I recently did the $149 upgrade to Pro 8.5. I am running a PCI-E 650Ti at 2560x1440 resolution which feeds my dual 25" 1440P ASUS monitors.
I’m seeing weird behavior such as the bottom meter line going MAX when dragging windows, when switching a preset on any given plugin etc. My rig is an i5-2500K with 16GB RAM, SSD drive, clean Windows 10. I have done all manner of BIOS tweaks, NVIDIA tweaks, etc. Steinberg power profile, ASIO guard settings, you name it.
I just need to know, FLAT OUT, IS THERE A KNOWN issue with Cubase 8.5 and Windows 10 and NVIDIA cards and drivers? Would I be better off using a comparable ATI card?
I say NVIDIA because after a lot of googling I am starting to see commonalities with NVIDIA users and the CPU spiking and weird meter behavior.
There has to be something going on with this… Any input/experiences/etc are greatly appreciated.
The HD3000 only supports 2560x1440 resolution out of displayport which my mobo does not have on board, only HDMI and DVI.
I realize that the HD3000 would be fine if I was using 1920x1080 resolution but fortunately I am using 1440p and need a graphics solution that is capable of delivering a dual display at that resoultion of a dual link DVI connection which is typically only found on newer generation NVIDIA or ATI cards.
So… just to re-ask. Is there in fact a known issue with NVIDIA chipsets/cards/drivers and Cubase 8.5? Would buying any ATI card help my issues or is it a moot point since there appears to be a deeper problem entirely with all things Cubase 8.5 and Windows 10 and pops and clicks and CPU spikes and such?
You could buy an ATI card and find out. I have never had any of these problem in any of my desktops over the years and I have always used ATI (now AMD), I also avoided the gamer cards and got ones without fans so they are silent. At the moment I’m using just the Intel graphics.
The only problem I have ever had was on a laptop with built-in Nvidia graphics. That was also evident when testing with DPC Latency Checker, the Nvidia driver was clearly the cause. The workaround on that particular laptop was to turn off all power-saving options.
The demands of games are very different to the demands of realtime audio, but the gamer market is much bigger than the audio market so it is natural to expect that drivers will be optimised for games rather than audio. Now, I don’t know if that is true of the drivers for your specific Nvidia card but there is in fact only one way to find out.
There is no general issue with nVidia, but a few system specific problems, yes.
When using nVidia, I usually recommend to install the bare driver and check the ‘clean installation’ option - in case of an existing installation, uninstall PhysX, nVidia Experience, 3D, besides the usual optimisation. Nothing new here, it is also recommended to not install CCC for ATI cards and Management Suites from mainboards manufacturers.
Further to this, we spotted issues with some Quadro cards in combination with core parking on a few systems, mostly X99 boards with 6-core CPU… quite specific… but the cases were half a dozen in all, not enough to make any general statement, really.
On my DAW systems I generally use ATI passive cards (used a few, 5450, 6450 and the one I’m still using today, the 6570)… so, I second MrSoundman’s opinion, also about avoiding gaming cards. The GPU resources needed nowadays are slightly higher that before, but any low-mid range GPU with 2GB will do with no problems (mine has 1GB and had no problems even running hundreds of plug-ins which use OpenGL).
Thank you for posting, Fabio. I am going to go ahead and order an ATI card online and see how I get on. I have a sneaking suspicion that something is afoul with Nvidia and Cubase 8.5 until a bug is discovered. I’ve seen too many forum threads (here and elsewhere) that all point to Nvidia as the primary culprit.
Late to this post but I agree, lose the Nvidia card. I use AMD/ATI and its drivers. Just make sure you - after you install the latest drivers - you remove all the other AMD things (Catalyst). CClean will help you do this, btw. Also, FWIW, you CANNOT upload the latest AMD driver without adding Catalyst, so do spend some time learning how to remove this fluff. IMO, it is the Nvidia fluff that causes the DAW problems and I think that once it is onboard, it is there forever. Good luck.
Well, problems can indeed occur and it’s certainly not new. There are several threads here which are related, there are problems periodically, often due to different driver versions that won’t work fine under certain conditions (like the issue with a few selected plug-ins in combination with specific driver revisions on Cubase 7). Note that also with ATI you can stomp in problematic driver versions, although in my experience less often.
There’s a lot to consider, the ongoing improvements due to gaming or OS compatibility, the boosted priority of the video tasks, especially with powerful cards with complex software suites and more. Here it’s worth noting that nVidia always installs a control panel, in a DAW it is often needed to go thrugh the settings and disable filtering, optimisation, 3D options, buffering, etc. With AMD you can install the driver only using the custom installation, which perhaps makes it easier to get right.
I have an older AMD RADEON HD 6570 on the way. 1GB card, I chose it because it has dual full size displayport output and will drive my 25" at 2560x1440 with no problem and is not a “gamer card”. I will post results of LATENCYMON and my overall cubase experience after I swap the 650Ti I have now with the HD 6570 card.
Believe it or not, that’s the very card I had in my previous build and it worked very well. I think mine was a re-brand and had DVI-D plus HDMI instead. No problems whatsoever but only load the basic driver and not the CCC as Fabio recommends.
Insanely better performance with ATI card. INSANELY better. Running latencymon the ATI driver is nowhere to be seen, whereas the NVIDIA driver was going completely ape sh*t.
I would suggest to anyone with NVIDIA card to swap to ATI - this is my personal experience and could be specific to me, though not likely due to seeing so many mentions of NVIDIA in other threads.
Soo… perhaps if someone is having wacky issues on their DAW PC, if you have an NVIDIA card ditch it for an ATI.
This ATI was used for $20 and has dual Displayport driving 2x ASUS 25" at 2560x1440p wonderfully. HD6570.
Well done!