Cubase Pro WIndows Audio Performance question

Cubase
1

Cubase Pro allows more audio and midi channels, more VSTis, more Insert and Send slots, than Cubase Artist and lesser versions.

My PC is quite a pro spec: i7 7700K 4.2 Ghz, 64Gb RAM, Radeon RX Vega 64 graphics, separate SSDs for OS and media. RME audio card with low latency.

Yet, before my projects approach the limits of even Cubase Artist numbers of channels/instruments/inserts, audio performance grinds to a halt.

My buffer is set at 4096. no other applications are running. multi-processing is enabled. Task Manager shows CPU at 40% load. Memory 24%.

But Cubase’s audio performance meter is permanently in the red, and playback stutters.

I have frozen every instrument and audio track.

I’m using industry standard plugins: Waves, Sonnox, Soundtoys, Spectrasonics.

What is going on?

Any suggestions?

I could get a new PC, with a 20% faster CPU. but given that Cubase is only using 40% of the current CPU, would that help?

Could the Cubase application give us more information about where the bottleneck is?

What number is the “audio performance” meter using?

Could it gives us a breakdown by channel?

Why isn’t there an option to freeze a group channel?

2

You should be all set there. Have you done what this article suggests?

Optimizing Your Computer for Audio - Windows 10 – Knowledge Base | PreSonus

Pay attention to the USB connection as it describes in the article, make sure they do not turn off with inactivity. Also, with the Radeon graphics card (or any video card), install ONLY THE VIDEO DRIVER, not the AMD fluff, and yes, the installer DOES give you the option to avoid the fluff. Then in Device Manager you will see that the video card also installs some audio drivers? Disable them, along with the MB audio drivers (Realtek, etc.). All you want is you interface device to operate for sound. Also skip the install of iTunes, it’s a hog of a different type.

You’ll get it sorted. All the Best.

3

mr.roos, thank you for linking that great article and for your positive vibes!

I will apply some of the suggested measures and report back.

4

Hey , did you have any luck fixing this?
Im having issues with cubase 11 pro and the audio performance maxing out when my cpu ( 5950x)
is at around 15%
12 tracks of audio and vst instruments and its cutting out. Its like its only seeing one processor instead of 16
Defo not hardware, i tried a test in studio one and had 129 tracks of vst instruments with plug ins with cpu at around 40% and no glitches.

any help appreciated

5

No I never fixed it. All I found that helped is: (1) when performance is in the red, make sure you don’t have a channel selected with a lot of processing because Asio Guard or something will add extra load. So if I get stuttering, I park the cursor on an empty midi channel outputting to nothing and that helps. (2) maximum buffer on the audio interface of course.

6

Thanks for the reply , I’m sorry you didn’t have any success.
It sounds almost identical to the problems I’m having .
if I stumble on a fix ill post it here , but I’m running out of things to try .

7

Studio → Studio Setup

Select Audio System in the Devices list.

Check activate multi processing is enabled.

8

thanks for the comment Simon.
I have multi processing enabled. I believe I have all obvious settings in the right place and have tried almost all possible variations of everything.
I ran cubase elements on a 2nd gen i7 for many years with no issues whatsoever.
Cubase pro on a Ryzen 5950x performs significantly worse than the old system.

However last night it was obvious that all cores were being used , audio performance was still at almost 100% but there no audio glitches . not sure if it was something I changed or just happened, doubt it will continue to work tho… seems to always be on the edge

1 Like
10

The exact same thing is happening to me, and I also have a good machine. Cubase is not being able to manage even 30% of my PC which is an i7 AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core, 32GB DDR4 RAM, Windows 10 and an ASRock x470 Taichi motherboard. I have tried absolutely all possible configurations and I would say that I am having even worse performance than in 32-bit versions of Cubase and worse than other free-to-use DAWs. And the most curious thing is to see how Cubase is no longer capable of managing more resources and my computer is not even suffering. Please someone help us with this, and hopefully we can get it resolved.

11

check multiprocessing is on.

Check that the calculation space is 32 not 64.

Don’t select a channel with a lot of live instruments on it.

Maximise buffer.

Consolidate some plug-ins, freeze some channels.

some people say there are things you can do in the BIOS in terms of virtualisation and hyperthreading and so on but I never got much out of that.

My understanding is that the bottleneck is your audio interface and the way the Cubase talks to it. it’s quite normal for Cubase audio “performance” to max out even though the machine is only using 30% of CPU and RAM. Because Cubase is architected for real-time playback with a small buffer, keeps everything just-in-time and nearly live, and doesn’t do any preview pre-rendering.