Cubase 14, Windows 11 pro 24h2, Performance Peaks

kevin_frustrato · June 19, 2025, 3:09pm

I’m having performance issues with Cubase 14 on Windows 11 Pro. Both applications are up to date.

The computer has an Intel Core i7-9750H 2.60 GHz, 64 GB RAM, and an Nvidia T2000 graphics card (with Studio drivers). So, it shouldn’t be a performance issue with the laptop.

The performance issues are with a Moto M4 sound card and with IRig HDX, each tested with different cables and on all USB-C/Thunderbolt ports. (Drivers are up to date.)
So, it shouldn’t actually be the sound cards.

I ran LatencyMon, and the outliers here are mainly wdf01000.sys, acpi.sys, and dxgkml.sys.

It’s not impossible to work with it, but what surprises me is that I have to set my sound card’s buffer size to 256 and activate ASIO Guard to avoid red spikes in the Performance Monitor. This results in a latency of 8ms. (I want to record guitars with active plugins, e.g., UAD Amp Sims). The thing is, I can manage the whole thing on an (older) Mac with a buffer size of 64 without any problems.

Does anyone have any ideas what else I could try on my Windows laptop to achieve reasonable performance? What’s particularly noticeable are these performance peaks that pop up every few seconds, even with an empty project. If I set the buffer size to less than 256, these peaks turn red.

I’ve set Nvidia to “Max Performance” and the threshold for processor idle and minimum performance is both set to 100%. Things improve a bit if I set the task manager to run Cubase only on CPU cores 4-11.

But even with these adjustments, it can’t keep up with Mac performance.

I would appreciate any advice.

(Hallo,

ich habe Performance Probleme mit Cubase 14 unter Windows 11 pro. Beide Anwendungen sind auf dem neusten Stand.

Der Rechner hat einen IntelCore I7-9750H 2.60Ghz, 64 GB Ram, Nvidia T2000 Grafikkarte (mit Studio Treiber). Es sollte also kein Leistungsproblem des Laptops sein.

Die Performanceprobleme sind mit einer Moto M4 Soundkarte und mit IRig HDX, jeweils mit verschiedenen Kabeln getestet und an allen USB-C / Thunderbold Eingängen. (Treiber aktuell)
An den Soundkarten sollte es also eigentlich nicht liegen.

LatancyMon habe ich laufen lassen, Ausreiser sind hier vorallem wdf01000.sys, acpi.sys, dxgkml.sys.

Es ist nicht unmöglich damit zu arbeiten, aber was mich wundert ist, dass ich bei meiner Soundkarte einen Buffer von 256 einstellen muss und Asio Guard aktiviereb, damit es keine roten Ausschläge im Performance Monitor gibt. Damit kommt ich auf eine Latenz von 8ms. (Ich möchte Gitarren einspielen, mit aktiven Plugins, z.B. UAD Amp Sims). Die Sache ist die, dass ich das Ganze auf einem (älteren) Mac ohne Probleme mit einem Buffer von 64 hinbekomme.

Hat jemand eine Idee was ich bei meinem Windows-Laptop noch versuchen könnte um eine vernüftige Performance hinzubekommen? Auffällig sind halt vorallem diese Performance Peaks, die selbst bei einem leeren Projekt alle paar Sekunden aufpoppen und stelle ich den Buffer kleiner als 256, schlagen diese Peaks rot aus.

Nvidia habe ich auf “Max Performance” gestellt,
Schwellenwert für Prozessor Leerlauf & Minimale Leistung ist jeweils auf 100%. Etwas besser wird es wenn ich im Taskmanager Cubase nur über die CPU Kerne 4-11 laufen lasse.
Aber selbst mit diesen Anpassungen kann es nicht mit der Mac Performance mithalten.

Es würde mich freuen wenn jemand einen Rat hat.)

Thor.HOG · June 19, 2025, 3:19pm

Your post will no doubt be valuable for many folks here, but please be aware the official forum language is English. It would be great if you could translate with Google (or your fav) and repost. Thanks!

EDIT: Unless you meant to post to the DE side

izak · June 19, 2025, 3:37pm

There’s an option in Cubase to record with low latency. Using the setting, Cubase temporarily shuts off plugins with high latency and helps you get a decent recording.

Steps

Right click on the top of the project window
In the menu, select, Constrain Delay Compensation.
Enable Constrain Delay Compensation by clicking the clock icon.

vinark · June 19, 2025, 3:53pm

You could install throttlestop (I did and have very stable performance). I think I have the same cpu in my laptop (or maybe 8750H) and it runs at a constant 4.3ghz. The switchen of speeds can cause spikes. Do read all the instructions and Your results may of course be different.
Also I could undervolt quit a bit )also with throttlestop) which reduced temps.

kevin_frustrato · June 19, 2025, 4:26pm

Hi Thor.HOG,

thanks for your answer, sorry it was my first post, and since its a German software i didn’t think twice ;). The post is shown in english now, someone seemed to fixed that. I hope its okay now.

I will try the both other suggestions. To just turn of the plugins isn’t a perfect option, since you change your playing with the sound you use, and since its no problem on a weaker Mac there should be a solution in windows as well

Thank you all so far!

kevin_frustrato · June 19, 2025, 8:52pm

My progress so far:
when I have an instance of Superior drummer as Vst Instrument ( not rendered as WAV) and I have a armed audio track with one UAD Amp plugin, one Neural DSP plugin (amp turned of) for effects (Delay & Reverb) and an Compressor ( UAD 1176) I can play on a buffer size of 64 on the Mac and now managed to get a quite solid performance with a buffer size of 128 on windows (latency 4.2/5.5 Ms).

I did it with Taskmanager and set processor affinity for Cubase to cores 6-11 and ThrottleStop is in the default performance setting ( I wasn’t really able to tune in better results yet).

So it seems to be a bit better then before, but somehow it’s a bit annoying that a much better windows laptop runs so mediocre compared to a 3 year older MacBook pro.

If someone has any more suggestions, you are welcome

midikota · June 19, 2025, 10:18pm

Windows 24H2
rolled back because the OS didn’t even run properly on my PC in an AMD environment…
and set it to never update again!

I hope that’s enough, Microsoft.

AtariBoy · June 20, 2025, 12:25am

Have you tried ParkControl, that helped eliminate a lot of peaks on my laptop

kevin_frustrato · June 20, 2025, 9:37am

Hi Thank you,
I installed it, but parking is already deactivated in the app.
Do i have any further use of it then?
I can see which cpu cores have the highest spikes, maybe i can try to avoid them via Taskmanager.

Trevor_H · June 20, 2025, 2:13pm

Would changing this option to 99% make any difference?

This YouTube Video is quite old now, and some options are probably not needed in newer Laptops. The Power Plan Options might still be useful though!

izak · June 20, 2025, 2:22pm

It is also worth trying out the Steinberg Audio Power Scheme.

Steps
Studio → Studio Setup → Audio System → Activate Steinberg Audio Power Scheme.

kevin_frustrato · June 20, 2025, 4:45pm

Thanks Trevor, It seems to give a quite good overview, and I will check, if any advice will help. Since my laptop is from 2021, two years should not be such big of a difference

The cubase power settings are enabled, with them the values are already set to 100%. Do you mean that maybe lower them to 99% will help?

Trevor_H · June 20, 2025, 4:54pm

Yes! It’s one of the Tweaks in the Youtube video. I mentioned that first in case you wanted to test it… It should help to stabilize the CPU. The Youtube video is a good watch. I think it’s the same Guy that used to write in the ‘Sound On Sound’ Magazine, not sure if he still does!

kevin_frustrato · June 21, 2025, 5:42pm

So after more videos and more tweaking I have a quite constant performance (without peak hitting red) with a buffer size of 64 (iRig hdx - definitely not the most advanced audio interface).

For everyone I want to share what helped and what not.

Throttle stop didn’t made any noticeable changes, so I removed it.
Parkcontol didn’t do any effect ( but as I mentioned it was deactivated anyway, so it might help for people where parking is activated normally)
All Bios changes didn’t lead to any improvement, but I got errors when I did run a memory test, so bios is set to Default.

Now the changes I did:

I run the high performance powersetting that is created when activating it in cubase, but I reduced the 100% values to 99%. I can’t say it has an massive effect, but the spikes seam to be slightly flatend.
on the advanced windows system settings/power I checked max performance, I set to optimized for background activities and I set the virtual memory to 9054 MB

Onr external App that made an effect is process lasso (free version).

I set Cubase to
cpu priority - always high
Cpu affinity - always (uncheck core 0 and 1)
Cpu Stets - check all even numbers (0,2,4,6,8,10..)
I/O priority - always high
Memory Priority - always normal

Also I did that for all audio interface exe:
( In my case iRig, Moto M4 and Neural DSP Quad Cortex)

cpu priority - always high
I/O priority - always high
Memory Priority - always normal

I set audiodg to
cpu priority - always high
Cpu affinity - always Core 2
I/O priority - always high
Memory Priority - always normal

And this actions improved my performance. It’s comparable to the Mac now.

If I should be able to make any more progress, I will share. Thank for your help so far.

vinark · June 21, 2025, 7:26pm

Cheers! Well done, honestly.

andy4 · July 22, 2025, 4:21pm

Hi Kevin, well done glad you have solved the issues for you. sadly Im in a very similar boat right now, ive a top of the range PC spec, and is perfect on any other DAW. - ONLY cubase Im having this issue with so I cant use it, and its bothering me as to why!.

Ive however, tried some of the things you have. but did not seek any benefits, in fact the lasso made it worse somehow.. so I rebooted, confirmed and tried again.. and still worse then aswell.

Tried using the special steinberg scheme, but no difference either.

This is running one synth. and a few empty tracks. (just group tracks) - sitting idle..

I the flip side. - studio one pro with 82 Tracks. 75 VI’'s and full prcessing mostly all UAD/Softube and the like. - I get 22% max CPU .

So, Either something freaky is going on. - or this was never meant to be for me.

Intel Coreultra 9 285K CPU
6000mts Memory

Any suggestions anyone?

mlib · July 22, 2025, 4:45pm

What is the actual issue? Are you getting audio dropouts? Clicks/pops?

kevin_frustrato · July 22, 2025, 5:13pm

Yes, you can hear clicks & pops and sometimes like freezes. And also its very random, sometimes you boot and it works quite fine and the next time (everything is the same) it peaks again. Also I recognized it with different audio interfaces and drivers etc. Its quite frustrating on an expensive windows laptop, when a 5 year older and much lower hardwear mac runs better.