I have started getting crackling when I move the mouse or do anything, and VST performance real-time peak tops out and drops back intermittently on some projects when this happens. It isnt happening on all projects.
I am trying to figure if it is a plugin or the Cubase update I just did, it was fine before starting the updating process.
my system:
OS: windows 7 64 bit
CPU: 2.70Ghz Inte i7-4800MQ
RAM: 16GB
DAW: Cubase 7 32 bit
SOUND: Mackie Blackbird Onyx Firewire
I have updated the following so far and stopped updating things once I realised the issue was happening.
updates:
Cubase patch 7.0.7 32 bit (from 7.0.3 I think I was on)
i-lok updated with new installer
Waves Central
East West EWQL Silver Symphony upgraded to latest with Play upgraded to latest too.
additions:
McDSP Analog Channel Native VST vrs 6 installed but not yet authorised
DDMF some eq plugins installed with licenses added.
EDIT: This is looking like the East West Play_VST latest version 4.3.5 is responsible. not fully confirmed it yet but will add more when I know. If anyone has ideas about this let me know I am going to try to roll it back and see if that helps
can confirm it is the East West Play_VST version 4.3.5 and it happens in both 32 bit and 64 bit version when used in Cubase 7.0.7 Unfortunately rolling PlayVST back since the i-lok updates isnt working anyway now. So I guess I just have to try to speak to EW support, but if anyone knows a solution let me know
some digging about looking for solutions , and it looks like a lot of people have had a similar issue in other versions and it may be related to the GeForce NVIDIA graphics card. Steinberg Forums
its listed as fixed for Cubase Pro 8.0,40 but for us lesser mortals on 7 whats a solution other than upgrading?
Some things that have helped and additional discoveries:
Changing the mouse settings & theme reduced the issue a bit. Mine was set to Aero, and theme was allowed to change it. I changed the mouse pointer scheme to ‘none’ and the issue is currently gone away. Moving the mouse doesn’t cause a problem by itself now, but I still get crackling when working in midi edits if Play_VST is in the project and enabled. (This was confirmed by EastWest support this morning :" You may want to try version 4.2.2 on this page. This is a known issue with play 4.3.5 and Cubase. There is a conflict with certain graphics cards drivers on windows. Changing the mouse scheme can fix this. “Inverted Standard (non Aero)” worked for some people. Otherwise 4.2.2 I think is before the issue came up. Or updating the graphics drivers" )
Changing the Power Settings CPU to minimum 100% instead of the 5% it is set at also made a big difference. I dont know the impact this will have long term, some have done this and run it for years.
The problem is not just with East West plugin. I also tried adding DDMFs LP10 plugin which has never worked well even on other DAWS and machines it makes them slow down, and sure enough this maxes out the real-time peak and the crackling happens without moving the mouse at all, even if Play_VST isnt in the project.
Changing from Firewire to onbound generic ASIO driver and even the LP10 was happy to work. I cant tell if this is just overhead of having firewire, or if it is involved in the problem.
I will continue updating this thread until I give up or work something out. East West offered a work around but it isnt a solution. I still have other plugins like LP10 that are causing the problem. and it the effect is tripled by the firewire card. If this really is the graphics card causing it then surely that should be the fix not changing everything else.