Do your screens have G-Sync / FreeSync by any chance ?
What do you call “lag” exactly ? Is your screen refreshing at full speed and Cubase frame rate drops, in which case it stutters , or is it the screen refresh rate that drops (in the case you have G-Sync / FreeSync ) ? If the screen refresh rate drops you can see the frames take longer to render and when moving the mouse around you have more latency, is that what you call lag ?
Your issue sounds like a screen/settings problem, not a Cubase problem. If the issue was coming from Cubase it would affect all Cubase windows at the same time and not just one.
I’ve tried my monitors with both FreeSync on and off and it made no difference.
The only thing that lags is the scrolling. Any plugins open don’t lag, the mouse doesn’t lag, meters don’t lag. Nothing lags except how smooth the scrolling is. It goes from jittery and sluggish to buttery smooth randomly.
I don’t have this issue with any other application than Cubase. Including games.
I see. Does this happen during playback too ?
So you’re saying that if you put the plugin on the screen where the scrolling lags, the plugin and other stuff remains smooth, except for the scrolling ? On the video you only show the scrolling without anything else moving on that same screen, so it’s hard to tell, since plugins and meters are on the left screen.
Odd… Seems to be related to when your main project window is not in focus. Have you tried opening up windows explorer on the right screen, and then without closing it trying to scroll left/right on the timeline? i.e. so something external has focus.
(Presuming you’re using a mouse action for this scroll of course)
You could try using the numpad +/- on your keyboard too, to see if it’s truly a display issue and not related to mouse scroll behaviour on inactive windows - i.e. is it possible you have different scroll rates set per application and that’s incorrectly swapping modes?
Wish I had dual monitors again to try this out myself, it may be something that’s always been there but never noticed. Out of curiosity is your left or right screen the primary display? And do you know if they are the same refresh rate?
The exact issue is tricky to see on that video, but I can appreciate how more obvious it is in person. What’s not clear is whether those vertical timeline bars are tearing or not - that would give a better indication on the cause.
It may be worth setting a high tempo project and enabling the stationary cursor option as a test too? This will make Cubase continuously scroll for you in a constant manner for testing.
On the contrary, it is when I shift back and forth between focuses as I said above. It acts smoothly if it is not in focus, but as soon as I switch the focus to the timeline, more than often it lags.
They’re both the exact same monitor, so same refresh rate.
Yes, it is more subtle to look at than to experience first hand, but it just feels incredibly clunky while it is happening. It’s like the difference between going from 60fps down to 30ps in a game every 5 minutes or so.
I was wrong. The lag DOES affect plugins, which makes me think it IS a Cubase dropping frames problem. Sorry all. It was so subtle I hardly noticed it. But take a look at the meters on Cinematic Rooms here.
Update: I seem to have fixed the issue for now by rolling back my graphics drivers. Unfortunately doing that breaks a few other things since it’s less compatible with Windows 11, but, that’s not on Cubase but rather AMD and Windows.
For AMD users experiencing this issue, try rolling back your drivers. My apologies to the Cubase team for pointing fingers. Case closed.
You could have tried with a youtube video playing in the same screen where it lags, if the video lags too then it could confirm the issue is external to Cubase. I’m sorry that I didn’t suggest this earlier.
This could also be a Windows problem with recent drivers, or specific settings to do with those.
I’ve done this, nothing seems to lag except cubase. I play games as well. All smooth sailing.
Although, I’ve seemed to confirm that it did have something to do with my graphics driver, even if it is a problem unique to Cubase and AMD cards. Either way, I’ve fixed it for now.
Yeah, this could just be the driver settings for the Cubase.exe program, or something new got released (or default settings were changed) with recent versions, and it interferes with Cubase, hence installing a previous version fixed it in your case.