Windows 10 64 bit, 2x16Gb ram, CPU Intel 17-7820X 3.6Ghz 8 core, Gen3.0 buses - Cubase Pro 14.0.40.
I have 17 plugins running in Cubase, I’ve recently noticed a increase in slowness of it, leading to near ‘stuttering’ - in Task Manager/Cubase CPU average useage is 11.5%, memory usage is average 63%.
Is this to be expected of my current (old ??) set up ? - BTW - ‘thanks’ to Cubase I can’t go back to a pre-14.0.40 status uprade to check if it is the latest version giving grief.
Hi,
You didn’t mention your Audio Device, and its Buffer Size.
What kind of plug-ins?
What happened in the meantime? Any update? Windows (silent update), any plug-in update, Cubase update?
This is Windows policy, not Steinberg. I have many Cubase versions installed on my Mac.
Just roll back the update. At the bottom of this page is several versions of previous updates. Roll back to 14.0.32. Cubase is more than likely using us forum folks as guinea pigs to test out the 14.0.4 version as a beta run for Cubase 15 features.
Oh yes you can:
Scroll down to the, ahem, bottom.
***
Oops, just noticed Mr @Wickham_Sky already posted this.
Excellent, thanks Sky/Smythe - will check - is that on the Steinberg download assistant ? - I even thought about do I really need for me all the ‘bling bling’ on the Pro version no doubt adding to Cubase’s crowded environment.
Addendum - ‘These files are not available in the Steinberg Download Assistant anymore.’ - I’d say that was my problem, I assumed if they weren’t there they aren’t anywhere.
BTW just discovered I can’t go back further than V 14.0.0 as two crucial plugins ‘Shimmer’ and ‘Studio Delay’ are only on V. 14 onwards.
Just follow the link posted on our posts. Scroll all the way down to the bottom and you will see previous versions of Cubase 14.
Are you using, native effects?
Errr… just on a side note: “driver” is not the correct term here and in fact somewhat misleading. “Going back to a previous program version” seems to be it.
MOTU 828X is the audio device, buffer is at max 1024.
A variety but all VST3, no older third party stuff - Synth software ‘Current’ might be a suspect in heavy drainage.
Cubase update to 14.0.40 seems to have worsened the instability.
Have been informed incremental upgrades/updates are located (not) on the Steinberg Download Assistant where I was looking - very odd decision not to have them there as well.
Yes, Steinberg’s and other reputable companies - all VST3.
Good catch officer Moneto. Where should I pay my fine?
The CPU may not be powerful enough to run synths and effects simultaneously.
Reputable companies’ VST3 effects and instruments can still be heavy on the CPU. Just a few that come to mind in that regard (there are MANY more) Arturia Pigments (some patches when playing polyphonically – ditto for several other Arturia synths, especially if they get into granular synthesis and adding effects), iZotope Ozone, UADx Sound City Studios, NI NOIRE (if you’ve got tempo changes – something about the built-in delay if I remember correctly), some Arturia effects (depends on specific settings, and only for some plugins), PSP Flare, … My old Windows 10 system was not as powerful as yours (also with MOTU 828x, BTW), so I got to know some specific plugin performance issues intimately. 
Another thing that can enter into the picture is your bus structure, such as if you’re doing a bunch of layered submixing with live effects in FX and/or Group tracks, where considerations of what can and cannot be parallelized across multiple CPUs may enter into the picture.
The other thing I found that, often when my system couldn’t keep up, if I added a live HALion Sonic track with nothing on it, but made it the track with the focus (so Cubase would be ready to record on it), that would let it keep up. Sounds counterintuitive, but others mentioned a similar thing. What that specifically seemed to do was better distribute the load across CPUs, rather than having one CPU end up being a bottleneck. I think it related to forcing a realtime thread (the HALion Sonic track. That workaround would only get an old system so far, but it was pretty amazing how frequently it could give me enough extra juice to actually listen to a mix that I couldn’t actually hear playing back (due to dropouts) otherwise.
r.e. VST3 I was focusing more on their quality/reliability in not i.e. crashing or corrupting Cubase - I had many VSt2 plugins but decided to stick with their VST3 equivalents and not to use VST2 at all, there is the question of technical back up as well.
Yes, but my point was that even high quality, reliable VST3 plugins, which don’t crash or corrupt Cubase, can put a heavy load on Cubase that can result in dropouts (which may sound like stuttering, distortion, sound dropping out altogether, … depending on the specifics, such as how much above the system’s performance threshold whatever is going on at the moment is). I don’t know if VST3 plugins are inherently more stable than VST2 plugins (at one point, early in VST3 days, they often were less so, but I think they generally are at least as stable now, and, with Steinberg’s effectively saying you’re on your own if you still use VST2 plugins in Cubase 14, there’s not much point in still using VST2 plugins if all your plugins support VST3 and you can do without the ones that don’t).
This goes to the original question you asked as to whether you’re asking too much of your (old) system. I know I was of my Windows 10 system. I’ve been using my newly built Windows 11 system for a bit shy of a month now, and the same things that were asking (sometimes way) too much of my old system often seem like a breeze for my new system (Intel Core Ultra 9 285k-based, with more RAM, faster disks, a more powerful video card, but still the same 828x audio interface). But whether you are or not depends heavily on the specifics of each project. If 1024 is the biggest sample buffer size you’re using, it sounds like you’re running at either 48 kHz or 44.1 kHz. I usually use 96 kHz (with sample buffer size of 2048 on my old system – I generally haven’t gone that high on the new one), so I may well have been asking more of my old system (i7 5820k-based, 16 GB RAM) than you are, but it also depends on the details of your effects, routing, etc.