Weird display issues

[winkpain]

I've been having occasional weird display issues lately. I am on the latest update, but not sure if it's from the update. First this:  [Edit: The issue shown in this video only occurred during one session and has not reoccurred since]

 

Also, whenever in the main PRV the moving playback cursor leaves trails of randomly placed vertical lines behind it as it goes. These lines disappear if I simply move my mouse or change the screen view briefly, but they continue to generate again if playback is still going.  This one I have tried to do a screen capture while it's happening, but when I view the captured GIF, the superfluous lines do not appear despite having been generated while recording.

 

Any ideas about this very odd behavior?

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 17, 2022 by winkpain

[David Baay]

See the Visual Effects tab in Advanced System Settings for Windows and set it to "Adjust for best appearance" if it isn't already. I haven't seen this for a while, but in the past there have been issues with the Now Time Cursor display when some options were disabled.

Edited March 16, 2022 by David Baay

[Will.]

45 minutes ago, winkpain said:

I've been having occasional weird display issues lately. I am on the latest update, but not sure if it's from the update. First this:

 

Also, whenever in the main PRV the moving playback cursor leaves trails of randomly placed vertical lines behind it as it goes. These lines disappear if I simply move my mouse or change the screen view briefly, but they continue to generate again if playback is still going.  This one I have tried to do a screen capture while it's happening, but when I view the captured GIF, the superfluous lines do not appear despite having been generated while recording.

 

Any ideas about this very odd behavior?

 

 

 

 

 

That definitely your PC. Hardrive full or busy acting up. Could be CPU as well. I clean out my system fans every 4 months and replace CPU thermal paste when needed. 

[winkpain]

25 minutes ago, David Baay said:

See the Visual Effects tab in Advanced System Settings for Windows and set it to "Adjust for best appearance" if it isn't already. I haven't seen this for a while, but in the past there have been issues with the Now Time Cursor display when some options were disabled.

Yup. It's already set that way. Thanks, tho.

[winkpain]

23 minutes ago, Will. said:

That definitely your PC. Hardrive full or busy acting up. Could be CPU as well. I clean out my system fans every 4 months and replace CPU thermal paste when needed. 

Hmmm. Hard drive has got over %15 free. It's a laptop, so I wouldn't be comfortable opening it up and removing CPU for fresh paste. Best I can do is vacuum it from the vents, but.... really? You think this is definitely what is causing it?  Does it mean something bad is likely about to happen? It just started.

[Will.]

5 minutes ago, winkpain said:

 Hard drive has got over %15 free. 

And there's your problem. Everytime you add a effect it consumes memory and the more effects you use the larger the project becomes. Pro Tools don't even allow you to record if you have less than 200GB available on your hardrive. Although every other DAW allow this, you're likely to run into issues such as performance issues. 

Then there's background app as well. What's the specs of the Laptop? 

 

[winkpain]

15 minutes ago, Will. said:

And there's your problem.

My problem is having over %15 free? What do you mean? Certainly not that I should have UNDER %15 free for better performance.
 

25 minutes ago, Will. said:

Everytime you add a effect it consumes memory and the more effects you use the larger the project becomes. 

I am well aware of this. It is not my proverbial first rodeo. The project is MIDI only on a single piano plugin with no effects.

I am on a machine custom built and set up by PCAudio Labs that I have been working on professionally and successfully for 4 years - Windows 10 64bit, latest updates, 3.5GHz i5 CPU, 16 gb RAM, NVIDIA GTX 970M video card with latest drivers (2/2022)

Perhaps not the absolute cutting edge latest/greatest hardware specs, but...  nothing has been recently changed in that regard. And I have added nothing in terms of programs or plugins in the last 6 months or so. The free space on the HD has not changed. In fact, I have cleared out stuff and made more room most recently.

This weird cursor trails display thing has only just started in the last week.
 

[winkpain]

....For what it's worth, the issue exemplified in the video only happened once and has not reappeared. The trailing playback, but randomly spaced, Now Time Cursor lines continue and only happen in the full PRV, whatever the grid resolution - not in the inline PRV for example.

[Will.]

43 minutes ago, winkpain said:

My problem is having over %15 free? What do you mean? 

Well, normally when someone say more than 15% - they are staggering close to having 15% free space available, they are close to that percentage. I'm just saying.  

FWIW: Windows 10 requires at least 50GB to run somewhat okay'ish and Cakewalk about 20GB. Thats 70GB between the two. So to run smooth you at least need 150GB (250GB recommended) free at a limited capacity. Without seeing any lagging and performance issue. There's users with 240GB SSD that are complaining about performance issues. 

 

[winkpain]

5 minutes ago, Will. said:

Well, normally when someone say more than 15% - they are staggering close to having 15% free space available, they are close to that percentage. I'm just saying.  

FWIW: Windows 10 requires at least 50GB to run somewhat okay'ish and Cakewalk about 20GB. Thats 70GB between the two. So to run smooth you at least need 150GB (250GB recommended) free at a limited capacity. Without seeing any lagging and performance issue. There's users with 240GB SSD that are complaining about performance issues. 

 

Not to belabor the point, Will, but none of the foundational specs have changed on a professional system that has not been suffering performance issues for the years of use in it's current state. This issue started a week ago.

However, it doesn't effect my audio workflow except for a little minor awkward confusion while it is displaying, so I will assume no biggie here unless hearing or experiencing otherwise.

 

[Will.]

2 hours ago, Will. said:

Thats definitely your PC. 

Like I said. Things are getting old. That's all I meant. You cant drive a car five years without a service. 

[winkpain]

I guess I'd want a second opinion, or some other indicator on the machine, in its performance, or anywhere else. Before a tear-down, hardware reconfigure,total upgrade, that is. But I do appreciate the first guess.

Machine was actually serviced by PCAudio Labs one year ago.

 

Edited March 16, 2022 by winkpain

[57Gregy]

Doesn't 15% free also mean almost 85% full, i.e. running out of space?

[Byron Dickens]

My math is pretty terrible but I think so.

[Xoo]

% free is unhelpful.  15% on a 1TB drive is a lot of space; on an early 64GB SSD...not so much.

I don't buy this anyway: if you have enough spare space, you have enough spare spare, whether what is needed is 1GB,1MB or 1 byte.

Windows 10+CbB takes up a fairly small amount of disk space anyway if you're keeping temp folders etc clean: I have those plus other media apps and some Office components installed and it takes uo no more than 30GB.  Just don't keep all your data on the Windows partition, not that we do that anyway, do we?

[Will.]

20 minutes ago, Kevin Perry said:

% free is unhelpful.  15% on a 1TB drive is a lot of space; 

15% on a 1TB = 150GB. Creating a project on it will introduce performance issues. You are likely to run into dropouts. Plugins such as iZotope, Kontakt libraries, Waves effects (even if they are stored on an external drive) consumes a lot system resources.  

20 minutes ago, Kevin Perry said:

I don't buy this anyway: if you have enough spare space, you have enough spare spare, 

Although this might be true when visually, when you have a project open not so much. When your CPU and Ram are under constraints - they looking for memory else where - like the hard drive. So good luck experiencing a performance free system. 

[John Vere]

5 hours ago, Will. said:

15% on a 1TB = 150GB. Creating a project on it will introduce performance issues. You are likely to run into dropouts. Plugins such as iZotope, Kontakt libraries, Waves effects (even if they are stored on an external drive) consumes a lot system resources.  

Although this might be true when visually, when you have a project open not so much. When your CPU and Ram are under constraints - they looking for memory else where - like the hard drive. So good luck experiencing a performance free system. 

Sorry I have to disagree with part of this. 
First unless you’re scoring a movie sound track, normal projects on a computer with lots of RAM should not be using HD space. You open the project and it is stored in RAM not the HD.  
I refurbished a older laptop for remote recording. All I had at the time was a 120GB SSD. After I had installed W10 home and CbB and all my free plug in’s it was sitting at about 50%. Mostly some of the sample libraries. 
It now has over 300 CWP files on it and sitting at about 75 %. 
It’s definitely slower than my main DAW and it only has 8 GB of RAM. But it runs smoothly with out issues. 

[winkpain]

I do, as always, appreciate the feedback here. Thank you. But I feel like all this focusing on space, 'tho a worthy issue of discussion, is perhaps off-topic, as I see no evidence or definitive suggestions that this must be the situation I am suffering. I have followed advice to maintain at least %15 free on my main drive for years now with no adverse effects. Indeed, the drive has been at that capacity for a couple years now and this minor issue (I say minor unless someone can logically show it to be otherwise) began only last week. Only Windows and programs reside on the drive (SSD) in question. All data, projects, TEMP folders, scratch disk locations, and many plugins are on greater capacity auxiliary drives.

Besides CW, I use Ableton, SpectraLayers, Sibelius, SoundForge, Premiere, all with running/following playback cursor lines as well as many other more intensive visual real-time display feedback. There are no issues anywhere with these applications, nor in Windows itself. Indeed, in Cakewalk it is only within the full PRV that this issue appears. The in line PRV, for example, does not exhibit this behavior with the Now Time line, nor is there evidence anywhere else within the CW environment of display or performance issues. I also run Latency Monitor regularly (and have recently) and it continues to show nothing but LOW green meter response. I do not believe there is cause to think that I am at hardware/system/capacity end of life scenario.

I would certainly want more evidence or explanation to determine that hardware or drive capacity issues are likely to blame.

[Xoo]

5 hours ago, Will. said:

15% on a 1TB = 150GB. Creating a project on it will introduce performance issues. You are likely to run into dropouts. Plugins such as iZotope, Kontakt libraries, Waves effects (even if they are stored on an external drive) consumes a lot system resources.  

  5 hours ago, Kevin

So a 128GB drive with 128GB free works fine; a 1 TB drive with the same free doesn't?  That makes no sense, which is why talking in % free is illogical.

And if your project needs to suddenly grab that much disk space on opening...something is screwy.  It just doesn't happen.

[msmcleod]

@winkpain - any recent graphics driver updates?

You could also try running Cakewalk using the internal Intel graphics card to see if its any different.

FWIW,  I've got Cakewalk running on an 3rd gen i7 and 3rd gen i5, both running at 3.4GHz, and both using the onboard graphics,  and have no issues with either, hence my suggestion.