Choppy performance in Nuendo 14.0.40 on MacOS Tahoe 26.1

Nuendo
1

Has anyone tested the newest Nuendo release on MacOS Tahoe 26.1 yet?

I am getting extremely slow framerates and weird hiccups inside Nuendo 14.0.40 - no audio glitches, just massively slow and sluggish UI.

Activity Monitor is showing no significant CPU/GPU utilization at all.

update
Found the problem: ASIO Guard and Arturia Coldfire Distortion plugin. Deactivating either plugin or ASIO Guard fixes the issue…temporarily :man_shrugging:

update

No, this does not seem to have anything to do with either ASIO Guard or Arturia plugins. Upon testing further, I noticed that adding more than two inserts into the effect bus of an instrument or wave channel, the problems start happening immediately. I can’t reproduce this on my M4 Max, only on M1 Ultra All M-Series Macs affected.

1 Like
2

Been investigating this further. It also happens with just one stock effect loaded. (See video).

To reproduce:

  1. Mac Studio M1 Ultra
  2. New Project
  3. New Track
  4. Open Track Channel Settings
  5. Add an insert into first effect slot

What should happen:
Timeline cursor progressing fluidly, UI responding quick and normally

What instead happens:
Timeline cursor jumps, UI does not respond immediately, popups open slowly, slow framerates

update

problem also happens with Cubase 13, Nuendo 13

update

Confirmed for M4 as well.

The problem occurs as soon as you have a channel window open and then click into the timeline window, causing the “channel settings” window to get hidden while it’s still open behind the main window. As soon as you switch back to channel settings, the stutter disappears.

3

Temporary fix: Preferences > User Interface > Disable GPU Acceleration

image
image863×827 63 KB

3 Likes
4

If you use Izotope plugins I would recommend avoiding MacOS Tahoe 26.1 totally.

5

If you use Izotope plugins I would recommend avoiding MacOS Tahoe 26.1 totally.

What issues are you referring to? I just tested Ozone 11 and it seems to run fine.

6

Tested Rx standalone loudness and waves WLM Plus Loudness Meter on deliverables and results were wonky.
Nuendo loudness export did not suffer on m5 pro.

7

I just opened RX 11 and opened two files, tried a couple tools and exported something. Waveform statistics are working fine also. Did not find any issues (for my workflow) at this time.

8

Worked like a charm! Thank you !

9

Had anyone installed the latest hotfix and tested performance in cubase/nuendo? It’s mostly ok here but I still get choppyness as soon as a plugin ui window covers an opened channel inspector window.

10

Even with Nuendo 14.0.41 on macOS 26.1 / 26.2, the issue still persists. It’s severe enough that the entire UI freezes for several seconds even with just a single plugin window open, making the software barely usable. Disabling GPU acceleration resolves the problem, but that’s clearly not a viable long-term workaround due to the performance impact.

Steinberg appears to be aware of the issue (see help center), but no fix or timeline is mentioned.

2 Likes
11

Wow… glad I checked! Was just about to upgrade to Tahoe 26.2 from Sequoia to try & resolve something else. Guess I’ll keep waiting.

12

you mr. saved my life. thank @dreiklevin for this info! I upgraded to tahoe and i am happy i dont have to rollback all the way. izotope plugins are very bad with it, but either way after enabling a few plugins it becomes very bad. temporary fix disable gpu acceleration worked thank you

13

Installed Tahoe today and activated the GPU Acceleration for fun. It was deactivated. Forgot why. The effect is really crazy. No level is displayed in the mixer. Steinberg really should take another look at this. Although I don’t know what the activation is actually good for in the end.

14

Installed Tahoe today and activated the GPU Acceleration for fun. It was deactivated. Forgot why. The effect is really crazy. No level is displayed in the mixer. Steinberg really should take another look at this. Although I don’t know what the activation is actually good for in the end.

Which they did and it seems this is a bug introduced by Apple with MacOS 26. It’s up to Apple to fix it.