Cubase 6.5 OS X Performance

Hi - I recently got Cubase 6.5 for OS X 10.7 and I’ve noticed I don’t get particularly good performance on my Mac Pro (dual quad-cores and 8GB of RAM). With < 10 tracks containing audio and VSTs, the VST performance meter occasionally hits red and I hear crackles / pops on playback. The VSTs are things like DIVA, Omnisphere, PianoTeq, and DCAM Amber.

As a comparison, I loaded up the same sort of template and session in Ableton Live and Studio One v2 and they were nowhere near the CPU load that Cubase’s meter was showing. Everything running at 128 buffer size.

Wondering if anybody had some advice on how to optimize Cubase on my Mac?

Thanks!

Steinberg should have ideas, but I’m afraid, they don’t. :frowning:

OSX is not as good at low latencies in Cubase as other platforms. Your problem is mostly caused by trying to run at 128 samples - 256 will work a lot better, 512 better still. If you need to run at lower latencies to play the VSTi’s I suggest freezing the ones already recorded.

I have stayed with Snow Leopard because it is easily the best OSX up to that point - I understand that Lion may be less capable in that regard.

Thanks! Any other suggestions?