Surprise, surprise I have a problem with Cubase using a phenomenal proportion of RAM and causing plug-ins to crash and then causing its self to crash.
I have explored several other threads on this forum and others and concluded that this problem is down to RAM usage, I’m going to throw some numbers at you in the hope that a) you can tell me if these numbers look normal, b) if there’s anything I can do about it and c) if not, what’s the next step!
For reference: Windows Vista 32bit, 3GB DDR2 RAM, Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.40GHz processesor
Cubase with no project open: Process 67,124K RAM 1.19GB ASIO Usage 0
1 track, with plug-in on: Process 287,500K RAM 1.42GB ASIO Usage 30-40
2 tracks, with plug-in on: Process 412, 048K RAM 1.54GB ASIO Usage 40-50
3 tracks, with plug-in on: Process 534,600K RAM 1.66GB ASIO Usage 50-60
NOTE: Process and RAM taken from Windows Task Manager, when referring to ‘plug-in’, I refer to Amplitube 3.
You can clearly see here the increase in RAM usage and ASIO usage (I’ve documented ASIO usage as from what I’ve read it could potentially be related to the problem). ASIO Usage taken as an approximate fro the VST Performance window inside Cubase.
The situation is that in a 8 track project, with 7 tracks using Amplitube and 1 track using another plug-in called Addictive Drums, the Process reads at 1,485,984K and the total RAM usage at 2.39GB
This is very high RAM usage for a computer with only 3GB and I believe the source of the crashing, for when I add a new track and apply Amplitube to it, it comes up with an error message ‘no audio’. Having researched this, I put it down to excessive RAM usage by Amplitube because it was open and turned on for all of those seven tracks, so I went into the VST Audio Channel Settings window and turned Amplitube off on each track thinking this would reduce RAM usage, therefore enabling me to use Amplitube on a new track.
However, having watched Task Manager whilst opening this problematic track, it appears that Cubase uses the increased amount of RAM per extra track regardless of whether the plug-in is turned on or off. This means that the computer is still using nearly 2.4GB of RAM, about 80% with the track sitting open, and therefore won’t allow me to apply Amplitube to a new track. When I try to, I get the ‘no audio’ message and most of the time this is followed by Cubase crashing.
I believe the problem here is the RAM because when I try to add Amplitube to an 8th track, the RAM usage suddenly drops by 200MB, indicating that perhaps it has reached a peak and so the computer is forcing a decrease, like its reached a cut-off point. I’m not the worlds techiest person and so I can’t so definitely whether this is the right conclusion, all I know is that from reading other threads, it sounds like a fairly safe conclusion to reach.
The upshot of this is is there anything anyone can suggest that may help, or is there any other conclusions anyone can see from my number watching???