I had peaks after disabling MP on my LARGE projects but that’s because you obviously lose horsepower when you turn off the MP. That is different from the freezes. Are you testing with a heavy project?
I used to get freezes by simply loading one VST Instrument and playing it live. That is gone now when I turn off the MP. Obviously this is not a good solution but hopefully it would help Steinberg zero in on the problem.
Just tested demo track “Live Forever” @ 64 buffer on Mac Pro 3.33 hex core. 24GB RAM.
C7 running at 32 bit mode.
C7 seemed to use a little more CPU than C6. (I did take into account and disabled the missing plugs, Brickwall limiter and Tube Compressor)
C6 averages about 20% on the Cubase CPU meter and stayed around 110% averaged on the mac activity monitor.
C7 averaged closer to 25% on the CPU meter and started out around 110%, gradually making it’s way up to 140% on the mac activity monitor.
So, it’s certainly not a show-stopping difference for me here, but there is clearly an increase in CPU usage for C7, as asked by the poll.
(Personally, of more concern is the considerably increase of mouse clicking required to maneuver around essential mixer functions…)
For me the title of this poll was incorrect or didn’t address the problem so many Mac OS users are having. I don’t have a performance problem. I can run a large project and the usage is low. The problem is the 2 to 5 second spikes that occur every 5 to 6 minutes. I know what a performance issue sounds like and how it behaves. You get stuttering and pops and constant spikes. That is not my issue. I can have 1 VSTI loaded and out of no where it will pause for a few seconds while it spikes. There is an obvious tick or bug.
I have yet to work on any full-fledged projects on C7, so I cannot confirm or deny those types of issues here.
As I mentioned in my small-type, my issues are how the mixer re-design supplants a refined work-flow with a streamlined appearance. Yes, there are some cool and much welcomed power-user features in the mixer for sure, but try as I might to re-orient myself with the new mixer, I keep going back to C6. It’s just faster to mix on…
i am a first time cubase user from logic and live.
still use live…and was planning to rewire it to cubase for mixing.
i really like how cubase looks an how simple it is, but the performance on my macbook book retina is a joke.
i load 1 instance of 2caudio b2 and as i change presets it spikes and audio drops for 3 seconds.
pretty pathetic. and i am a very positive person, i am just happy i bought cubase artist 7 and not full version.
i already put artist 7 up on craigslist and hope it sells.
too bad cause i really like the program, but i will never go to a pc to enjoy it.
bye bye cubase.
I had peaks after disabling MP on my LARGE projects but that’s because you obviously lose horsepower when you turn off the MP. That is different from the freezes. Are you testing with a heavy project?
My workloads are reasonably heavy - but note that I do NOT use any virtual instruments and rarely do studio style live tracking or overdubs.
I sometimes use Midi in the tests to run a simple control surface via USB.
I have a dummy Midi track defined in all projects to allow me to export marker information to my own locally written Cue file generation program, but the track never has any midi IO or other events in it and is never edited.
My current reference EDIT is a 12 track mixdown/mastering combined project of a 70 minute live ethnic music concert where I clean up things and break the performance up into patter and music sections and edit it to a Stereo .Wav master and .Cue file for release.
To do this I use 1-3 plugins for EQ and compression/limiting on nearly every track.
I use two EQ plugins, MBC, Limiter and Dither on the Stereo output to master the mix.
I do not use third party or any of the new channel strip plugins other than EQ to keep the project exactly compatible with Cubase 6.5 so that I can move back and forth between them for comparison.
Currently, editing consists of working through the entire mix trimming levels, tweaking cue points and fiddling with the EQ and panning.
I have not added any automation to any of the test projects yet.
I’m working with an Edirol FA101 8 channel firewire interface 44khz/24 bit for the mixdown tests (A great reference device since it uses Class IO and has no drivers on the Macintosh).
When testing with control room active: I have 3 stereo outputs defined - one for main mix, one for control room and a second control room output with some plugins to correct one of my reference headphones.
Without Control Room: I use one stereo output pair for the Main mix / control room.
My Reference Recording tests use a Phonic HB 1024U - which also uses the Class drivers and so needs no custom drivers. For these tests, I’m using the Firewire interface (not the USB 2.0) at 44.1khz/24 bit to record an identical test audio stream from a radio station to 18 tracks for 1-2 hours per test, using the 2 channel return as the stereo control room/ main mix output.
I’ve also done some testing with the Edirol and Phonic as an aggregate device with 24 channels of input, and a control room and two auxiliary headphone outputs split across the two devices.
In addition to monitoring for Processor overload alets, VST Performance and Apple’s Activity Monitor, I check for dropped samples across all tracks after each recording test.
Like you, I’m seeing the usual need to increase buffer sizes to accomodate heavier VST processing loads in the live recording tests - especially as I add features like the control room, meter bridge and open plugin windows - but things are scaling just as they always have here in Cubase 4, 5 and 6.5.
I get stable results (no monitoring breakup or processor overload warnings) with buffer size 256 for the recording tests, increasing that to 1024 for the aggregate device test - this seems to always be needed if I aggregate output devices - otherwise lower latencies still work. For the Edit tests I use 512 with no playback breakup. (of course when I’m actually recording a concert, I’m usually more conservative in these settings).
The “Freeze” scenario is something different and I am only seeing it with Cubase 7 when MP is turned on, and then it seems little related to workload - although it seems to get somewhat worse as workload increases. I’m seeing it even on projects with a single stereo track and no plugins.
hope this info isn’t too boring…
M
Looking at the specs of people who are having spikes I notice they only have 4GB of ram which I think is cutting it fine. Cubase 7 uses more ram than 6.5 so this maybe a cause.
I have 4 gig and I’m seeing the drops.
Sorry typo I mean only have 4gig
Apple generally ships a minimum amount of RAM with stock machines for a good user experience. That current rigs shipping with 10.8 come with a minimum of 8GB RAM says something. Unless you’re regularly just running small projects, I would expect modern DAW users should have a minimum of 12GB for smooth performance, no matter the DAW. (though 8 might be fine too) 4GB is way to little memory for 2013…
Well you may be on to something. I figured what the heck and went and purchased new memory tonight taking my 2009 MacBook Pro to 8 gigs. I’ve been testing the last hour and so far not one spike or audio drop on a heavy VSTi project. I even lowered the buffer back to 512 and i’m hovering around 25% average. I still get a MUCH better performance with AG off but so far not one audio drop or spike. It would appear C7 just would like to be fed a little more … at least in my system. I’ll keep testing but for those of you having the spikes and audio drops you may want to make a trip to the store for a $50 memory investment.
I’ve 16gb of Ram on Macpro and 8Gb ram on Macbook pro, with cpu spikes so it’s not a memory upgrade issue, probably big incompatibility with Native Instruments Komplete or others, maybe some problems with asio driver? I dont know. I’m using RME UFX latest asio version. Another big problem it’s quitting the application, somethimes the mac freeze and i’ve to force quit, restart the mac, reopen cubase etc. And a lot of other issues on mixer graphics, compressors etc etc. Problems with AG, also C6.5 does not load C7 songs.
I dont want annoyn more man, but C6.5 does not have these kind of problems. I definitely back to 6.5 for my professional work, there are problems in C6.5 also but I can live with. 
Actually I posted to soon. I meant to go back and delete my post. After playing with more songs sure enough the spikes and drop outs returned so it’s not a memory issue. I agree, at least in my case Komplete may have something to do with it. 90% of my projects run Komplete 8. I might experiment more tonight and just for a test switch all my patches to Padshop and Halion and see if they continue.
Just curious if anyone has tried turning off Hyperthreading? I was reading over the forums at NI (Komplete) today and saw a lot of posts about turning it off helped eliminate spikes. Some of them were old but I thought i’d see if anyone has experimented here with turning it off.
Hi,
how can you turn off hyperthreading in OSX?
I would like to try that.
Anyone?
Regards,
Paul
No, AFAIK hyperthreading is static on Macs and cannot be disabled.
Also, I have 64GB RAM and very heavily loaded projects and Cubase is barely stable enough for me to keep my sanity. I push forward nonetheless.
Actually it can be turned off with XTools. It’s a free download from Apple.
I’ll take your word for it. Question is, does it offer any benefit to Cubase on Mac? Has anyone tested this?
EDIT: I’m testing it right now. Will see if it improves performance or not.
Preliminarily, I’ve found using this terminal command IS persistent, and disables HT permanently even after sleep/reboots/shutdowns.
sudo nvram SMT=0
Are you still seeing spikes?
I started booting my MacBook in 32bit mode (hold 3 & 2 keys down after pressing the power button) and it appears to be helping. I still have to set my buffers high but I’m not getting the 2 second drops. Can someone else test this and see if you get the same results?