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Occasional CPU Overload

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Doug S.

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Occasional CPU Overload

PostMon Jun 03, 2019 8:21 pm

I have a top of the line Intel NUC Core i7 With 32 Gig of ram, SSD running Windows 10 Pro.
I've followed all instructions on optimization of BIOS and windows for audio. My buffer, polyphony and memory utilization are well within what should be very glitch free operation. The CPU meter in HW shows pulsing into the red zone often on first loading and settling down over time and playing. This happens even with HW at idle, again, more at first loading and less after a few minutes. For the record, I despise Windows 10 compared to 7, but this particular NUC doesn't support 7.
Anyone had similar issues?
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Doug
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dw154515

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Re: Occasional CPU Overload

PostMon Jun 03, 2019 10:36 pm

Did you disable SuperFetch?
Drew A. Worthen
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Design Engineer - American Sound and Electronics - Indy
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Doug S.

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Re: Occasional CPU Overload

PostMon Jun 03, 2019 10:39 pm

Absolutely, along with everything I could glean from much research and revisiting HW forums and user guides.
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Doug
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IainStinson

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Re: Occasional CPU Overload

PostTue Jun 04, 2019 2:59 am

Superfetch is called Sysmain in more recent version Windows systems.
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Doug S.

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Re: Occasional CPU Overload

PostTue Jun 04, 2019 10:20 am

Thank you Iain. I found and disabled it. No time to test right now, but I'll post the results.
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Re: Occasional CPU Overload

PostTue Jun 11, 2019 10:24 am

This helped. Now there are only two bursts of cpu load into the red zone just after loading HW.
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csw900

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Re: Occasional CPU Overload

PostWed Jun 12, 2019 2:14 am

Why are you bothered about the HW occasionally indicating in the red cpu zone. The real thing to worry about is whether it affects the organ while you are playing it. If it does then it is worth looking for a solution. If it does not then you are worried about nothing as cpu overload is only a problem when it prevents something from happening at the time that it needs to happen such as sound being emitted when you press a key.

Anyway the cpu load indicator in HW is only a secondary and probably very inaccurate indicator of cpu load. Windows has a proper cpu load indicator built in, this can draw a graph of exactly what the load is at any one time - it can be found by using the Windows search facility. I suggest you use this to see what the real load is rather than relying on HW. If this built in indicator does not hit 100% the the cpu is not overloaded.

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Re: Occasional CPU Overload

PostWed Jun 12, 2019 9:59 am

It was causing major glitches and for whatever reason the windows built ins weren't helpful. Iain's suggestion solved the issue.
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Re: Occasional CPU Overload

PostWed Jun 12, 2019 11:38 am

It is worth noting what the Hauptwerk CPU meter is trying to show (rather than making inaccurate remarks) (manual pg 130):
CPU - The meter indicates the approximate estimated peak audio CPU load/stress. Red indicates audio CPU overload or audio driver synchronisation issues and likely audio glitches (try reducing the polyphony limit, increase the audio buffer size, or check for updated audio drivers). More specifically, the meter shows the amount of time that Hauptwerk is taking to calculate each chunk of audio as a fraction of the amount of time the audio driver has allowed Hauptwerk to do it. Note: the meter doesn't show the same thing as the operating system's overall CPU usage figures. Hauptwerk's CPU meter is specifically designed to show the risk of audio glitches, which is heavily dependent on audio driver performance and the performance of other computer hardware/driver components, as well as overall loads on the computer's CPU(s).


Doug, provided the meter doesn't go red whilst playing your should not hear any glitches. It may be that on startup there are some issues... do you hear any "noises" other than perhaps the organ wind coming on at startup? Apparently some "sound modules" can take a little longer to set their parameters which may be what's going on.
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Re: Occasional CPU Overload

PostWed Jun 12, 2019 12:42 pm

Iain,
I use a MOTU 24 Ao which is a diva when compared to my past interfaces. Windows 10 is also a diva compared to 7 so the two grudgingly play well now after shutting down your identification of the renamed superfetch.
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Doug
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csw900

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Re: Occasional CPU Overload

PostThu Jun 13, 2019 5:54 am

Thanks Iain for pointing out what the HW cpu indicator is actually showing - it appears to be an AUDIO processing indicator and is not well named.

I admit I have never taken any notice of it before, but now I see that it does occasionally go into the red on my system (an intel i5) while an organ is playing even though the cpu load (as indicated by windows) never goes above 50% load even while an organ is loading. (Incidentally the cpu load while an organ is unloading is just as high as when loading and so may indicate why it takes so long for an organ to close down).

However even when the HW cpu indicator goes into the red full scale area there are no glitches to the organ sound. So it still seems to me to be to be inaccurate and rather useless. It may have been useful years ago when HW was designed and computers were much less powerfull than they now are.

csw900

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