How to assign Cakewalk to use all the CPU cores

[George D]

I have an AMD 3950x with 16cores (32 threads). I'm mixing or exporting a track but the cpu usage doesn't go above 25%.

Many projects need more cpu power (I have spikes etc) but Cakewalk doesn't use the remaining cpu power.

Any ideas?

[scook]

different processor, similar issue

note the replies

 

[John Vere]

 

[George D]

1 minute ago, scook said:

different processor, similar issue

note the replies

Thanks Scook.  Do you have the issue while mixing too?

 

 

[scook]

Me personally?

I have never really had a problem.

But my DAW use may not mirror yours.

[George D]

5 minutes ago, scook said:

Me personally?

I have never really had a problem.

But my DAW use may not mirror yours.

I'm asking if cakewalk use all the cpu power when mixing.

[Andres Medina]

May be this is what you are searching for: 

(from Help):

"Use Multiprocessing Engine. This option is grayed out unless you have a multiprocessor computer. If you have a multiprocessor computer, check this option if you want Cakewalk to use both processors at all times. If you do not check this option, Cakewalk still uses the second processor for some tasks."

More info here: http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=0x22B19

 

[George D]

14 hours ago, Andres Medina said:

May be this is what you are searching for: 

(from Help):

"Use Multiprocessing Engine. This option is grayed out unless you have a multiprocessor computer. If you have a multiprocessor computer, check this option if you want Cakewalk to use both processors at all times. If you do not check this option, Cakewalk still uses the second processor for some tasks."

More info here: http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=0x22B19

 

Unfortunately not.

[Teegarden]

1 hour ago, George D said:

Unfortunately not.

I would anyway select Multiprocessing Engine together with Plug-In Load Balancing:  

"When Use Multiprocessing Engine is enabled, the Plug-In Load Balancing option allows you to distribute plug-in processing across multiple cores".

You also might want to play with the Thread Scheduling Model settings (2 and esp. 3 as a more aggressive setting)

I've got a Threadripper 1950x and all cores are used very well...

If you want more juice, you could consider overclocking (I know it is usually not advised to overclock, but in this case the experts seem to agree, including our Microsoft developer on the forum Pete Brown) your memory. Especially Ryzen benefits from it. Here's some information Ryzen RAM overclocking.

Just staying on the safe side I already managed to get an overall increase of 20% by "mildly" overclocking only memory on a former PC build.
A slight GeForce overclock card can also make your system feel much snappier without making it instable:   

If you want to go really deep, you can also have a look at this guy's YouTube channel: FR33THY Windows Tweaking

There are plenty of good YouTube videos where they explain everything in detail.

Don't forget to use tools like LatencyMon in order to identify possible issues (oh, and of course, all the other standard Windows 10  tweaks, like disabling powermanagement on USB ports, WIFI etc. You can find much about that on the forum).
 

Consider freezing tracks if you still have issues 

[George D]

2 minutes ago, Teegarden said:

I would anyway select Multiprocessing Engine together with Plug-In Load Balancing:  

"When Use Multiprocessing Engine is enabled, the Plug-In Load Balancing option allows you to distribute plug-in processing across multiple cores".

You also might want to play with the Thread Scheduling Model settings (2 and esp. 3 as a more aggressive setting)

I've got a Threadripper 1950x and all cores are used very well...

If you want more juice, you could consider overclocking (I know it is usually not advised to overclock, but in this case the experts seem to agree, including our Microsoft developer on the forum Pete Brown) your memory. Especially Ryzen benefits from it. Here's some information Ryzen RAM overclocking.

Just staying on the safe side I already managed to get an overall increase of 20% by "mildly" overclocking only memory on a former PC build.
A slight GeForce overclock card can also make your system feel much snappier without making it instable:   

If you want to go really deep, you can also have a look at this guy's YouTube channel: FR33THY Windows Tweaking

There are plenty of good YouTube videos where they explain everything in detail.

Don't forget to use tools like LatencyMon in order to identify possible issues (oh, and of course, all the other standard Windows 10  tweaks, like disabling powermanagement on USB ports, WIFI etc. You can find much about that on the forum).
 

Consider freezing tracks if you still have issues 

Thanks @Teegarden for the analytic answer but I've already tried the plug-in load balancing and thread scheduling model with no result. 

LatencyMon, with no result too..

About the overclocking, the problem here is that Cakewalk doesn't uses all the processing but only 25% of my cores. 

The same project in protools running without any problem.

 

[Teegarden]

1 hour ago, George D said:

Thanks @Teegarden for the analytic answer but I've already tried the plug-in load balancing and thread scheduling model with no result. 

LatencyMon, with no result too..

About the overclocking, the problem here is that Cakewalk doesn't uses all the processing but only 25% of my cores. 

The same project in protools running without any problem.

 

In that case I would post a support request and see if the staff can get to the bottom of this.

[Panu Pentikäinen]

I think plug-ins are the bottleneck in exporting audio: if one FX is slow and uses only one core then the others need to wait for that. 

[Michael Vogel]

Audio benefits more from processor clock speed than it does in the number of processing threads/cores. Thats just the way it is and theres no setting to change that.

You maybe referring to the meter that Cakewalk displays showing how the various cores are utilised. You’ll notice that there’s at least one that seems like it is being over utilised at the expense of the others. Thats natural though as audio is a really a single threaded process not spread across a number of cores. It’s just not something that can be manipulated in multiple parallel streams. Just the nature of the beast. While there are numerous processes involved that will be handled by other threads, the bulk of the processing power goes to the audio which will be handled by one thread.

Now I’m just a layman and trying to keep it simple as I understand it. I’m sure that someone may come along and do a much better job of explaining it but that wont make a difference to the bottom line which is as I stated in my opening comment. You’d be much better off with a processor at 5.0 GHz with 8 cores than one at 4.0 GHz with 16 cores. Hope that helps even though its not what you’d like to hear.

Edited October 7, 2021 by Michael Vogel

[George D]

55 minutes ago, Michael Vogel said:

Audio benefits more from processor clock speed than it does in the number of processing threads/cores. Thats just the way it is and theres no setting to change that.

You maybe referring to the meter that Cakewalk displays showing how the various cores are utilised. You’ll notice that there’s at least one that seems like it is being over utilised at the expense of the others. Thats natural though as audio is a really a single threaded process not spread across a number of cores. It’s just not something that can be manipulated in multiple parallel streams. Just the nature of the beast. While there are numerous processes involved that will be handled by other threads, the bulk of the processing power goes to the audio which will be handled by one thread.

Now I’m just a layman and trying to keep it simple as I understand it. I’m sure that someone may come along and do a much better job of explaining it but that wont make a difference to the bottom line which is as I stated in my opening comment. You’d be much better off with a processor at 5.0 GHz with 8 cores than one at 4.0 GHz with 16 cores. Hope that helps even though its not what you’d like to hear.

No, doesn't happen that also. There is not a peak of one core which causes the problem.  Also the problem remains if I overclock the cores from 3.5 to 4.5 GHz.

But if you read my previous post, the same project in pro tools works perfectly.

[bitflipper]

On 10/5/2021 at 3:31 PM, George D said:

I have an AMD 3950x with 16cores (32 threads). I'm mixing or exporting a track but the cpu usage doesn't go above 25%.

Many projects need more cpu power (I have spikes etc) but Cakewalk doesn't use the remaining cpu power.

Any ideas?

First, it's not up to the user to tell an application how to distribute the workload across cores. That's automatic, and it has to be that way. An explanation as to why that is would fill a book, and has indeed filled several. Parallel processing is a tricky business.

Second, seeing 25% CPU usage at the top of the CW window is not a bad thing. It just means the CPU has had enough time to process the data before having to spit out a buffer-full of data to the interface or to the disk drive. That's what you want to see. The CPU isn't slacking off; it's not a spigot you can open wider to get more work done. (That would be analogous to replacing the CPU with one that runs at a faster clock speed.)

Now, if CW isn't using all the cores (actually, it can't use them all because Windows needs some), that's another matter. Although it is possible for the user to limit the number of cores that a program can use, by default Win10 assumes you want to use every core available, so you have to go out of your way to limit an application to N cores. Consequently, any time you see a core's usage drop, it's because the DAW is doing something at that moment that can't be further divided into separate tasks until that something finishes. That, or the O/S itself has some high-priority task that must take precedence, such as servicing an IRQ.

There was a time when we'd tell Windows to give the DAW priority in thread scheduling, so that more CPU cycles could be dedicated to our primary application. We don't do that anymore because it's as likely to screw up performance as to improve it. You can, however, take a look at background tasks that might be competing for resources and see if any of them can be disabled during your DAW session.

[George D]

6 minutes ago, bitflipper said:

First, it's not up to the user to tell an application how to distribute the workload across cores. That's automatic, and it has to be that way. An explanation as to why that is would fill a book, and has indeed filled several. Parallel processing is a tricky business.

Second, seeing 25% CPU usage at the top of the CW window is not a bad thing. It just means the CPU has had enough time to process the data before having to spit out a buffer-full of data to the interface or to the disk drive. That's what you want to see. The CPU isn't slacking off; it's not a spigot you can open wider to get more work done. (That would be analogous to replacing the CPU with one that runs at a faster clock speed.)

Now, if CW isn't using all the cores (actually, it can't use them all because Windows needs some), that's another matter. Although it is possible for the user to limit the number of cores that a program can use, by default Win10 assumes you want to use every core available, so you have to go out of your way to limit an application to N cores. Consequently, any time you see a core's usage drop, it's because the DAW is doing something at that moment that can't be further divided into separate tasks until that something finishes. That, or the O/S itself has some high-priority task that must take precedence, such as servicing an IRQ.

There was a time when we'd tell Windows to give the DAW priority in thread scheduling, so that more CPU cycles could be dedicated to our primary application. We don't do that anymore because it's as likely to screw up performance as to improve it. You can, however, take a look at background tasks that might be competing for resources and see if any of them can be disabled during your DAW session.

Cakewalk is set to High Priority and all similar stuff about music producton performance etc. As I said to my previous posts, same PC, same project but Cakewalk suffering but Pro Tools working without any problem.

[bitflipper]

By "problem", do you mean PT exports the same project in less time?

[George D]

1 minute ago, bitflipper said:

By "problem", do you mean PT exports the same project in less time?

No, the audio when I play the project during mixing or recording has peaks, clicks etc.

[David Baay]

If the issue is clicks/pops/dropouts when streaming audio in real time, you probably have issues with Deferred Procedure Call (DPC) latency spiking. Check it with LatencyMon, and go after the usual suspects: WIFI and Bluetooth drivers:

https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

Also be sure to disable CPU-throttling functions in BIOS like Speedstep and C-States as well as turning off all Windows power-saving measures. 

 

[George D]

3 minutes ago, David Baay said:

If the issue is clicks/pops/dropouts when streaming audio in real time, you probably have issues with Deferred Procedure Call (DPC) latency spiking. Check it with LatencyMon, and go after the usual suspects: WIFI and Bluetooth drivers:

https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

Also be sure to disable CPU-throttling functions in BIOS like Speedstep and C-States as well as turning off all Windows power-saving measures. 

 

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