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CPU Performance Meter


Johnbee58

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I've taken notice that lately the CPU Performance meter on CbB is at 60% on both Disc and CPU levels when I start CbB, before anything is even loaded (Start Screen).  I don't keep an eye on it regularly but I don't remember in the past it being that high when nothing is going on.  Yesterday I was running a project that has 5 synths loaded into it.  The CPU performance went up to 79% but it didn't burp.  I'm just wondering if this is something I should be worried about.  I have added more plugins recently to my cache.  Could that have something to do with it?  My system is a Core i5 processor with Windows 8.1.  I can't think off hand what the RAM is, but I think it's in my sig below.  Just wondering if this is a problem with my PCs memory.  I ran all the utilities that came with the system and a virus check and everything there is fine.  Should I defrag the HDD?  I haven't done that since I got it 4 years ago.

Thanks;

😀John B

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It was always my understanding that unless all cores of the CPU are at 100%, there is still things it can do.

That being said (it is theory of course...) if it doesn't sound like a problem, then it's not a problem.    Though, I'd close down anything that is not relevant to what I was doing.  Those background processes can be more intrusive than you think.

Good luck!

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If you have any installed software with "auto update" , there is possibility the update changes how they utilize CPU. In my case, last week I update my antivirus & malware guard, and turns out they add the percentage of the CPU by ~10% for their initial background process for like first 15 minutes after Windows login.

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If in doubt you can open the Resource Monitor and see each core load.

CRTL+ALT+DEL->Task Manager->Click on Performance tab->Click on Open Resource Manager (at the bottom)->Click on CPU tab->On the right is the CPU usage for each core. You might have to click on the arrow pointing left at the top right of the screen to expand it.

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It isn't necessarily a problem, but worth some investigation because it could become a problem for future, larger projects.

Defragging doesn't hurt anything, but probably won't address the high disk I/O you're seeing. And of course it won't do anything at all for the high CPU.

What you're seeing may actually have little to do with the project, but rather might be indicative of some other high-CPU processes that are running in the background.

A DAW's "cpu meter" is an indirect measurement of CPU usage. It's really based on how much time is needed to service audio buffers. Your meter is not showing that the DAW is using up 60% of the available CPU cycles; it is showing that the CPU is taking 60% of the time available to assure uninterrupted audio. It's a significant distinction. Most important, it does not indicate exactly what those CPU cycles are being expended upon and therefore cannot distinguish between what's going on in your project versus what's going on with, say, your network adapter.

Start by getting a baseline. Open the Windows performance monitor after rebooting. Let the system settle down for 5-10 minutes and make note of what the resting CPU, I/O and page faults are. If it remains high, figure out which processes are consuming the most resources. You might solve the mystery right there.

Next, start up the DAW. Ignore the metrics while the DAW is first initializing. After a minute or so, compare the perfmon numbers to what they were before starting the DAW. Other than RAM usage, they should be essentially the same. Open a blank project - again, the numbers should not change significantly. Load up your favorite synths (give any sample-based synths time to load) and then check again. If any of them add a significant amount of resource usage, you've found your culprit.

Synths (and many effects) typically use CPU while idle, but it should not be excessive. Some older synths and fx go crazy with silence, being unable to distinguish it from random noise. If you have that problem, there are plugins available that will fix it so that you won't have to abandon a favorite plugin.

Make sure you haven't inadvertently changed your ASIO buffer size. The number shown in the DAW's cpu meter reflects how much of the available time is being used to fill output buffers. Larger buffers means fewer of them per second, so more time between them. That's why the meter readings go down when you bump up the buffer size, regardless of whether excessive system resources are being consumed within or external to your DAW.

 

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Thanks to all.  The problem is I don't really know if this is a problem or just typical of my system performance.  But I do remember at some point in the past seeing the Performance Meter (in CbB) at no more than maybe 1/3 of the way up on both the disc (top) and memory (bottom) numbers at start up, ie, nothing running and at the Start Screen.

The Audio processing ladders to the left don't seem to move much, no matter what's going on.  I see a smidgon of movement there, but not much, even with EZ Keys, EZ Drummer2, Trilian Bass and Kontact Player loaded.

My projects are all MIDI except vocal tracks, but since my system is a Core i5 I could never run a project with all of these instruments running plus the plugin effects, so how I work is each part of the project is done in smaller projects, then processed to audio and mixed.  I'll do the keyboard and drums first in one project, then I'll render them as an audio "guide"track for the other parts (including bass, vocals and whatever embellishments I use) then I process them all to audio tracks and create a "master mix" that way.  It's a "work around" that works for me in that I'm not limited by lack of memory for what I want to do.  Maybe others do similarly and maybe not, but that's my favorite workflow.

I did a defrag yesterday (took 2 hours).  As Bitflipper indicated, it did nothing as far as the CPU usage, but some of the apps load a bit faster.

My main reason for being concerned isn't so much what I'm running in the music making process, but I'm worried about something (virus maybe) stealing memory (I think they used to call them memory "holes').  I don't do much online stuff on that PC as it is dedicated to music making, so the only time I go online is to download updates for my music apps.

😀JB

Edited by Johnbee58
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Which meters are you looking at?

The left vertical meter is CPU usage.

The upper horizontal meter shows project HDD space used - a mirror of what's displayed in "This PC". If you open a project stored on a different HDD, the meter will change to reflect that HDD.

The HDD icon lights up when the project is reading/accessing the HDD.

The lower horizontal meter shows total system memory and will also change per project.

http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=AudioPerformance.20.html#1238403

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I browsed the responses, so if I missed that someone already mentioned this, my apologies.

You can set what the meter is reporting on. Audio Processing/System Performance/Overall App Performance. The details are here.

Maybe you changed your meter preference and that's why you're seeing a different level. Just a thought.

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12 hours ago, Noel Borthwick said:

Is your CPU meter set to measure audio performance or system performance?

In answering your question, it was monitoring Audio Performance when I opened it this morning.  But I switched it back and forth between the 3 selections (Audio, System, Overall App) and they all said the same reading (59-60%).  Again, this was from the Start Screen with no project running. 

I updated video drivers a few weeks back because I was getting a blue screen error.  Could that be the cause?

🙂JB

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It sounds very much like you've got the dreaded "Windows Diagnostic Tracking Service" problem.

What is it? It's a system update to earlier versions of Windows than Win10, that monitors what goes on on your PC and reports it back to Redmond. Nice eh?

Yep, you've guessed, I had it too on my Win 7 laptop setup. The symptoms are usually constant high CPU and disk activity.

I cured mine by running "services.msc" (in the little box, bottom left, when you open Windows Start) and looking for and then disabling the four following processes:

1. Diagnostic Policy Service,  2. Diagnostic Service Host, 3. Diagnostic System Host, 4. Diagnostics Tracking Service.

It's the last one that sends the data, the others spend an inordinate amount of time and energy collecting it.

 

I looked it up on line, and found more than one web site that described the problem and gave solutions for stopping it.

My laptop now runs just fine with all four services permanently disabled, but you'll want to check it out yourself.

Diagnostics.jpg

Not sure whether this procedure works in Win8.1 tho'.

Edited by JohnG
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2 hours ago, JohnG said:

Not sure whether this procedure works in Win8.1 tho'.

I see all 4 of them here on Windows 8.1

and as far as I can tell, your right they are useless.

Im not sure I would throw in all my cards and say this is the OP's solution but I appreciate this info as I hadn't heard of it before.

 

 

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On 9/22/2019 at 3:07 AM, Johnbee58 said:

CPU Performance meter on CbB is at 60% on both Disc and CPU levels when I start CbB, before anything is even loaded (Start Screen).

CPU performance is shown by the vertical histogram bars at the left of the module. They will never be displayed before a projectt is loaded and the audio engine is running.

The two horizontal bars are Disk Space and System Memory Usage. Both are for the whole system, not just Cakewalk. If you're seeing ~60% on both, that's just indicating that the hard drive where Cakewak stores audio is 60% full, and the OS and all running apps on the system together are using 60% of RAM - not hard to do if you have  a lot of apps open, and only 4-8GB. 

None of this is a problem, unless your RAM usage is that high with only Cakewalk running, and no project loaded. 

EDIT: Oops. Looks like I missed some posts. Sorry if my info is redundant.

Edited by David Baay
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25 minutes ago, Chuck E Baby said:

I see all 4 of them here on Windows 8.1

and as far as I can tell, your right they are useless.

Im not sure I would throw in all my cards and say this is the OP's solution but I appreciate this info as I hadn't heard of it before.

No, no guarantees, but it could make a difference. I see with some people's PCs it had quite an impact.

It made a difference to my old Lenovo laptop running Win7 pro (x64).

Certainly worth a try.

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Never did photo upload here.  Don't know how to make them full size, but you can see the meters pretty good regardless.

Top is empty project w/ Start Screen. Both horizontal meters at about 60%.

Bottom is loaded project with 5 instrument plugins running.  Top horizontal meter remains @ 60%. Bottom horizontal meter is reading 77%.

Empty.JPG

Loaded.JPG

Edited by Johnbee58
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