Cubase 12 Upgrade ASIO-Guard Issue

Aha. Thanks for that. Is there an easy way to see which of your plugs have this? It isn’t indicated in the Plugin Manager. I wonder if there is a list anywhere?

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Having the same. Windows 10 (all current updates), Ryzen 3950X, Cubase 12.

My orchestral template worked fine in Cubase 11, but loading it in Cubase 12 causes huge CPU spikes making it unusable. Have gone back to Cubase 11. Disappointing for an ‘upgrade’ that promised to be faster/sleeker/optimised.

I’ve got Hyperhtreading on, but given it works perfectly at 128sample buffers on Cubase 11, I’m not sure that is the issue.

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An Aggregate Device is a virtual device driver for Mac OS…with an Aggregate Devices it is possible to combine different physical inputs and outputs from different interfaces and treat them like one virtual device. The OS ensures the devices are synced and locked to each other. The DAW just sees and treats it like a single device.

It seems like there is a limit to the number of I/O supported in aggregate devices. The full question is here:

Thanks for asking.

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I’m on this thread as I’m finding very uneven core loading/allocation on my 5950x.
I’m a big acoustica aqua user an all their plug-ins are multithreaded with no way of turning off.

It will be interesting to see how this gets resolved.

M

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I have this issue too (and have raised a ticket to that effect). New project in CB12, 256 samples latency, single audio channel with either Amplitube 5 or Line 6 Helix Native and audio glitches continuously. I’ve reverted to CB11 for now as CB12 is unusable. Same thing works fine in CB11. Win 10, i9 processor, 32Gb RAM, SSL 2+ interface.

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Wow! Using my Apollo Twin for my portable setup I’m always short of inputs. I can plug the Focusrite Octapre into the ADAT input but sometimes I only need two more inputs. Are you saying I could use my Focusrite Scarlett and the Apollo at the same time?

If you are on a Mac, yes.

Instructions here:

You CAN do this…please keep in mind that creating an Aggregate device comes at the expense of latency…so your overall input to output latency will increase to a degree.

So …no free lunch…but it does work.

Thanks so much! I found the “create aggregate device” in Audio/Midi Settings. So cool! Never knew that option was available. I can deal with increased latency when recording just audio. Then switch devices to just the Apollo for overdubbing and mixing. Can’t wait to try this.

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In case the plugin offers to configure its multiprocessing, you will usually find the setting in the plugin setup/ options/ preferences dialog (e.g. HALion: Options tab, Kontakt: Settings).

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Dears,
as this seems to affect only specific systems, we would like to know more about your OS, CPUs and VSTi/ Plugins which are showing this behavior.
Could you please all reply to my post here and list:

  • System information:
    – your OS platform (Apple Intel, Apple Silicon, Windows)
    – your OS version number (like Win 10.1809, macOS 11.6.4,…)
    – your CPU model and number of cores
    – does C12 always fail ? Or just from time to time?
  • Project Details:
    – Sample Rate
    – Asio Guard Level: Low, Normal, High?
    – Audio Buffer size
    – number of VSTi/ Audio/ Midi tracks
    – VSTis in the affected project
    Thanks very much for your support!
    Christina
    Test Engineer at Steinberg
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  • Windows 10 (ver. 19044.1586) 21H2

  • Intel Core i9-7940X, 3.10GHz, 18 cores

  • NVIDIA Phoenix 1060G Graphics Card

  • C12 Always Has Dropouts, especially when adding effects plugins

  • 48Khz, 24 bit

  • Asio Guard - High

  • Audio Buffer - 1024

  • Any number of tracks, of any type

  • Kontakt (turned Multiprocessing both ON and OFF, C12 still has Asio Guard spikes)

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Just adding my input, I am also seeing random Peaks in Cubase 12 in the performance meter in an empty session, that is not present in Cubase 11
48k 32bit | Asio = Normal | Buffer makes no difference for these spikes

Windows 11 | i9 12900k | 64g DDR5 | 3090 | Quantum 26/26 | Focusrite 18i20 3rd Gen

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It’s not our job to debug their software.
I’m still unable to use the software.

Has Steinberg said they’re working on a fix :face_with_diagonal_mouth:

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I learnt that for some, the redesigned Performance Meter is leading to the impression that C12 is struggling more with processing load, than was C11. This is not the case - with exceptions discussed here.
Our investigations here refer to audible performance issues with C12, where C12 is failing to playback the projects dropout-free, which played just fine in C11. Please consider when posting :heart:.

Just some remarks on the Performance Meter:

  • the redesigned Performance Meter in C12 is showing four values, aiming to give users a more detailed info about the system’s momentary load:
    Realtime: how much of the available time (in % of the real time latency, set by your audio buffer size) is consumed by real time processing? This value is averaged over several buffers, and therefor moving slowly. It gives an impression of the overall load of time-critical processing in your project.
    Asio Guard: how much of the available time (in % of the Asio Guard latency, set by the Asio Guard level Low/ Normal/ High) is consumed by prefetched (= non-real time) processing? This value is averaged over several Asio Guard buffers, and therefor moving slowly. It gives an impression of the overall prefetch load of your project.
    Peak: this value shows the recent maximum values of the time-critical processing; it gives an impression if there are load peaks, caused by - e.g. - certain instruments, song structure (plenty of Midi notes starting at the same time,…) or FX. This can help you find and omit certain bottle necks.
    It is not averaged, and can therefor look jumpy, especially with small real time buffers. It also reflects the jitter of your audio hardware. A heavy jitter can limit the performance with small buffer sizes.
    Disk Cache: showing the read/ write buffer fill level, referred to the max. throughput (you mostly only see it move on cursor relocate or playback start)
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I did consider greatly before posting and merely added my input to the reduction of performance compared to CB11 before even adding anything to the session. My post was to outline that there is obviously something unoptimised going on in the CB12 engine compared to CB11 and therefore concluding that these issues might be related. For example in the most basic sense if I am having peaks spikes before filling a session with instruments then these peaks will eventually cause drop outs and this is why I posted my input here on this forum, so again one did consider the topic and the relation of that topic to ones own experience. One is now going to make a cup of tea…

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Sorry - my post was not meant as reply to you personally :face_with_hand_over_mouth:. (I seem to struggle with the Reply button…).
When coming back from tea - could you please let me know which Asio Guard level and Audio interface buffer size you are deploying? That info is very important to us. Thanks!

I will expand to help:

  1. First of all these peaks are very small but random and not present in CB11, I can see that they may become a problem during a large session
  2. ASIO guard level is currently at Normal but the peaks can be reproduced on all 3 asio settings including off.
  3. I have experimented with a Thunderbolt (Quantum 2626) and a USB Audio device (18i20 3rd gen) and the random peaks remain
  4. I have experimented with 2 Buffers 256 and 512 making no difference
  5. Session is in 48k 32bit
  6. My issue is not important compared to the other posters and I do not wish to divert resources, my original post merely serves as an observation to what I am seeing before starting to populate a session, the spikes are very small, quarter of a bar at worse but I can foresee as a session builds it might translate into being more problematic.

Cheers and I hope it helps

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Could you please all reply to my post here and list:

  • System information:
    – your OS platform (Apple Intel, Apple Silicon, Windows)
    – your OS version number (like Win 10.1809, macOS 11.6.4,…)
    – your CPU model and number of cores
    –NEW: your Graphic Card Model
    – does C12 always fail ? Or just from time to time?
  • Project Details:
    – Sample Rate
    – Asio Guard Level: Low, Normal, High?
    – Audio Buffer size
    – number of VSTi/ Audio/ Midi tracks
    – VSTis in the affected project
System information:
–  Windows
– Win 10.21H1
– CPUIntel(R) Core(TM) i7-3930K CPU @ 3.20GHz 6 Cores
– GPU AMD Radeon R7 200 Series Primär/Diskret
– C12 works fine when mixing, when recording/monitoring often leads to peaks and drop outs,

in the windows ressouurce monitor one instance of amplitube 5 vst3 leads to the effects and uses
more than twice the cpu as the same project in cubase 11.

Project Details:
– Sample Rate 44,1
– Asio Guard Level: Low, Normal, High? (occurs in all 3 levels)
– Audio Buffer size (256 and others)
– number of VSTi/ Audio/ Midi tracks (one instance of amplitube 5 is suffient to generate the peaks
– VSTis in the affected project
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