…and my original reply should have said ‘half as much power as Cubase’ rather than cpu.
I think your machine is out of kilter, inasmuch as you have a fast ssd disk drive, but not that much memory.
Have you run dpc latency checker on your system?
Steve.
I ran DPC Latebcy Checker for the first time today actually. It seems like there aren’t any issues there as it stays well within the green 99.99% of the time. I noticed once or twice that it would go into the yellow zone for literally a second and then back to green but this only happened when for example I was launching or quitting Cubase.
Here’s a couple of screen grabs, taken whilst a project is playing. CPU in my resource monitor shows about 34% peaks, 27.5% average for Cubase and VSTBridge combined. The ASIO monitor shows about 70% average. This project plays absolutely fine, it’s not a heavy enough project to cause audio dropouts but it still illustrates the issue.
The second screenshot shows memory resources and maybe this is part of the problem as there is very little free memory available (I’m not a PC expert so not sure how ‘normal’ this is?)
Your second screen shot shows you are out of physical memory (RAM) which would suggest you are then using the page file. That would then most likely be the cause of your problem, as plectrumboy suggested.
If you can, try adding more RAM to your system, I think 8GB is the minimum these days…
Mauri.
I think I will probably upgrade the RAM but am also debating a complete PC upgrade to a 4930k CPU. My RAM shortage could definitely be an issue but I do suspect the CPU useage is the main problem. My i7 920 is overclocked to 3.8GHz. I just tried putting it back to the non-overclocked 2.66GHz and Cubase performs far worse as you would expect. A project that plays fine with the overclock (ASIO meter at about 70%) will not play at all with the CPU at original clock speed. I guess I could try a RAM upgrade first and if that doesn’t improve the situation, I can still use the RAM in a new PC build so will not be wasted money.
Seeing how close you are to filling your current memory I wouldn’t beat around the bush, at least double it.
I would definitely try the extra RAM first, especially, as you say, it would not be wasted anyway.
Mauri.
A quick question if that’s OK. Sorry about the off topic. I have the same machine as you, MoBo/Processor/Memory. Did you replace the stock CPU fan before over-clocking? And if not, what steps did you take in the process?
I’m also planning a new build but not until next summer. In the mean time a little more power wouldn’t go amiss, but not if it means piddling about replacing the CPU fan.
Thanks in advance 
I’m using this cooler (there’s a few different revisions of it, but whichever one fits the i7 920 socket is the one I’m using):
I’m no expert in overclocking (this is the first time I’ve done it) but I think if you’re just running the stock cooler you will burn up your CPU quite easily with an overclock.
Seems to me that lot’s of these chips are begging to be overclocked and it was quite simple to do and runs perfectly so I’ll definitely plan on overclocking again if I build a new PC. You definitely need good cooling though. Considering my cooler cost £40 and allows me 50% extra CPU speed it’s a bargain. Lots of people push these CPU’s even faster but I think the process then becomes much more complex and time consuming. For me it took a couple of hours of research (mainly Youtube videos) and a few hours to actually perform/test the overclock and that was as a first timer.
Can’t remember for sure but I think this is the video where I got most of the info from:
Thanks. Still thinking about it. So far I manage reasonably well without over-clocking but then, the UAD cards and the PoCo help.
Like I say, I’m thinking of updating my machine in the not too distant future so I need to consider whether it’s worth spending money now on a new fan that may be redundant in just a few months.
Cheers
back on topic…
this was a great thread because I just built a system (i7 4770 Haswell) and was a bit shocked how different my Cubase performance meter was compared to my system meter.
I too, like J-S-Q, thought ASIO performance would be pretty much dictated by CPU/Memory/HD/etc.
I’ve also tried a project with no 32Bit plugins (and hence no VSTBridge running) and the situation is pretty similar, possibly a slight improvement. I have the ASIO Average Load meter at about 95% while the project is playing (LOTS of plugins) and my CPU average is at about 50% with the highest spike I’m seeing at 59%
I’ve now upgraded my RAM to 12GB and it’s made no difference at all. Windows performance monitor is showing about 40% free memory so that can’t be the problem. Kind of frustrating to see 60+% of my CPU power go unused when Cubase is maxing out. Possibly I just need to upgrade the whole computer unless anyone’s got any other ideas?
I just bought:
i-7 6700 cpu @3.40GHz
16GB RAM
250 HD SSD
My ASIO is 85% my CPU not more then 50%
Audio Hardware RME Baby Face Pro.
What can i do in order to start using the whole potential of the PC?
Note: I have read this tread and try suggested things as ASIO guard and other.
Have you run DPC latency checker? This is a good way to check for any processes that are affecting real-time audio streams.
Which version of Windows are you running? Steinberg say their tests of the most up to date Windows 10 show a drop in efficiency.
It may be that 85% efficiency with 50% CPU is not a bad figure.I’ve read some people here say that while the ASIO load quickly goes high, it’s not necessarily linear - so you could keep loading your system and ASIO goes up some more, but cpu load starts to increase more quickly.
Have you looked at the Windows resource manager within task manager? See if the CPU load is evenly balanced between your cores. I had a problem where some video redraw tasks for some reason appeared to take place on one core out of six, so the CPU load was very unevenly spread.
Steve.
try looking at page 1080 in the user manuel for Cubase 8.5 and take a look at this Steinberg link
https://www.steinberg.net/nc/en/support/knowledgebase_new/show_details/kb_show/optimizing-windows-for-daws.html
try looking at page 1080 in the user manuel for Cubase 8.5 and take a look at this Steinberg link
https://www.steinberg.net/nc/en/support/knowledgebase_new/show_details/kb_show/optimizing-windows-for-daws.html
I have optimized the windows 10 in all that is possible.
The 8 cores are all working without peaks and equal.
Page 1080???
It feels like it has a protection to not overload the CPU. __
_yes read the cubase manual from page 1080. Mabe it can help you optimize http://download.steinberg.net/downloads_software/Cubase_Pro_8.5_and_Cubase_Artist_8.5/8.5.0/Manuals/docs_en.zip_
