I have Hyperthreading deactivated in BIOS (as well as c-states, and turbo mode) - Computer setting
is done for background services. I can confirm that hyperthreading is an issue for cubase.
As I have an i7 8700K I have 6 cores available (with hyperthreading it would be 12).
I yesterday played with the HALion setting for multicore. Tried to set it to 2/4/5/Off with no effect. I did not try it with Groove Agent 5.
br
Werner
I have resigned myself to working in C11 until they get this CPU load issue sorted in 12. My levels in C11 are even and do not jump or randomly spike. C12 has tons of spikes, audible glitches and feels generally unstable under load.
So ā¦yeahā¦count me as another person having CPU / ASIO issues with C12.
PC / 10700k
32gb RAM
2TB system drive m2 SSD
2TB project drive m2 SSD
Focusrite Rednet PCIe (Dante) as ASIO device (able to run 32 sample buffer in C11 all day long 3.2ms RTL)
Windows 10
Built-in graphics
I did no configuration changes when going from C11 to C12, and the system is specifically used for audio.
Oh yes! the dreaded Hyperthreading + ASIO rabbit hole. I too was encouraged around the marketing regarding improved ASIO performance. And this may prove to be the case for some, but I remember seeing this topic of ASIO/Hyperthreading discussed hundreds of time over the years without much transparency or proven documentation. Seems like before, weāre left to figure out what works best for our particular use and system setup. Maybe this is the right/best way to move forward given all options. At times it feels like one step forward, two steps back.
Thank you bloodline1 for sharing your experiment and for documenting your experience. This is very helpful to us users!
In the meantime, Iāll continue to experiment with C12, but until we get some official comment on this issue, Iāll be using C11 for my real work.
Letās all keep the discussion going!
Same here. I thought it was the project. Rendered a lot of drums. But even removing plug-ins makes no real difference. Iām not running any VSTi. Iām using UAD for the heavy lifting. This project ran fine in C11. I tried boosting the ASIO Guard to high. No real difference. AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core Processor 3.70 GHz; 32 Gb RAM. Swap to C11 and I can run all my heavy duty plugins on the Mix bus. In C12, they cause the whole project to distort.
Can confirm random spikes and disk cache overloadingā¦ and a very high usage peak when certain vst instruments are record enabled. This doesnāt happen in C11.
It hasnāt made my system unusableā¦ can still run C12Pro with largeish projects but it does cause random spikes and high cpu usage. Changing ASIO Guard to āHighā hasnāt helped.
Specs -
Win 10
Intel i5 10600k 4.10 Ghz
MSI MPG Z490 Gaming Edge Wifi Motherboard
16 GB RAM
OK. Another update and some potentially good newsā¦?
Iāve been fiddling about with settings and at present Iām not getting any CPU spikes! However, the odd thing is that Iāve tried these same settings before and I had problems previously. Thinking back on it, the most notable thing I did was ā¦ Wait for itā¦
ā¦I completely shut down the computer and restarted it a couple of times.
I rarely turn off my machine, so maybe this helped? I honestly canāt think of anything other than that that is different from before.
So to further test, I left C12 running over night with a simple composition looping. The piece is about 2 minutes long and uses six instances of Kontakt with some very basic automation of tracks and plugins. When I checked this morning, the performance meters had not registered a spike of any sort during the night.
Then I thought perhaps something like BackBlaze or TimeMachine had been running in the background earlier and that had caused the random spikes? So I ran playback while both of those processes ran. No spikes.
I then ran playback with all six Kontakt tracks record enabled. The meters changed somewhat to reflect this (especially realtime and peak), but no wild swings, no spikes.
FWIW, my current settings are as follows:
I am on an iMac Pro 10 core, 64gb Ram, Big Sur 11.6.4 CUBASE PRO 12.0.0 Build 205
Iām going to keep my fingers crossed moving forward.
Cheers all.
Thank you pkmusic and beanstalk40 for sharing your experiences! What is interesting is you mention setting ASIO-Guard to High did not have any benefit for you. On the initial testing on my system setting AG to High did make a difference. Maybe Iāll try running some different tests with various heavier types of workload. Iāll report back on this.
gesslr - I quess the old anecdotal help-desk advice to restart your device has some merit after all! I am curious to see if the problems return for you, please keep us updated. Full disclosure, after reading your post, I did try this myself. Unfortunately I wasnāt as lucky as you!
As an experiment I tried playing with one of the demo projects that come with C12.
āCubase 12 - Pop Demo By Austin Hull.cpr_MIXEDā.
For me, the result is the same. When selecting one on the instrument tracks, then selecting a folder track, I get a dropout/click when ASIO Guard is set to Low of Normal. I donāt hear the dropouts with AG set to High (maybe itās still there, but very faint and undetectable).
I would be very interested if some of the other users here could try this same test using the demo project. You can find it in your āSteinberg Download Assistant.ā If you select āCubase Pro 12ā itās at the bottom of the list.
I think having a standardized test subject like the demo project could be a great help for us all to compare our experiences using the same project material. Since the Demo projects where produced and provided by Steinberg, this seems like a good place to start.
Curious to know your thoughts on this ā¦
Shouldnāt the overload indicator by the audio performance meter come on whenever there is an audio dropout? Did it come on?
No, I get no indications of overloads in the performance meter. Watching the meters as I switch tracks I only see the adjustment from the tracks being armed and unarmed, but no red errors. Only an audible dropout/pop.
Sounds like that could be a bug in itself.
Yes, I agree. If proven true, letās see what happens next.
I have been reading this thread with interest. I updated to Cubase 12 last Thursday, the whole process went fine, no problems. Thursday and Friday I played through 8 projects (songs) I am working on that were created with Cubase 11, they all played fine and I noticed that the performance meters seemed lower than in 11 and not one of the songs peaked the performance meters.
Saturday I recorded some new vocals for one song, everything went fine no issues. Sunday & Monday I worked on the same project editing the vocals, all good. Last thing Monday I played through the project a few times, all good, not once had the performance meters peaked, no audio drop outs. So the project is saved and the computer switched off.
Tuesday the computer is on all day (as it is most days, switch on in the morning, off last thing at night) early evening I open Cubase for the first time since the previous evening, I load the project I worked on the previous day, I play the project and the ASIO meter peaks and overloads, the audio drops out after about 5 seconds and continues to do it on and off through the track.
The project is exactly as it was the previous evening when it was played through numerous times with no issues. Nothing new has been done to the project. Nothing new has been installed on the system.
I try numerous things, changing the buffer size, ASIO guard but the project continues to peak the performance meter every time. I return the settings to the normal settings I have been working with.
I close the project and Cubase and go off to eat!
I come back about an hour later, I open Cubase I load the project and it plays perfectly no issues! I play it three or four more times and it plays perfectly, no performance meter peaks.
Today it has played perfectly with no issues.
I am at a loss to understand why for about an hour it refused to play without the performance meter peaking, then after closing the project and Cubase, waiting an hour and loading it again it then plays perfectly.
Cubase 12.0.0 macOS 12.2.1 Mac mini i7 3.2 16GB ram.
Hello SRN2016 Thanks for joining the thread! We have all been sharing our experiences with C12, and the random nature of the issue you describe can be the most frustrating and difficult to find the root cause (been there!).
First off, my thoughts for troubleshooting would be to see if any background processes where happening when you had the problem (like software updates, virus protection, etc). Then maybe check the integrity of all your system hardware, maybe something failing? Iām only guessing at this, because this type of random behavior is very difficult to pinpoint.
Also, at this point I would not rule out the possibility that there are issues with the software itself. Many here are reporting usual behavior and performance issues with the new C12. Please report back if you make any new discoveries regarding the problem.
I have the exact same problem over here as well. i9 12900k, 32GB DDR4, RME HDSP, Windows 11.
With Cubase 11 and the ASIO Guard set on āhighā I could run really heavy projects at 64 samples latency, regardless of what track I had aktivated.
With Cubase 12 there are CPU-intensive tracks that I canāt activate anymore without spikes all over the place. In my current project the worst is the MIDI drum track that goes to SD3 as a rack instrument. I use all single outputs of SD3 routed on 9 subgroups with parallel processing or UAD plugins (meaning additional buffers and latency for those channels/groups). All in all that is a pretty heavy routing. So everytime I activate the MIDI track it becomes a crackling-fiesta.
What is also interesting that clicking on a empty track (to release the ASIO Guard stress) does have a significant delay with audio muted.
With Cubase 11 none of that happens. Neither a delay when switching away from the āheavy trackā nor huge spikes and performance overload when activating that track.
There is certainly something VERY different between C11 and C12 regarding the handling of ASIO Guard and low-latency performance of active tracks with heavy load on the CPU.
@Matthias_Quellmann
Any chance Steinberg looks into this issue for the next update? Itās very annoying to have to up the latency one step for every project I currently work on. C12 is definitely performing worse than C11 and so by a significant margin.
I have had a similar experience. Project with 78 tracks, 24/88, Cubase 12, PC Ryzen 9 5900, 64GB ramā¦
Yes! thatās when I first noticed the issue. This never happened in C11. Hopefully if we all keep the discussion going, maybe someone at Steinberg (@Matthias_Quellmann) will take notice.
Hello Alexander_Hast Welcome to the discussion! Thanks sharing your experience and leading your voice to the cause.
Wellā¦ just playing an external synth with audio going through Cubase causes CPU load peaksā¦ Iām reverting back to C11. What waste of money for this update. Has this not been properly tested? No more updates for me, this was the last oneā¦
I get the exact same thing. Seems when the GUI changes, Iāll get a pop or a click Definitely selecting tracks though for sure.