Colin Nicholls

Cakewalk By Bandlab is currently free to download and and I would be surprised if it can't open those old project files. There may be some plugin license issues, if you've used them. Also, I don't think "9" was a valid version number. The last version was 8.5 if I recall correctly, before Sonar X1 came out.

Heat stroke is a real thing and can do real damage. I don't know where you're based, Bit, but so much of the country is sweltering right now... no-one should be working outside, it's a serious health risk. You gotta protect yourself.

nVidia can get pushy with their drivers and odd software that wants to run in the background, but apart from that, I've not had any problems running with an nVidia card in my DAW.

Advanced Audio Export dialog: Try altering: Format > Dithering; Format > Bounce Buffer size; Mix and Render > [x] Render in Real-time

Looking for a PCI internal audio interface? I have a venerable but top-tier 8in 8out + MIDI device available for the cost of shipping. Well-tested, and works great with Windows 10/64-bit. Updating this post to reflect the fact that this offer is no longer available because someone took me up on it ?

Now that the hardware is in my hot little hands, and the installation bugs (mostly) ironed out, I can confirm that the integrated UHD 770 GPU is not posing a problem. Everything looks great and seems snappy. I realize that's not all down to the video but whatever.

I think I have found the root cause. After all the above, I was more convinced it was due to a specific plug-in, probably one i used a lot, that was misbehaving. I opened the Synth Rack and opened each VSTi properties window in turn, until Modartt Pianoteq 4 informed me that it was not activated. (I'd previously activated v.5,6,7, and 8, but this project - and many others - still used v.4). Once I'd cleared the activation prompt, the UI now responds as expected - smooth and un-interrupted. I am relieved. Given how consistent this visual thing was, and how it went away as soon as I cleared the activation prompt, I'm thinking this must be it. (98% sure) I would love to ask Modartt exactly how and why this happens, though. THANK YOU EVERYONE WHO CONTRIBUTED ADVICE TO THIS THREAD. YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST

Haha good suggestion but my clips pane is scrolling okay, just the UI response is being jerked around. The screen grab doesn't do a great job of showing this but there's four places I've noticed the periodic momentary UI freeze behavior now: Rearranging Control Bar modules Aim Assist tracking the mouse Now Time playback Vertical scrolling the Track Pane I think there must be a common root cause here.

I have updated the top post with a link to a LiceCap screen capture of the issue. More comments up top 2023_Video_Freeze.gif

It was set to "1" . I have set it to "2". It did not appear to make a difference. Good thinking, though.

@scook, re: Anti-Virus software: Good thought, I'll investigate @mettelus, re: Wireless Mouse: don't use them. Wired all the way. @promidi, re: Disabling C-States/Speedstep: I thought this was related to Core Parking which I've definitely altered. I'll do some more research on this although it seems to me that "here be dragons" Also, it bugs me to mess with something that should work in our favor: Parking on Idle = good Looking at the performance monitor module, I wonder... does Cakewalk have an upper core/thread limit? Lots of good information here: https://discuss.cakewalk.com/index.php?/topic/34270-how-to-assign-cakewalk-to-use-all-the-cpu-cores/ @Traveler, re: optimization guide Thanks! I'll review, and post if something makes a difference. This forum is the best, have I said that recently? Onward!

Uh, no, I haven't. That's another good idea. I was about to try the "remove Intel integrated video driver" trick you mentioned above, but instead I had a thought. Cakewalk is not my only DAW: I use Studio One's project page for album mastering, or at least, I used to. (Cakewalk's Audio Export dialog + Arrangement lane - I confess - has largely made that unnecessary) but i still keep it around, and in fact, I recently took advantage of an email offer and upgraded from v.3 to v.6, but hadn't installed it on this new machine yet. Well, I just installed it, and downloaded the Alina Smith demo project. Okay, look, I don't want to turn this into a brand war or anything. For me, this is just another data point: Studio One playback and video redraws was flawless. And that "Rhythm of the Night" demo is pretty heavy as plugins goes. I'm not super-familiar with how to read S1's performance monitor but the CPU meter was hovering at 15% which kind of feels about right. This makes me feel a lot better about my choice of hardware :-). The issue no longer feels like an intrinsic CPU- or Video- driver problem. It feels more like some kind of configuration problem on the Cakewalk side. I want to call this all a "clean Cakewalk install" but the truth is, it may be picking up stuff from my C:\Users or C:\ProgramData folders that I restored as part of moving my files over. That said, I've never experienced this kind of issue in my last two DAW upgrades. Maybe I need to reprofile aud.ini or something like that, could it be that simple? I'm doubtful. I will try it, and also the other things you've suggested. For me, this is still an on-going diagnostic project.

It just does feel like a video driver issue doesn't it. I think I'd have to put the nVidia card back in the slot, or maybe it would revert to "generic video adapter" or some such. And, good call on sysInternals.

Good question. I think if you are not experiencing performance issues then you don't need to worry about it. It's good for laptops and other devices that need to conserve power and aren't running real-time applications. I wouldn't have worried about it either, except that I'm clutching at CPU-shaped straws. In my case it clearly does something because the CPU performance histogram changes substantially.

Concerning networking: I disabled my network adapter, and opened Cakewalk and the project. Noticed that it seemed to stick for a while during loading plugins, on BREVERB BREVERB wasn't activated, and was complaining about demo mode. I reconnected to the Internet, and authorized the plugin with my serial number. Disconnected from Internet. Re-opened project. Commenced playback - no change. Issue persists. Conclusion: The root cause doesn't appear to be related to the availability of the Internet/network. Have I really authorized ALL the plugins? Next Steps: I have difficulty believing this is related to my Focusrite USB interface which is my backup device. I currently don't have a backup-backup but I'm waiting on the delivery of a new Thunderbolt audio interface, so when it arrives, we'll try comparing. And, no doubt, deal with other problems I've not yet known related to Thunderbolt.

Not that I've noticed, JnTuneTech. I'm familiar with Task Manager ?

Thanks for the advice, good ideas, some of which I was part way into implementing when your response came in. Concerning the GPU: Video refresh rate is 60 Hz and seems optimal. The monitor is Viewsonic VP2770 and is native rez at 2560x1440, 100% scaling. Trying a separate NVIDIA graphics card showed that it did not appear to be video driver or GPU hardware related. Basically, I could see no difference. There's a setting in Windows Settings that appears with the nVidia card installed, "use hardware acceleration". I don't remember seeing it before. Setting it ON made no difference. I have since removed the card from the chassis and returned to the integrated GPU. Concerning CbB project size: Obviously I first saw this issue when I opened one of my large-ish projects (not to get into a size comparison here. My older DAW had no issues with it). There is a relationship between size of the project and display update behavior. Opening a tiny project (one track of piano driving Modartt Pianoteq) showed NO TRACE of the hesitant or freezing. I tried opening a second, large-ish project and observed even worse laggy scroll and play back display updates. This bothers me because it doesn't seem to be a specific plugin that I can pin this on. If this new box can't handle an average sized project that my last box (i7-8600 , 6 cores) handled with no issues, then color me very depressed because as Lord Tim says, this hardware config shouldn't even be breaking a sweat. And... it's not. I mean, performance monitor is barely registering. During playback: Next things to try: Disable WiFi/Internet/Networking Turn XBox Game Mode on?

Help! My new DAW is exhibiting jerky video display redraws, very distracting. RESOLUTION: There was a plugin in my project that was performing a periodic activation check on the UI thread, causing the screen redraws to be interrupted. I discovered this by opening each VST property window in the project in turn, until Modartt Pianoteq 4 displayed with a "Activation Needed" popup, which is otherwise completely invisible. After clearing the activation warning by activating the plugin, the screen redraws returned to normal. Obvious Clues in hindsight: Audio playback was smooth and unaffected; only visual effects observed The problem was consistent and apparent whether playing back or just manipulating the UI while the project was open: Scrolling up and down in the Track View Observing the Aim Assist line "sticking" as the mouse cursor moves about Observing Control Bar modules "sticking" when rearranging them The NOW time indicator and current M:B:T display would "stick" during playback Changing CPU related parameters such as core parking, thread optimization, etc, had no effect Smaller projects with few or no plugins played back with no visual interruption Other DAWS played back complex projects with no visual interruption (*) This was a new computer and much software had been freshly installed, user settings transferred, and licensing prompts acknowledged and dismissed. I hope this helps other folks who may be trying to solve similar issues in the future. ORIGINAL POST: Any advice gratefully received. Here's the details: Problem description: If I scroll up/down with the mouse wheel, the Track View updates in fits and starts. (whether playing back or idle) During playback, the NOW time marker horizontal motion freezes every few seconds, along with the transport time indicator display also freezing happens for less than a second every few seconds, consistently. Note: Audio playback appears to be rock solid and sounds great if I close my eyes and don't look at the screen Steps taken so far: Checked for accidental engagement of CPU-save mode (Pause/Break key). Not applicable (can only make it worse!) Checked Performance monitor for Core-parking. Yes it was happening Installed and used ParkControl to configure power profiles that disable core parking. DID NOT FIX ISSUE (but might have reduced it slightly) Background: It's a new DAW! Intel NUC Extreme Dragon Canyon form-factor Intel i9-12900 processor (16 cores, potentially 24 threads) Video is using integrated GPU, intel UHD 770 32G RAM, SSDs, the works Currently using Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 USB 2.0 Audio interface (ASIO) Next steps: Although I feel the integrated graphics should be fine - @msmcleod concurs with this - I think maybe the next step is to try installing a separate GPU? I have a NVideo card from my old DAW I could install and try and see if I see a difference. BIOS settings I should try? I feel like this should be a speed demon out of the box, frustrating! Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this one Additional notes Performance module, before disabling core-parking: Performance module, after disabling core-parking: ... I have no idea why the "used" cores have moved around. UPDATE: Here's a video of the issue. Typically it was super-aggressive until I activated LiceCap and then it wasn't so severe. But it is still visible. The low frame rate makes it a little harder to see also: LiceCap gif of issue Observe: See how the Aim Assist and Performance Module do not smoothly track the mouse See how the NOW time and M:B:S indicator freeze momentarily and periodically during playback

Nice video, excellent signal-to-noise ratio. And, I learned something: I really have to become more friendly with the Browser tab.

YOU BEAUTY @scook is the MVP This worked. @Noel Borthwick, I guess in the big scheme of things this might be a minor issue but if you would like me to collect some data on this specific issue, now would be a good time ?

Ooh, I did not think of that. I'll try when I'm back at the DAW. Thanks for the tip.

Yes, that box is checked :-). Then I realized that the installers put both versions on the disk so that couldn't be it. Next step may be to dig out the older installers - or, bite the bullet and fire up the old computer and see what patches I'm using so that i can rebuild using the version 4 VSTs. In the programming world we call this "paying technical debt"

CbB, sorry, old-school guy here

Hi there Forum denizens, So I've been building a new DAW over the weekend, and installing software - as you do. One of these was the KORG Collection 4 set of VSTis. (The installation includes both VST and VST3 plugins.) Unfortunately, when I open projects that used, say, the KORG M1 VSTi, Sonar barfs while "Loading synth data". Drops out to desktop. This does not happen when i create a new project and insert an instance of Korg M1 - naturally. I know I can hold down SHIFT during loading and open my project... and then futz around and replace the synth.but my question is, have any of you encountered this issue, or similar, with the Korg plugins?

It makes it difficult to know which products are worth investing in. (I mean, investment of time and expense as a tool we use to make music; not financial investment. ) We got incredibly lucky with Cakewalk/Bandlab, but I'm still very leery of any software that needs activation or phones home. (let alone "subscription")