Hello!
I have experienced issues with CPU-spikes and found a way to solve this on my computer. I just wanted to tell it here in case it can be a solution to others who have the same issue. I use Windows 10 and have experienced this both in SO3 and SO4: When I play back a song which causes CPU spikes and open Windows resource monitor, I can see CPU 0 running on 90% load while CPU 1,2 and 3 are barely loaded. I have no idea why, but for some reason turning off fast startup in Windows solves this. The CPU load is now spread even between the cores without uncontrolled spikes. But every time Windows upgrades itself it switches fast startup back on. And every time this happens I have forgotten how to solve it and start troubleshooting from scratch |
Thanks. Haven't got time to test this out at the moment, but for anyone else wanting to try this, here's a howto:
https://www.windowscentral.com/how-disa ... st-startup
Garry Knight
Studio One 3 Professional Melodyne Editor 4, NI Komplete 11 Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 audio interface Windows 10 Professional 64-bit, 16 GB RAM, Core i5 Microsoft Surface Pro 3, Core i7, 8GB RAM, 128 GB SSD Nektar Impact LX49+, Samson Graphite 25, and Korg microKey 25 MIDI controllers Novation ZeRO SL MkII mixing control surface Korg nanoKontrol 2 mixing control surface Reaper, Logic Pro X, GarageBand https://soundcloud.com/garryknight |
This also seems to work for me. I was out and about with my Surface Pro laptop today and noticed that it was spiking a fair bit. So I disabled fast startup then shut down and started up again. And, so far, no more spikes. But I'll be keeping an eye on it.
Garry Knight
Studio One 3 Professional Melodyne Editor 4, NI Komplete 11 Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 audio interface Windows 10 Professional 64-bit, 16 GB RAM, Core i5 Microsoft Surface Pro 3, Core i7, 8GB RAM, 128 GB SSD Nektar Impact LX49+, Samson Graphite 25, and Korg microKey 25 MIDI controllers Novation ZeRO SL MkII mixing control surface Korg nanoKontrol 2 mixing control surface Reaper, Logic Pro X, GarageBand https://soundcloud.com/garryknight |
Some tips on disabling fast startup: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/418 ... -10-a.html
If you disable hibernate, that will automatically disable fast startup, since they are related: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/285 ... -10-a.html Hope this helps... |
One thing that helped me was to go to "device manager" -> "universal Serial Bus Controllers" -> "USB Root Hub / Generic Root Hub" etc -> right click "properties" -> "Power Management" -> UNCHECK "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power". I am on a windows laptop, so might be different for a desktop pc.
Another thing you could do is to close all "unnecessary" programs except Studio One, reopen the programs until the performance spikes appear again. I did undervolt my laptop and after turning off MSI Afterburner and Throttle Stop the performance spikes disappeared, no problems since then. Hope that helps. |
Anything similar I can try with Windows 7 pro?
Windows 7 Pro 64bit SP1 | 32GB RAM/Quad Core i7 3.5Ghz
Studio One Pro 3.5.6.46910 UAD-2 OCTO DSP Card RME Fireface400 Audio Interface https://linktr.ee/soulintent |
I don't really get CPU spikes hardly ever (see specs below, and my 4770k was the same though obviously a higher CPU load)
The one thing that is an issue for me is if for some reason I have a large CPU load in the first place. It's like Reason 12 in that even though it's not maxed out, it will crackle/pop/spike. This is an old thread, so I don't know if the "spread" is going to be there, but I just recently got keyed in on turning off "fast startup" so I'll check it out. |
This is an old thread, and CPU spikes can be caused by many things.
I have heard that disabling fast startup in Windows is one of many good suggestions for optimizing your computer for audio. Plus all of the other general suggestions in that regard, along with the obvious need for trimming down your startup tasks. You can find suggestions available if you Google "optimizing your computer for audio". So I will just add that there are many other things that can cause CPU spikes. A frequent offender is that many virtual instruments will tend to run in one core, so once that core gets maxed out for whatever reason, such as high polyphony count, etc., you may see a CPU overload, even if you have cores to spare. That is one reason that single core CPU clock speed is important as well. Another reason can be the use of mastering FX plugins in your mix. Some plugins make use of look ahead buffers, and they do not play well with real-time audio. Try disabling, or temporarily removing plugins to see if you can locate any troublemakers. Also try increasing the audio buffer size used by your audio device. The lower the buffer size, the larger the load on your CPU. |
Good suggestions, but I'm kinda taken aback by the "ye old" "increase your buffer" argument. In this day and age, you should be able to run really low buffers and get terrific lack of latency.
I "can" run at 128 instead of 32 but the CPU use difference is largely negligible on this computer. I don't get dropouts/spikes (so far, knock on wood ) so 32 seems to be fine. I'd also add that the "first core" issue isn't limited to VI's, but is a systematic inconsistence with much in even todays computer world. And I STRONGLY agree that clock speed is still king, even in 2022. (a bunch of cores isn't necessarily going to do much good too often if your clock speed is like 2.2 GH. ) |
reggie1979beatz wroteGood suggestions, but I'm kinda taken aback by the "ye old" "increase your buffer" argument. In this day and age, you should be able to run really low buffers and get terrific lack of latency. I only mentioned the "increase buffers" as a temporary trouble shooting method. Perhaps I should have elaborated. That just buys you more headroom until you can get things sorted out in your setup. I have noticed a big difference now that I am running a core speed of 4.6 GHz using Intel turbo. As I increase instances of VSTi's , I must obviously account for the added load. I find that buffer sizes up to 256 (around 5 msec) are acceptable for playing VSTi plugins. |
Not to argue with you, but Fast Startup isn't actually the culprit, technically. Fast Startup really is a hybrid hibernation. If you shut down your computer and you have Fast Startup, it writes your temp files and current settings, memory configs, etc., to a file, so that when you start up, rather than going thru the tests, clearing caches, etc., it instead loads that file and returns you to where you left off. Cuts boot time by up to 30 seconds.
The problem with this is sometimes those files bog down memory. So, rather than turn that off, simply REBOOT the computer. This bypasses fast startup. Of course, turning off Fast Startup would help prevent those files from bogging it down, but simply disabling this isn't going to fix this for everyone as many people (like me) leave their PC on all the time, and just reboot every day or two so Fast Startup doesn't even come into play. It seriously does NOTHING else while the PC is running. It takes no resources. The only reason it LOOKS like it is working for you is because it requires a reboot when you turn it off, so you are basically doing the same thing if you would just reboot the PC without turning that off. Personally I love fast startup on my laptop (which I do turn off) because when I go do a gig with my laptop, it boots right up in 3 seconds (no joke). After every gig, I reboot the laptop, then shut it off. This clears memory and the caches, and then shutting it off afterwards allows Fast Startup to start the laptop up fast for the next gig.
Win11, 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12700K (3.60 GHz), 32GB Ram. Focusrite Scarlett 8i6 3rd Gen. Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol S88 Mark 2, Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol S61 Mark 1, Presonus FaderPort 8.
https://www.midiboy.com https://gregghart.bandcamp.com |
The only other thing I can kinda add is that I do see use of more than one core, but according to the S1 performance meter, it doesn't change that much if at all.
Still, allegedly, disabling "fast start" is supposed to help when shutting down. According to the "experts" disabling this allows the shut down to also clear cache and stuff which with fast start on, that didn't happen (unlike restart where this is automatic) Whether or not this improves anything in performance is debatable as I can see. I have no doubt that this helped the OP way back in the day, but on this computer (pretty fast) it doesn't really seem to do much if anything. And again, which no overclocking or boosting I run a little faster than the original clock speed of 3.9 GH, it's about 4.1 |
DarkLord wroteThe original solution worked very well for my system (killing fast start). I'm currently running 997 tracks in Studio One connected to another computer via VEPro, and now my processor is staying about 1/3 of the max CPU power w/o spikes. Thank you for your help!! Who helped you?
S1-6.2.1, HP Omen 17" i7 10th Gen, 32 GB,512 GB TLC M.2 (SSD),1 TB SSD. Win10 Pro, Audient iD14 MkII, Roland JV90, NI S49 MkII, Atom SQ, FP 8, Roland GR-50 & Octapad. MOTU MIDI Express XT. HR824, Yamaha HS-7, NS-1000M, Yamaha Promix 01, Rane HC-6, etc.
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