New i9 processor = constant Real Time peaks [SOLVED]

Nuendo
1

Just upgraded i7 PC to i9 which has made a huge speed difference and my buffer size is now down to 48 samples from 512 and everything appears to be playing smoothly.

However, on the VST Performance panel it is showing constant Real Time Peaks, sometimes even maxing out even when a project is in Stop mode (not running).

Setting ASIO-Guard to ‘High’ reduces the Average Load by about a half, but the peaks still continue.

Is this normal or can the peaking be prevented:

See vid:
Real-time Peaks.gif

2

Processing capacity and real-time performance are two separate things. I would suggest checking with LatencyMon or a similar software to figure out if a process is bottlenecking your real-time performance.

However from your .gif it seems that it’s an issue with a plugin or instrument you’re using inside your DAW.

Cheers

3

It seems to be related to the audio buffer size. The lower the setting, the more pumping there is on the real time peak meter. But it is not so prevalent if I open the same project in N10.3.

4

LatencyMon did point us in the right direction.

There were several BIOS settings to be adjusted - Disabling C-states, the on-board audio interface and Hyper-threading, dynamic performance options etcetera all helped, but I think the most helpful ‘tweak’ was to the disable energy-saving options in favour of continuous operation, and within that create a Power Plan - Then, most importantly, go to Change plan settings ▸ Change advanced power settings ▸ USB settings and disable the ‘USB selective suspend settings’.

Now everything seems to be running smoothly.

Interestingly, after doing the above, running LatencyMon causes the entire system to grind to a stuttering halt if the audio buffer is set to below 256 samples! - close LatencyMon and the system restores itself and runs properly. Makes me wonder how accurate LM actually is.

1 Like
5

Hey Chris,

Thank you for posting this. I just made some of these tweaks to my setup and WOW! This is unbelievable.

6

I just followed all the advice given in a Steinberg document called 'Windows-10 - How to setup a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW).