Klemperer.
SyncHey there. I’ve picked up the Podium from Computer music magazine and I’m getting along with it great. I appreciate the free giveaway and think I will be sticking with it and buying the full version for the updates when they come out.
Now I appreciate the amount of work you do regarding peoples issues and such (I took time to read alot of previous forum posts) and you listen to every single one, you don’t see that kind of service or dedication elseware in the audio-soft world so it’s very impressive. Many thanks.
I have issues with CPU performance. I have tried various demos of Various software and was the recent owner of Cubase SX 3 (sold now to start a fresh, :D) and must say that Podium is alot harder on the CPU than most others I have tried and owned. I work almost entirely with software synths and notice the CPU not holding very well when I open quite a few VSTS. Whilst with Cubase I have never even become close to maxing out the CPU, on Podium this seems like it’s very easy to do 😥
From what I can tell you are working your socks off to make this work and I understand this isn’t cubase too so shouldn’t be comparing as such but I would just like to outline the point to you and see if this is a known thing and because I would like Podium to do so well in all areas?
I’m running an AMD 3.4 Ghz
1 GB ram, 120gb sata x 2
Nvidia 7600 GT 256mb
EMU 1212m with correct asio drivers/settings (checked 😀 )
Many thansk, and definitely keep up the good work!!! 8)
ZynewaveHi,
I’m not aware of any plugin CPU consumption problems with Podium. I’ve also spent quite some time optimizing the engine, so as far as I know, there are no areas left that needs to be optimized.
Is your problem that the Podium CPU indicator reaches 100 sooner than it would in Cubase? Or does the audio start to crackle before reaching 100?
Some things to check:
Try increasing the ASIO buffer size a notch and see what this does to the CPU performance.
Check that the engine is running in 32-bit and not 64-bit mode.
Check that multiprocessing is enabled (if your AMD chip supports that).
SyncHey there,
Yes the problem is that even just a few synths open and working put the CPU up meter more than they would of on my previous working with cubase. I don’t have problems with crackling etc at this stage.
It was in 64bit resolution and switching to 32bit made little (in fact I dont think any) difference. Nor did increasing the buffer to 100ms as opposed to the current setting of 50ms.
I don’t have cubase anymore to do an A/B but am pretty certain I’m not imagining it 😆 As at the moment it’s noticable when Im only running VST synths, then when I think back to cubase I would of been doing that AND having alot of vst effects on each channel and I haven’t even got around to that stage in Podium and already the CPU meter is going up quite a bit.
An example is 4 VSTis 2x the free Synth 1 and 2x disco dsp highlife and the cpu is at 11/12 PC. In fact come to think of it, it could be DiscoDSP highlife ? I have heard DiscoDSP softwares are very hard on the CPU. I’ll check when I get home.
Thanks for the reply
ZynewavePodiums CPU measurement may be different from Cubase, so you need to push the CPU much higher than 11/12 percent before you can make a reliable estimate on the general plugin CPU performance.
Antal BodóczkiHello !
I have podium 1.81. I work with free vst instr.&fx-s. My PC: Asus motherboard+ pentium d processor (HT+2mega cache, the config supported 64 bit mode, xp 64 edition Os,emu 1212m card)
When the project started,the cpu indicator overloaded& stopping the project play. In 32 bit mode also. the latency 7ms. When using Ctrl+space tabs: project go and the end of wawe files also stopping and not work.(24/48khz)
I hope,you understand…
ZynewaveWhen the project started,the cpu indicator overloaded& stopping the project play. In 32 bit mode also. the latency 7ms. When using Ctrl+space tabs: project go and the end of wawe files also stopping and not work.(24/48khz)
Try increasing the ASIO buffer size (latency). Try muting all of your VST tracks, and then unmute one at the time until you find the plugins that makes the CPU indicator jump up. You could then bounce the heavy-CPU tracks.
Mike GHi,
I too have Podium 1.77 (CM edition)
Have previously used cusbase LE but podium is far superior UI wise and I love it.
But…
Podium keeps dropping out audio, and CPU spikes (which make my cpu monitor go red in podium)
I have a presonus firebox with latency of 10ms and still I get dropouts.
With cubse I had latency set on my firebox to 4 ms and never any dropouts.
Similar to a previous post (that I now cannot find!) the CPU monitor shows very low activity < 10% followed by very large spikes that result in audio going missing.
I have even had CPU spikes with hardly any plug ins loaded.
Is it true that if plug ins are not used in my arrangement then they don’t affect anything I have lots of plig ins in my folder but very few loaded.
My system:
Dell precision m90 laptop, Win XP SP2, dual core intel 2 GHz, 2GB ram, recently defragmented disk with >40 GB free space.
Is this an issue that has been fixed, or just something I can tweak so fix it? Any ideas?
I would buy podium at a snap if I thought this was an issue that has been addressed.
darcyb62Try dropping your latency back down and see if it helps. It’s funny but it seems that with Podium I have much fewer problesm with lower latencies. I am using the Presonus Inspire.
ZynewaveIs it true that if plug ins are not used in my arrangement then they don’t affect anything I have lots of plig ins in my folder but very few loaded.
Plugins not loaded in an arrangement have no effect on performance.
Make sure you are using ASIO drivers and not Wave drivers. Try adjusting the buffer size to see how this affects the spikes.
Does the spikes occur with a steady fixed interval?
Also try disabling the plugin multiprocessing option in the preferences dialog. Plugins that have problems with multiprocessing may cause CPU spikes.
Mike GHi,
Yes am using latest presonus asio drivers
Tried dropping latency in drivers down to 4ms.
Seemed to make no difference on spikes or on avg of CPU monitor (40-50% avg in proj I am testing with now with lots of reverb etc.)
Still get dropouts even with minimal tracks unmuted and avg cpu of 20-30%
Also forgot to mention am using 44.1 khz sample rate.
Just now I had sysinternals process explorer running now and it made tons of spikes appear, but I don’t usually run this only running it now to see what’s going on.
(BTW Podium is running at 30% of my machines CPU)
Podium seems to be using both by CPU graphs.
BTW: Are onaccess virus scanners known to cause issues?
Spikes do not seem ro be regular intervals usually.
When using processexplorer I get regular spikes but obviously this isn’t a problem I don’t run process explorer or task mgr usually when running podium.
Oh yeah have tries multiporcessing flag before because of seing it on a previous post but again seemed to make no difference.
ZynewaveTried dropping latency in drivers down to 4ms.
Seemed to make no difference on spikes or on avg of CPU monitor
Do the spikes occur less frequently, if you increase the latency/buffer size?
Do the spikes occur more often if you move the mouse or press any keys?
BTW: Are onaccess virus scanners known to cause issues?
Not that I’m aware of. But try to temporarily disable it, to see if this has an effect.
After you have had a few spikes, go to the report page in the interfaces dialog, and save a report. Paste the report here or email it to me.
Mike GDo the spikes occur less frequently, if you increase the latency/buffer size?
Not easy to tell maybe a bit but stll seems random
Do the spikes occur more often if you move the mouse or press any keys?
No not that I can tell
I’ve had McAfee On access statistics window open and guess what…
Everytime a spike occured On Access scanner changed it’s last file scanned and upped it’s total number of files scanned.
I have a very string feeling that this is the cause. (I will confirm when i’ve has a word with work and see if I can turn on access scanner off, I use my work laptop becuase it’s more powerful that my other machine)
After you have had a few spikes, go to the report page in the interfaces dialog, and save a report. Paste the report here or email it to me.
OK…
Loads of reports here just so you can get a good feel for it
Minor note once seemed to get a load of audio glitches but nothing reporting in even though the report start/end included the time when it would have happened!!
Podium audio manager status report
Log period: 01/05/2007 20:18:04 – 01/05/2007 20:24:00
ASIO device: PreSonus ASIO Driver (FireBox)
– Supported clock sources: Internal
– Current clock source: Internal
– Supported sample rates: 44100
– Current sample rate: 44100
– Input channels: 6 (111100)
– Output channels: 8 (11000000)
– Input/Output latency, buffer size: 160/160, 136
– PerformanceCounter: 3579545 Hz
– ASIO sample types: 18, 18
ASIO driver status:
– ASIO reset requests: 4
Audio stream buffer errors:
– Output buffer skip count: 10
End of report
Podium audio manager status report
Log period: 01/05/2007 20:40:01 – 01/05/2007 20:43:10
ASIO device: PreSonus ASIO Driver (FireBox)
– Supported clock sources: Internal
– Current clock source: Internal
– Supported sample rates: 44100
– Current sample rate: 44100
– Input channels: 6 (101000)
– Output channels: 8 (11000000)
– Input/Output latency, buffer size: 160/160, 136
– PerformanceCounter: 3579545 Hz
– ASIO sample types: 18, 18
Audio stream buffer errors:
– Output buffer skip count: 2
End of report
Podium audio manager status report
Log period: 01/05/2007 20:43:59 – 01/05/2007 20:47:30
ASIO device: PreSonus ASIO Driver (FireBox)
– Supported clock sources: Internal
– Current clock source: Internal
– Supported sample rates: 44100
– Current sample rate: 44100
– Input channels: 6 (101000)
– Output channels: 8 (11000000)
– Input/Output latency, buffer size: 160/160, 136
– PerformanceCounter: 3579545 Hz
– ASIO sample types: 18, 18
Audio stream buffer errors:
– Output buffer skip count: 2
End of report
Podium audio manager status report
Log period: 01/05/2007 19:59:28 – 01/05/2007 20:07:39
ASIO device: PreSonus ASIO Driver (FireBox)
– Supported clock sources: Internal
– Current clock source: Internal
– Supported sample rates: 44100
– Current sample rate: 44100
– Input channels: 6 (111111)
– Output channels: 8 (11111111)
– Input/Output latency, buffer size: 200/200, 176
– PerformanceCounter: 3579545 Hz
– ASIO sample types: 18, 18
Audio stream buffer errors:
– Output buffer skip count: 9
– CPU overload count: 3
End of report
Podium audio manager status report
Log period: 01/05/2007 20:48:43 – 01/05/2007 20:51:46
ASIO device: PreSonus ASIO Driver (FireBox)
– Supported clock sources: Internal
– Current clock source: Internal
– Supported sample rates: 44100
– Current sample rate: 44100
– Input channels: 6 (101000)
– Output channels: 8 (11000000)
– Input/Output latency, buffer size: 288/288, 264
– PerformanceCounter: 3579545 Hz
– ASIO sample types: 18, 18
End of report
Podium audio manager status report
Log period: 01/05/2007 20:08:54 – 01/05/2007 20:13:08
ASIO device: PreSonus ASIO Driver (FireBox)
– Supported clock sources: Internal
– Current clock source: Internal
– Supported sample rates: 44100
– Current sample rate: 44100
– Input channels: 6 (111111)
– Output channels: 8 (11111111)
– Input/Output latency, buffer size: 824/824, 800
– PerformanceCounter: 3579545 Hz
– ASIO sample types: 18, 18
Audio stream buffer errors:
– Output buffer skip count: 1
End of report
Podium audio manager status report
Log period: 01/05/2007 20:25:07 – 01/05/2007 20:33:31
ASIO device: PreSonus ASIO Driver (FireBox)
– Supported clock sources: Internal
– Current clock source: Internal
– Supported sample rates: 44100
– Current sample rate: 44100
– Input channels: 6 (111111)
– Output channels: 8 (11111111)
– Input/Output latency, buffer size: 1128/1128, 1104
– PerformanceCounter: 3579545 Hz
– ASIO sample types: 18, 18
Audio stream buffer errors:
– Output buffer skip count: 1
End of report
ZynewaveI’ve had McAfee On access statistics window open and guess what…
Everytime a spike occured On Access scanner changed it’s last file scanned and upped it’s total number of files scanned.
I have a very string feeling that this is the cause.
I think you’re right. It’s most likely the scanner file access that temporarily blocks the Podium audio thread.
Mike GJust for record it seems that is was the antivirus, i’ve been using it for ages now with no spikes whatever.
Though I did also stop a load of extra services that were running too. (Sql server, IIS, etc.)
I have a batch (.bat) file I run with a load of net stop commands, just thought I’d attach it in case others thought this might help them get more perf not really sure how useful it is though!
REM This stops unneeded programs (You will most likely have different programs)
taskkill /IM Outlook.exe /f /t
taskkill /IM TimeSnapper.exe /f
taskkill /IM QuickSet.exe /f
taskkill /IM procexp.exe /f /t
taskkill /IM jusched.exe /f /t
taskkill /IM DVDLauncher.exe /f /t
taskkill /IM realsched.exe /f /t
taskkill /IM phonelist.exe /f /t
taskkill /IM MSAccess.exe /f /t
taskkill /IM cropper.exe /f /t
net stop eventsystem
REM Remember to stop “On Access scanner”
pause
Conquistador@Zynewave wrote:
I think you’re right. It’s most likely the scanner file access that temporarily blocks the Podium audio thread.
This is definitely an issue, especially with applications like Zone alarms IMO (at least based on my experience). It can take up a fair amount of CPU resources.
In general I think because of the increasingly hostile nature of the internet, Virus / Firewall applications are more *active* than usual and are probably even more unsuitable for use while running any audio application then ever before.
In my case I was quite puzzled by Podium just disappearing from my screen from time to time. After looking at the task manager I could see little or no reason for this apart from two unlikely suspects…
I had recently downloaded a package called workrave. It’s just a little app that reminds you to take a break (I have spent way too many hours in front of PC’s) 🙂 but somehow this app was interfering with Podium. I guess whenever it attempted to ‘remind me’ it took Podium out as well.
I think the second application was nero. No idea why, but some sort of Windows error came up with a reference to nero. Perhaps it was a bad installation as it is widely used by many or perhaps it was some sort of background task that was not allowing Podium to function properly.
Once both applications were removed ( I have other options for Nero anyway) Podium went straight back to rock solid stability. 😉