Bitwig

NWS · Post by **NWS** » Fri Nov 12, 2021 7:33 pm

Motherboard: ASUS B450M-PRO S
2x8 GB DDR4 RAM: Crucial BL8G36C16U4R.M8FE1 running at 3200 MHz

I actually tried ALSA with Bitwig before installing Jack and Ubuntu Studio Controls. It was just as bad then. I've heard of Infinity Fabric, but don't know anything about it. If that's not the issue, then I really do wonder about my NI audio interface since changing buffer settings in Jack doesn't seem to be taking effect (locked at 64 samples 48k apparently). I'll experiment with using the motherboard's audio chip and see what changes.

wavedigit · Post by **wavedigit** » Sat Nov 13, 2021 2:03 am

NWS wrote: Fri Nov 12, 2021 5:23 am ...
Linux Mint 20.2 Cinnamon (v. 5.0.6)
Kernel 5.11.20-051120-generic
...

Try using a lowlatency kernel. There are some other tweaks that you can pass on to the kernel which I can't remember from the top of my head, but Ubuntu Studio for example have (most) of those tweaks out of the box. You can try and run a live environment (or better yet: An external SSD, which allows you to more easily update the system) and see whether that fixes your issues.

NWS · Post by **NWS** » Sat Nov 13, 2021 2:37 am

Yeah I've already installed the low-latency kernel and also configured real time access.

I disconnected my external audio interface in order to set the motherboard's built in sound, but I couldn't get any sound whatsoever to work that way ("dummy" output listed without any options to change it). After a few searches to try getting that to work I gave up since it wouldn't be a real fix for me anyway, just thought I could test to see if it uncovered any clues.

Meanwhile I've written to the Linux Mint forum to see if anyone there has any idea if there's a way to adjust the buffer of an external audio interface directly.

NWS · Post by **NWS** » Sat Nov 13, 2021 6:43 am

I just noticed there were quite a few Linux updates to install, and after updating, the Xrun issue vanished completely. It hadn't been all that long since I updated everything, maybe a couple weeks, but it was the first update since installing all this audio software, the low-latency kernel, etc. I did notice several updates mentioned "AMD," so perhaps there were some issues with my CPU/RAM as mentioned as a possible culprit that the updates fixed? I then turned sandboxing on ("together") and I was only able to get one single Xrun by really pushing polyphony to an extreme when playing some really crazy pedal-heavy stuff. Even then I couldn't get more than that one Xrun, so it might have been a fluke. And I still seem to be locked into 64 samples at 48k, so extremely low latency.

I would still be curious to know if anyone has any idea how I might unlock the buffer/latency controls that my audio interface seems to block JACK from controlling (as far as I can figure). But for now things seems to work nicely overall.

And thanks for all the ideas.

NWS · Post by **NWS** » Mon Nov 15, 2021 1:05 am

Removing QJackCTL and using Ubuntu Studio Controls instead unlocked my sample rate/latency control. Perhaps if anyone's having issues with this, giving Ubuntu Studio Controls a try, along with an update, would be worth a shot? Everything seems to be working perfectly for me now.

dehuszar · Post by **dehuszar** » Mon Nov 15, 2021 2:10 pm

Yeah QJackCtl is an incredibly powerful tool, but you _really_ have to know what each setting does as they give you a lot of rope to hang yourself with. Ubuntu Studio automates must of the pain for you. Still some corner-cases to be found, but largely pretty good. I don't even use their control panel (I set Bitwig to use ALSA), but just having installed it gives me all the os level tuning out of the gates

Beerhunter · Post by **Beerhunter** » Mon Nov 15, 2021 4:53 pm

i wrote to their support and here is what they told me:

Hi... we are aware of it and it´s related to the Linux OS you are using as well as the Kernel and the process I/O Timings. Hopefully we can address this issue in the future to provide a flawless experience on any Kernel, regardless if it´s the latest or an older Kernel version.

Their answer has been in German, but i hope my translation isn´t to bad so you might get the point.

NWS · Post by **NWS** » Mon Nov 15, 2021 5:10 pm

Oh that makes since. I had to install a newer Kernel as the default Linux Mint kernel was too old for my new hardware (Ethernet not working).

Pabloantxon · Post by **Pabloantxon** » Mon May 09, 2022 12:18 pm

Hi, sorry to revive this, but has anybody found the exact fix for these cpu spikes (besides disabling vst sandboxing)?
I just switched to Linux from Windows, and it has been amazing how much more stable the DSP Performance graph is on Linux, but whenever I use any VST (using yabridge) I have these spikes every 6-10 seconds.
After a lot of netdata and htop I found nothing, and when I was starting to feel desperate and out of ideas I found this post.
Changing the Plug-in Hosting Mode to Within Bitwig has solved the issue. But of course I would like to be able to sandbox the plugins.
I´m on AVLinux MX 21.1, with Kernel 5.16.0-18.1-liquorix-amd64, using Bitwig 4.3.2
After reading this entire thread one would think that you just need to update everything and It will get solved, but it doesn´t seem to be the case.

wavedigit · Post by **wavedigit** » Mon May 16, 2022 7:50 am

Pabloantxon wrote: Mon May 09, 2022 12:18 pm Hi, sorry to revive this, but has anybody found the exact fix for these cpu spikes (besides disabling vst sandboxing)?
I just switched to Linux from Windows, and it has been amazing how much more stable the DSP Performance graph is on Linux, but whenever I use any VST (using yabridge) I have these spikes every 6-10 seconds.
After a lot of netdata and htop I found nothing, and when I was starting to feel desperate and out of ideas I found this post.
Changing the Plug-in Hosting Mode to Within Bitwig has solved the issue. But of course I would like to be able to sandbox the plugins.
I´m on AVLinux MX 21.1, with Kernel 5.16.0-18.1-liquorix-amd64, using Bitwig 4.3.2
After reading this entire thread one would think that you just need to update everything and It will get solved, but it doesn´t seem to be the case.

Try it in latest (fully up-to-date of course) Ubuntu Studio stable and see if you have the same results.

SmajjL · Post by **SmajjL** » Mon May 16, 2022 8:07 pm

You can try this stuff and see if the DSP performace graph looks more handsome after this

sudo bash -c "echo 'vm.swappiness = 10' >> /etc/sysctl.conf"
sudo sysctl -p (to activate)
sudo nano /etc/sysctl.conf (to have a look or change)

ejgallego · Post by **ejgallego** » Thu May 19, 2022 10:20 am

Hi Pablo, what's your hardware? I suffered the same problem, and only way to solve it was to change hardware. Bad Lenovo BIOS for Linux was the problem

NWS · Post by **NWS** » Thu May 19, 2022 8:13 pm

I have no idea what might be causing your issue Pabloantxon, but you might want to look at the steps I took to getting things working on multiple computers. Note, this was done on Linux Mint, but some of the steps might still help:

viewtopic.php?t=573276

zenlinux · Post by **zenlinux** » Sun May 22, 2022 4:27 pm

I'm not sure what is so different, but I also had those spikes when I used Ubuntu (Kontakt Player was very reliable in producing them, even when idle), running the Liquorix kenrel. But I recently switched to using Manjaro Linux (still using the Liquorix kernel!), and this no longer happens, and I've re-enabled vst sandboxing without issues. I'm at a loss to explain why though.

ejgallego · Post by **ejgallego** » Wed May 25, 2022 11:49 am

Yes, I did extensive low-level debug to try to understand this problem, couldn't figure it out (and I even instrumented the kernel)

Dell Precision 5550 working like a rocket.

Bitwig

KVR Audio

Sporadic XRUNS / Linux