CPU spike in Ableton Live [help]

[xerxes[no]]

Howdy folks!

I just got a new computer - Intel i7 Skylake 4.0 ghz processor with 32GB RAM. Should be able to hold down three keys on a patch in Omnisphere without CPU going in the roof and causing crackles. Please see attached image where I show audio settings and which preset I am playing (three keys only).

Very frustrating this, and it makes the program unusable. I know most people do not have this - so any help would be good!

Thank you

[dsan@mail.com]

Since upgrading to v9.5 I too have experienced crackles and higher than normal CPU usage.

A couple of things to try:
1.) Inrease the buffer size. Although, IMO your buffer size is large, I had to go from 256 to 3048 to stop the crackling. I am not satisifed with this and am hopeful Ableton makes some changes soon. Don't know why all of a sudden my required buffer size went nuts to avoid the crackling.

2.) Make sure your audio interface and Live have the same buffer settings. Open your AI control panel and adjust the setting to arrive at identical settings as Live. Unfortunately, it seems Live can not be adjusted to another buffer setting here. It seems to default at what it thinks best on my system.

3.) There have been many threads about CPU usage, most indicating not to live or die by what the host says it is using. Generally it is not the same as actual, being reported higher than actual. I'm not that familiar with the issue, just enough to be dangerous, but for the most part, unless it is causing havoc on my system, I don't pay a lot of attention to the CPU usage reported by Live.

4.) Omni is known to have some presets that cause higher CPU usage. Perhaps a different preset or plug-in would be useful.

HTH

EDIT: Forgot to mention, make sure you are running the most recent version of audio driver. Also, not sure which version of Omni you are running but check to be sure it is up to date for the version you have.

[xerxes[no]]

Thank you very much for your reply, dsan! Upon further testing, I have the same issues in Renoise as well. So it is not a Live specific problem. I have the Audient ID14 soundcard using their latest ASIO driver for Windows 10. It doesnt matter much what I do - the CPU load is still high. I own a lot of synths - and I tried playing a pad from Spire (which is quite CPU efficient) - gave about 40% CPU usage. That is way way more than it ever did on my 4 yeard old MAC.

Settings when trying this on my soundcard is buffersize 2048 on 44.1 kHz. Bummed right now :/

[sprnva]

Try running LatencyMon and see if you are getting spikes. This should help track down any offending hardware drivers (network can be a common culprit).

If your audio interface is USB 2.0 see if any ports on your board are 2.0. In some cases people had issues with 2.0 audio devices when plugged into a 3.0 port. Maybe that's been fixed now with the newer chipsets, but if it's an option, it's worth a try.

This video is worth a look to explain why sometimes a brand new computer can seem to run worse than your old one.

[xerxes[no]]

Sprnva! If you are ever in Norway, let me know and I will buy you a kebab or something This video led me to find the issues I had.. and also thanks to Native Instruments who also have a very good hands-on video on Youtuve for this particular kind of problem. Now I can run DIVA on the most hardcore patch (that would overload my old computer) with 26% CPU usage and no crackling whatsoever.

Thank you thank you!!

Cheers,
Klaus

[sprnva]

Nice Glad to hear you got it sorted.

What was the problem in the end? And how did you fix it? Could be handy for others to know.

[xerxes[no]]

Yeah, good thinking! I did exactly as told in this video by Native Instruments:


I am pretty sure it was the power settings that was the main culprit, since the readings from latency mon did not detect any bad drivers.

Cheers, have a lovely weekend mate

[blaubär]

I had some problems with CPU spikes. increasing the asio buffer did the trick only partly. I had to disable the intel adaptive power (cant remember the term correctly) in the bios. With that i disabled the power saving and the turbo. Got much less cpu spikes after that.

[incubus]

Yeah, good thinking! I did exactly as told in this video by Native Instruments:


I am pretty sure it was the power settings that was the main culprit, since the readings from latency mon did not detect any bad drivers.

Cheers, have a lovely weekend mate

a good 85% of the time it's one of two things: Power settings or bad network/wifi drivers.

Still going to bookmark that vid (I have the other one) and see if I missed anything.