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Old 05-06-2010, 05:18 AM   #1
PlainSounds
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Default Mac OSX high CPU load

Hi

First of just like to say that reaper is amazing and I purchased it for use on my old Windows XP system and reaper worked perfectly.

Since moving to a PPC mac though the CPU load has been very high. I do not have a very powerful machine (2x2ghz dual core and 2.5gig of ram) but I am getting very high CPU loads even with no plug ins at all.

For example a project with around 30 tracks no plug ins is using around 25% CPU. I know there is lots of info about reaper not being as efficient on a mac but is this normal?

Dan
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Old 05-06-2010, 05:28 AM   #2
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Default More info

Have been looking in to this a bit more and when the tracks are playing (around 30) the CPU load goes up to 40% when the tracks are playing and the mixer is showing (I have this docked on a second screen} the CPU load goes up to 55%. As well as this if I minus all screens so no visuals at all except the performance meter the CPU drops to 25% again is this a graphics issue?

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Old 05-06-2010, 05:32 AM   #3
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Hey

I have a similar problem on Intel MBP.The CPU show around 25% with empty 30 tracks.If the mixer is visible it is even higher.

I guess it is a bug because the GUI shouldnt drain as much CPU.

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Old 05-06-2010, 08:50 AM   #4
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Just compared the same version of REaper(3.51) on OS X and windows 7( similar specification toshiba Laptop than my Macbook Pro) with 50 empty tracks with mixer open:

OS X CPU : 55%
Windows 7 CPU : 1.8 %

This issue in OS X should be resolved.It just takes too much CPU power for common tasks.
I relly would love to use reaper but this amount of CPU usage is a deal breaker for me.Just cannot get any serious work done.



Regards J
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Old 05-06-2010, 09:07 AM   #5
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What's the audio interface and buffer size?

13" MBP 1 year old.
Core 2 Duo 2.24GHz 4GB RAM
internal sound card, buffer = 512, 44.1kHz

0 tracks in Reaper, no plugins
= 5.0 CPU in Reaper's performance meter.
with buffer at 128, cpu closer to 8

Quikeys, Firefox, and text edit also running.

Should be even lower with a decent audio interface connected.

Also are those 30 tracks audio files playing off the system or a USB drive? That can affect CPU too.
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Old 05-06-2010, 09:22 AM   #6
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Hey

Yes I used built in audio card and Focusrite Sapphire Pro 40 with 256 buffer.

Empty reaper takes 7.9% CPU in both cases

When I add 50 empty tracks without audio files on them or even pressing play the CPU meter goes bezerk to 55%.If i close the mixer window it goes down by approx 10%-still too much for an empty application.

I also have Logic 9 and adding track doesnt affect the CPU at all.
I run 50 tracks of audio files (48k/24b) with 10% CPU at 256 buffer)

And I like the workflow of Reaper more than Logic so i hope this will get resolved in the near future

Regard J
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Old 05-06-2010, 09:25 AM   #7
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I'm on 10.5.8

which MBP is it? does it have dedicated graphics?
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Old 05-06-2010, 09:32 AM   #8
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Thats odd, I recently got a MBP (the new one) and a project that I was working on with my old Dell laptop (2ghz Intel m, 2gig ram Emu 0404 USB) that was running at 89% percent CPU now runs at 18% on the Mac.

The project has around 40 tracks all with two or three Reaper or Stillwell plugs on.
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Old 05-06-2010, 09:33 AM   #9
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I've had this experience with the GUI thing as well in OSX Tiger on PPC dual 1.87GHz machine.

When I've had the BFD2 (drum VSTi) FX window open, Reaper may crackle and crawl. When I close it again, all returns to normal. I have 4GB of RAM, so there was plenty left over for graphics and tracks, of which there was only one. It didn't happen all the time, but it seems that there's something under the hood that's causing weaker performance on the OSX side.

I've found working on my new PC (Quad) to be night and day. Mind you, there's a big difference in CPU power over my older Mac, but the files and plugins are identical for both machines. It does feel somewhat strained on the Mac side, in my experience.
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Old 05-06-2010, 09:33 AM   #10
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Its Unibody MBP with Nvidia 9400 and 9600
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Old 05-06-2010, 09:37 AM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Janne83 View Post
Its Unibody MBP with Nvidia 9400 and 9600
so it's a 15 or 17"
does using the other video card change cpu usage?
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Old 05-06-2010, 09:43 AM   #12
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Its a 15" MBP If i switch to a better graphic card the CPU goes down for about 5-10%
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Old 05-06-2010, 09:58 AM   #13
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My system is a G5 Mac running two Echo Audiofire 12's. Is this a PPC thing or a Mac OSX thing? 20% CPU just to run the GUI seems like a glitch to me but it seems not to affect everyone would love to know if I could fix this by tweaking something on my computer?

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Old 05-06-2010, 12:05 PM   #14
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Seems like it's an os x thing. I have a mac pro with tiger installed and I am facing the same issues. Windows xp in bootcamp runs fantastic though...
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Old 05-06-2010, 12:18 PM   #15
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This issue seems to be closely related to the issue I posted the other day...

http://forums.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=57235

I also have noticed high cpu usage with the GUI. I will post my exact results when I get home later.
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Old 05-06-2010, 01:37 PM   #16
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I just tried this and have similar experiences: opened Reaper and an empty project, added 30 tracks (with no media on them) and hit play. CPU usage is about 25% on my MBP 2.4 GHz core 2 Duo (late 2008 model).

That's with the less beefy video card enabled and using the built in audio with Request block size unticked (resulting in 11/46ms latency according to Reaper).

Regards,
- Jonas
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Old 05-06-2010, 02:49 PM   #17
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The much higher CPU cost of the Reaper GUI (particularly the meters) in OS X versus Windows has been acknowledged by the developers in previous threads on a few occasions. Closing the mixer here in a moderately heavy project usually saves me about 10%. Dropping the meter refresh rate usually saves me a few percent as well.

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Old 05-06-2010, 02:53 PM   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bennals View Post
The much higher CPU cost of the Reaper GUI (particularly the meters) in OS X versus Windows has been acknowledged by the developers in previous threads on a few occasions. Closing the mixer here in a moderately heavy project usually saves me about 10%. Dropping the meter refresh rate usually saves me a few percent as well.

Bill.
I didn't see anything in the issue tracker, did I miss it? Shouldn't there be an open issue for this?
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Old 05-06-2010, 02:56 PM   #19
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It lookslike its a graphics related issue and hope they will fix it as it was noted by the developers.

Oh yes I have SL 10.6.3 on my MBP so its not a Leopard only issue.


REgards J
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Old 05-06-2010, 03:01 PM   #20
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A few swords and we may have ourselves a mutiny. Or at least a political party.
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Old 05-06-2010, 03:18 PM   #21
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Quick search only turned up this post

http://forum.cockos.com/showpost.php...7&postcount=42

but I'm sure I've seen others. It may have been on Justin's blog rather than the forum.

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Old 05-06-2010, 03:32 PM   #22
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I think I read that before, too. I guess PPC is kind of a dead horse to be riding into the future.

It's not a nightmare to use, just not as efficient.
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Old 05-06-2010, 04:23 PM   #23
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Janne83 View Post
It lookslike its a graphics related issue and hope they will fix it as it was noted by the developers.

Oh yes I have SL 10.6.3 on my MBP so its not a Leopard only issue.


REgards J
I'm not so sure it's something that can be "fixed" as such, at least not in the same way that a bug can be fixed. The impression I've got is that its a function of the way OS X handles the graphics in Reaper. I know that doesn't explain why Logic is so much more efficient with it's GUI stuff, but I do know that Logic has long been regarded as very efficient in comparison to other Mac DAWS.

I came to REAPER from DIGITAL PERFORMER 5 and it was horribly inefficient GUI wise, plus it manifested in painfully slow redraws when zooming and scrolling. At least Reaper manages to avoid that. Efficiency arguments and laments re: Logic versus DP would often break out on the Unicornation forums.

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Old 05-06-2010, 05:00 PM   #24
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bennals View Post
At least Reaper manages to avoid that.
It may be more efficient than DP, but it is far from performing well. I find unacceptably slow as compared to the windows version on the same hardware.

If we could only get an actual dev to update the status of this issue here. :/
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Old 05-06-2010, 06:50 PM   #25
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Quote:
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I came to REAPER from DIGITAL PERFORMER 5 and it was horribly inefficient GUI wise, plus it manifested in painfully slow redraws when zooming and scrolling.
Bill.
Yup, I'll second that. (I miss Monkey Man. )
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Old 05-07-2010, 02:43 AM   #26
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I would also like to know if this is an issue that can be solved, or if there are any plans to solve this on PPC macs at all?

Dan
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Old 05-07-2010, 03:28 AM   #27
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On my MB with 4gig of Ram and late Snow Leopard, with 30 tracks playing with the mixer open I'm getting 17% and 13% without.
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Old 05-12-2010, 02:03 AM   #28
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Hey

I just tested the 3.52pre3 of reaper on my MBP and the idle project CPU rate has halved from previous 8% to 3-4% with 256 buffer setting.Its not ideal yet but it is some improvement.

Regards J
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Old 05-14-2010, 03:04 AM   #29
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That's very good news if it has dropped even slightly I will be very happy. I could live with a slightly higher CPU load than most other DAWS but it is currently just to much to cope with.

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Old 05-14-2010, 03:46 AM   #30
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Hey

Every percent counts
Just hoping it will even the windows performance in the near future

And there has been a issue report made about the slugishness of GUI on OS X
So vote for it on the issues page

here is the discussion : http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=57235

Regards J
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Old 05-14-2010, 05:15 PM   #31
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Quote:
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Hey

I just tested the 3.52pre3 of reaper on my MBP and the idle project CPU rate has halved from previous 8% to 3-4% with 256 buffer setting.Its not ideal yet but it is some improvement.

Regards J
You may have come across something interesting here. I was skeptical about this so I downloaded the latest pre-release (6b) to test it and there was no significant difference between CPU use with the same idle project. The pre6b build was actually slightly higher if anything.

But then I tried the same project with the pre3 build and indeed, CPU use is roughly half of what it is in either of the other two builds. So why the difference with pre3 compared to the earlier and later builds? Perhaps there is something useful to learn for the developers here?

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Old 05-15-2010, 01:35 AM   #32
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Hey bennals

I can confirm your observations.The pre 6 increases the CPU load back again.
The developers should be aware of this.


Regards J
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Old 05-15-2010, 01:55 AM   #33
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Quote:
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Hey bennals

I can confirm your observations.The pre 6 increases the CPU load back again.
The developers should be aware of this.


Regards J
so tell them?

Kind regards

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Old 05-15-2010, 02:16 AM   #34
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so tell them?

Kind regards

Dave Rich
Hey

Im a little bit confused where to report this I added something the other day to the Issues tracker but my post got deleted.Some help would be appreciated.

Regards J
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Old 05-15-2010, 03:20 AM   #35
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Quote:
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Hey

Im a little bit confused where to report this I added something the other day to the Issues tracker but my post got deleted.Some help would be appreciated.

Regards J
Let's see what we get here

http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.p...179#post510179
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Old 05-15-2010, 03:28 AM   #36
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Lets hope that gets their attention

There have been many discussions about the OS X performance of REaper being worst than Windows.

Regards J
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Old 05-15-2010, 06:38 PM   #37
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Well, this is odd. The difference I observed here yesterday has vanished today. 3.51, 3.52 pre3 and 3.52 pre6 are all pretty much the same in performance now. Are you still seeing it Janne83?

Bill.
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Old 05-15-2010, 11:57 PM   #38
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Quote:
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Well, this is odd. The difference I observed here yesterday has vanished today. 3.51, 3.52 pre3 and 3.52 pre6 are all pretty much the same in performance now. Are you still seeing it Janne83?

Bill.
This might be obvious to you, but are you sure you'd closed all the un-necessary apps before? It took me a while to realise just closing their window didn't stop their processes and you need to CMD-Q to quit a program.

Kind regards

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Old 05-16-2010, 12:10 AM   #39
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Quote:
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Well, this is odd. The difference I observed here yesterday has vanished today. 3.51, 3.52 pre3 and 3.52 pre6 are all pretty much the same in performance now. Are you still seeing it Janne83?

Bill.
I still have the difference( the pre 3 is lower in CPU) but the percentage of CPU isnt the same always i start Reaper
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Old 05-16-2010, 04:49 AM   #40
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Quote:
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This might be obvious to you, but are you sure you'd closed all the un-necessary apps before? It took me a while to realise just closing their window didn't stop their processes and you need to CMD-Q to quit a program.

Kind regards

Dave Rich
Yep, the only app running was Reaper in each instance.

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