# What's your max CPU % before peaking real time...



## Rasoul Morteza (Sep 3, 2020)

What is the max average CPU % you see in task manager before peaking real-time performance, on a buffer setting that is crackle free.

I'm on Cubase and it seems to average around 70% on a 5820K, "at least" with a project that I'm working on right now so I can never be certain as these numbers vary from project to project.

I'm wondering if I can somehow further optimize the system to get more CPU power out of it. LatencyMon is showing a quite decent average of 15us (is it though?), and I've pretty much reduced all parallel tasks to a minimum (disabling Wifi drivers and that sort of stuff).

Do you think going from a Steinberg to a RME driver will help gain a decent performance boost? Being able to lower down the buffer setting a step or two without getting crackles would be nice for my application. I mostly run around the 512-1024 range when the project gets heavy.

Let me know, thanks!

Cheers,
RM


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## Solarsentinel (Sep 4, 2020)

Depends essentially on the power of your CPU and your sample rate. But yes you should see a difference between steinberg and RME, and you probably can down your sample rate a step and also your latency on your DAW.

15µs of overall latency is very good. The RME will not drop down that latency, but more windows and hardware settings perhaps. Depends of what you have done already.

I don't know if the example is appropriate but wath theses results:


This one is better:


You can see the latency of the unit on ableton live near down the sample rate.


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## Rasoul Morteza (Sep 4, 2020)

Solarsentinel said:


> Depends essentially on the power of your CPU and your sample rate. But yes you should see a difference between steinberg and RME, and you probably can down your sample rate a step and also your latency on your DAW.
> 
> 15µs of overall latency is very good. The RME will not drop down that latency, but more windows and hardware settings perhaps. Depends of what you have done already.
> 
> ...



Thanks, it's just hard to find any proper comparison between the two driver lines I mentioned. But I'll probably give it a try and see what happens.

Cheers


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## Solarsentinel (Sep 4, 2020)

Sure! don't hesitate to give me feedback when you'll done this. I'm always curious about concrete results


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## Rasoul Morteza (Sep 6, 2020)

Solarsentinel said:


> Sure! don't hesitate to give me feedback when you'll done this. I'm always curious about concrete results


Well here are my results:

All of the following settings gave responsive/decent performance on a heavy project of mine, anything below I either got tons of pops and crackles or other weird issues:

BabyFace Pro @ 1024 buffer:
I: 23.741
O: 24.127
ASIO Guard: 46.440
40% real-time peak
ASIO Guard: Normal

Steinberg @ Standard 1024 buffer:
I: 28.095
O: 32.063
ASIO Guard: 46.440
40% real-time peak
ASIO Guard: Normal

Steinberg @ Stable 512 buffer:
I: 20.476
O: 26.463
ASIO Guard: 92.880
100% real-time peak (border edge really, don't think I could've added much with this setting)
ASIO Guard: High

In summary, with Steinberg's Low Latency/Standard/Stable modes their drivers are quite capable for ITB processing. Yes the RME gives some edge, but I would only recommend it if you can get a deal or second hand price. This is of course my opinion regarding RME vs Steinberg's ASIO drivers.

Cheers


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## telecode101 (Sep 6, 2020)

..


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## Rasoul Morteza (Sep 6, 2020)

telecode101 said:


> what happens if you load Cubase 9.5? Many comment that 10.5 uses more CPU for same projects.


I will have to give it a try, but isn't that a 10.5 issue only? The performance seems to be equal to what I had on 10.0.


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## telecode101 (Sep 6, 2020)

..


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## Rasoul Morteza (Sep 6, 2020)

telecode101 said:


> I don't know for sure, but on Steiberg forums, a lot of people mention that 9.5 was better on CPU. I also notice on my setup 9.5 is easier on resources. I guess much depends on what VSTs you load and how large are the projects.


Well, I did the experiment. With VST3 suspension activated in 10.5, the two perform similarly.
The RME does provide a few CPU percentage gain, but then again see my previous comment.
In the process I did further optimize my system's latency by disabling some extra bloatware inducing hard pagefaults. But right now that's all the time I have for nerdism.

I still believe faster core clock speeds beat everything when it comes to being able to load more instruments+plugins. But for now I'm happy keeping the money in the bank, where it belongs!

In summary, Steinberg's ASIO is very good. Mackie's is so terrible I'll have to sell my unit... RME is of course better than both, but if you hear someone claiming that with RME you can just set your buffer and forget it exists, then now you know what BS looks like.

Cheers


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## Solarsentinel (Sep 8, 2020)

Did you try to disable ASIO guard wth RME?


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## Rasoul Morteza (Sep 8, 2020)

Solarsentinel said:


> Did you try to disable ASIO guard wth RME?


Yes, I found that it's best to keep it on. I really wonder if there are still configs benefiting from it being off...


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## Solarsentinel (Sep 8, 2020)

Rasoul Morteza said:


> Yes, I found that it's best to keep it on. I really wonder if there are still configs benefiting from it being off...



I don't know. It was just a question concerning your results. Thank you for this feedback!


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