever behaving that way, though.... Which sound card? Latency?

Jolaff · Post by **Jolaff** » Mon Mar 20, 2023 7:49 pm

I'm using headphone directly plugged in the MBP but I just tried with my Audient iD14 and it was the same.

I'm using 512 samples for the buffer size which gives me an output latency of 14.8 ms.

If I drop the buffer size to 256 samples, an empty project with one instance of proL2 will use 2% CPU on idle... much better but I wonder why with the vst3 it stays to 0%.

sQeetz · Post by **sQeetz** » Mon Mar 20, 2023 8:01 pm

One weird thing about Apples Mx CPUs seem to be, that the lower you set the buffer size, the better they seem to perform.

Rickskii · Post by **Rickskii** » Tue Mar 21, 2023 5:57 pm

Honestly, I have given up thinking that the CPU meter in live is anything like accurate on M1 Mac’s.

sQeetz · Post by **sQeetz** » Fri Mar 24, 2023 2:37 pm

Rickskii wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 5:57 pm Honestly, I have given up thinking that the CPU meter in live is anything like accurate on M1 Mac’s.

I believe that's because Live doesn't differentiate between efficiency and performance cores.
It just tells the OS: here are some threads, do something with them! And since at first the thread isn't that heavy, MacOS thinks the efficiency core can handle it, and puts it there.

The CPU History in Activity Monitor (press Command-3 when AM is open) shows that.

Once tracks are being added and more FX are being loaded, then the performance cores start to kick in and Live's CPU Meter seems to get back & forth the whole time.

The developer (Ableton) can tell MacOS which threads should run in which type of core, but it looks like they aren't doing it.

Ableton Live + FabFilter Pro L runs 24% CPU on Idle.