70% UAD-1 CPU Limit!!! Grrr!!!

[Doublehelix]

I have been dealing with an issue that has been bugging me for a long, long time. I can only run my UAD-1 CPU meter to about 68% or else the CPU meter in Cubase goes ape and pegs at 100% the next time I open the song.

I have 3 UAD-1 cards in a Magma chassis, a Poco, an AES-16 card and the Magma card in the computer, along with a Matrox G450 AGP video card (complete system config at the end of the post).

Here's one scenario at 88.2 KHz:

UAD-1 card CPU meter at 68%, and the Cubase SX CPU meter is at about 30% (for example).

Bump up the UAD-1 CPU meter to 70%, and now the Cubase SX meter jumps up to 100% (pegged) and stays there until I remove a UAD-1 plug.

[Actually, the Cubase meter will only peg the *next* time I open the song, or if I rest the ASIO driver.]

I decided that I have had enough trouble-shooting (I have tried about a million things over the last few months... PCI latency settings, moving cards around, one card at at time, 2 cards, IRQ issues, etc.), so I decided to start with a fresh hard drive and a complete new OS and program install.

Here it is worse!

Now I get the \"disabled plugin\" error that cascades through all of the plugs one at a time until I have removed all of the UAD-1 plugs.

I decided to go back to the old hard drive and live with the \"70% limit\".

This means however that in reality, I am only using the power of 2 of my 3 cards (not quite, but you get the picture...67% is 2/3 of 100%).

System config:

Asus P4P800-E Deluxe mobo (Intel 865 chipset)
Intel Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz Prescott 800 FSB
1 GHz Kingston DDR PC3200 400 Mhz CL 3.0 (2 X 512MB)
Matrox G450 AGP Video Card
200 GB Western Digital 7200 RPM/8 MB (OS/App Drive)
200 GB Western Digital 7200 RPM/8 MB (Data Drive #1)
80 GB Maxtor 7200 RPM/8 MB (Mastering/Mixing Data Drive #2)
160 GB Maxtor External USB2 (Backup Drive)
3.5\" 1.44 MB Mitsumi Floppy Drive
Plextor PX-712SA SATA DVD+R/CDR Drive
Lynx AES-16 card w/ firmware rev 20
3 X UAD-1 Cards (v. 3.80)
PowerCore Element Card
2 X 17\" Flat Screen LCD Monitors
Antec Sonata case w/ 380 watt True Power PS
2 X 120 mm Antec Smartcool fans
Windows XP Home SP1a
Cubase SX 3.02.623
Wavelab 5.01


Some plugins:
-Celemony Melodyne 2.6 (3.01 on the new hard drive...will upgrade the old HD soon)
-Antares Autotune 4
-URS N, A and BLT EQ plugs
-Waves Renaissance collection
-Waves Native Power Pack
-Waves IR-1 convo reverb
-All UA plugs except the Roland/Boss stuff
-PSP Vintage Warmer (never use it any more)
-Powercore Element Plugs
-Sony Inflator for Poco
-TC Assimilator for Poco


Please help!

 

[secretworld]

Could you try a slightly more modern agp card like the cheap radeon 9250 or anything other you can get your hands on. I think I remember reading that matrox 450 are known to cause some problems.
Good luck
Vincent

 

[RichR]

I have 4 UADs plus 1 Poco MKII in a magma and an additional MKII in the computer with ASUS NCCH-DL, Matrox Parhelia & AES-16.
I work at 88.2 KHz and I have the same kind of limit with my UADs (around 70%).

After some research, I realized that it's caused by one or two of the UAD cards hitting 100% even though the meter stays at 70%. You can confirm this by opening the UAD status window and observing the CPU resources.

I haven't found any solution yet. It may be an 88.2 issue but I did not get a chance to do some tests at 44.1 and 48. Maybe you could check it out.

 

[jcat]

While I reckon the G450 is doing you no favours (I myself had a real issue with this card, it's not fully AGP 2.0 complent even though a mobo will think it is), there's two of you with this problem, and that indecates there may be more to it.

Have either of you contacted UA support on this?



Cheers,

jcat

 

[Agent Cooper]

jcat,
what exactly were your issues with the G450 and on what mainboard ?
Are the 550s better ? I was under the impression the only difference is in the output configurations (DVI related) ?
I'm thinking of replacing my TI 4200 with a 450/550 atm for heat and noise reasons, so any info or link would be welcome.
Cheers, Cooper

 

[secretworld]

I have 4 UADs plus 1 Poco MKII in a magma and an additional MKII in the computer with ASUS NCCH-DL, Matrox Parhelia & AES-16.
I work at 88.2 KHz and I have the same kind of limit with my UADs (around 70%).

After some research, I realized that it's caused by one or two of the UAD cards hitting 100% even though the meter stays at 70%. You can confirm this by opening the UAD status window and observing the CPU resources.

I haven't found any solution yet. It may be an 88.2 issue but I did not get a chance to do some tests at 44.1 and 48. Maybe you could check it out.

Although I can load my 2 uads to 98 % it is possible For example when 1 uad is at 80 and the other at 60% to ad a plugin that will tip the 80% one over the edge and I asume that is even easier at 88Khz. I am not sure how the uads distribute the load and it doesn´t seem to be perfect. sometimes by disabling afew plugins and then loading the heavey plugin that caused the overlaod and the reenabling the other ones the load gets distributed in a working way, but i´m not sure what would happen if I opened a song saved like this. Maybe someone from ua can shed a light on this!

 

[jcat]

jcat,
what exactly were your issues with the G450 and on what mainboard ?
Are the 550s better ? I was under the impression the only difference is in the output configurations (DVI related) ?
I'm thinking of replacing my TI 4200 with a 450/550 atm for heat and noise reasons, so any info or link would be welcome.
Cheers, Cooper

In the end I got a P650 64Mb DDR AGP Dual Head + DVI, it works great.

I had a range a really faint clicking sounds when I upgraded my computer last year, and kept my G450. I tried to get to the bottom of the fault for weeks, I even tried a different motherboard! Turned out to be the G450, this is now well known to cause problems on the more modern motherboards.



Cheers,

jcat

 

[Agent Cooper]

jcat,
thanks for the info !
Might as well save me some trouble and keep the TI 4200 for now.
Have a nice day,
Cooper

 

[Morten]

How much RAM is in use, when you start having the problem?

AIDA is a good program to check how much free RAM is available.

I had the same problem until yesterday, where I added a third card plus 512 mb extra RAM. Now I can load all I want, right until the limit of each card, without the system usage in Cubase goes over.

 

[Doublehelix]

How much RAM is in use, when you start having the problem?

AIDA is a good program to check how much free RAM is available.

I had the same problem until yesterday, where I added a third card plus 512 mb extra RAM. Now I can load all I want, right until the limit of each card, without the system usage in Cubase goes over.

Wow! Thanks for the info. I am running a single GB. I will add a second GB and see what happens!

 

[jwnc]

This may be why I am getting strange stuttering and cpu spikes in Nuendo 3. I have 1 gig of ram in there and I am building a mix and the N cpu meter will be about 60% with no problems then all of a sudden I will get 100 % spikes and overes at 1024 just playing the sequence. I have 2 UADs and its pretty loaded up, cant remember the % amount but its alot.

Does this sound like a ram issue maybe?

Thanks
Jason

 

[Morten]

Well the scenario looks the same, but I can´t say for sure. Have you tried using AIDA to check how much of your RAM is in use when you get the spikes?

Also, just to be sure, you´re not using more plugs than the two UAD´s can handle?

Anyways, these days, RAM are so cheap. that throwing in a little extra is worth the cost, no matter what, it´s never a bad thing to have enough

 

[jwnc]

Where can I get AIDA I have never heard of it?

Thanks
Jason

 

[jcat]

People, if you're using Windows you don't need any third party software to see how much RAM you're using. Just use Task Manager, you can access it (depending on how your computer is set-up) either by:

Ctr+Alt+Del
or
Ctr+Alt+Del then slecting task manager
or
Right click on the task bar and select Task Manager

Then select the performance tab and look at the physical memory usage.


I've got to be honest though, I doubt that lack of RAM will be a main culpret here. The running of the card itself requires a fairly small amount of system memory, the only thing I can think of is that the projects your running are memory intensive anyway, that would put the system under extra strain and resort to using the swap file etc.

Can you open up a project with a few audio tracks and just load it with UAD-1 plugs and no other instruments or plugins. See how many you can load then.


Hope that helps a bit.



Cheers,

jcat

 

[jwnc]

Funny. I just tested my session with windows task manager and it says I am between 85-90% cpu usage and on my N3 usage meter it says about 70-80%, I wonder which one it correct.

I also had about 400 megs of ram left while playing the session.

Jason

 

[secretworld]

Funny. I just tested my session with windows task manager and it says I am between 85-90% cpu usage and on my N3 usage meter it says about 70-80%, I wonder which one it correct.

I also had about 400 megs of ram left while playing the session.

Jason

Task manager is right!

 

[jcat]

Funny. I just tested my session with windows task manager and it says I am between 85-90% cpu usage and on my N3 usage meter it says about 70-80%, I wonder which one it correct.

I also had about 400 megs of ram left while playing the session.

Jason

A common misconception is that the meter in Cubase or Nuendo is a cpu meter, it's not. It's an ASIO load meter. 8)



Cheers,

jcat

 

[GPJ]

I also have 3 uad-1 cards, on some projects it will pop at 84% some will go to 97% no problem. On the cubase preformance meter it shows Memory spikes during the times with many pops.I have 1mg ram also this leads me to believe that windows needing to use the swap file is correct for the cause of the pops. thanks for the insight,never thougt of it myself I will buy more ram and see what happens.I have tried three differant windows drivers with the same results running acpi seems to work best in windows 2000.Does anyone have an opinion about wether Xp is better than W2k for Cubase and UA cards
Sorry to be off subject


Glenn

 

[jwnc]

In Nuendo 3 the CPU meter does show the system CPU usage not just the ASIO performance. The manual said it did.

Jason

 

[jcat]

In Nuendo 3 the CPU meter does show the system CPU usage not just the ASIO performance. The manual said it did.

Jason

That may be so, but that's not what forum moderator Christian Dettner from the Steinberg forum says...

And the inconsistency between the meter and Task Manager (which gives actual cpu usage) proves it. :roll:

Steinberg manuals have been proved wrong on many occasions... #-o



Cheers,

jcat