# Is my PC sufficient for VI?



## JoeWatkin (Mar 12, 2021)

Hey all, 

I'm hoping some of you technology wizards will be able to point me in the right direction on this one...

I've been struggling with audio drop outs, stuttering, clicks and pops while composing in Cubase and it's starting to get in the way of my writing process. I generally use a mixture of Kontakt and Spitfire player libraries (around 30-50 tracks) along with synths such as Diva, Serum etc. My CPU meter in Cubase is maxing out when this happens, but my actual CPU reading in task manager is reporting around 30-40% load. I've spent the past few months dealing with it, and trying every setting change under the sun to help.
Is my setup particularly insufficient to be running these kinds of templates? Are there any recommendations in terms of upgrades to CPU / RAM / Motherboard that would give me a noticeable difference?

My setup is:

Alienware Aurora R6 (Dell)
i7700k 4-Cores
48GB Ram
Internal SSD's
Cubase Pro 11

Any words of wisdom appreciated.

Joe


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## doctoremmet (Mar 12, 2021)

Your PC should be fine. What audio interface do you use?


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## JoeWatkin (Mar 12, 2021)

Hey, thanks for the reply! I'm using an Apollo Twin USB, the older windows only version.


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## doctoremmet (Mar 12, 2021)

I have a PC with similar specs, and an old “nothing special” PreSonus interface and can run 30 tracks fine - as long as these are not all RAM heavy / CPU intensive instruments. I do however tend to bounce stuff to audio rather quickly though...


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## JoeWatkin (Mar 12, 2021)

Good to hear someone else's experience with similar specs, I'm hesitant to spend anything else while my task manager shows such low usage of ram and cpu...


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## doctoremmet (Mar 12, 2021)

Maybe try to kill some Windows virus scanning and stuff like that?

When I installed mine I followed some of these guidelines:









Optimizing Your Computer for Audio - Windows 10


Why would I need to optimize Windows 10? If your computer's audio has: Pops Clicks Audio Dropouts Distorted Audio Noise High CPU usage PC Optimization Guide for Windows 10 Welcome to the Window...




support.presonus.com


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## José Herring (Mar 12, 2021)

JoeWatkin said:


> Hey all,
> 
> I'm hoping some of you technology wizards will be able to point me in the right direction on this one...
> 
> ...


Similar specs to the computer I just replaced. That older computer I used for about 10 years though. They made them good back then, but.....

You'll start to get drop outs if you are using a plugin that is really demanding. Unfortunately the Spitfire player isn't all the at efficient. Diva and Serum are pretty demanding (I don't own either but I have similar synths that are just as demanding). These things will cause a core spike under heavy usage and that is probably what you are experiencing. The core is maxing out but the overall CPU usage is barely being touched. 

The cure for that may be a better computer but you have to make sure that you get a CPU that still has a high single core clock rate. Even on my new bad ass machines I can still have a core spike now and again. 

I do recommend getting a new computer it does have some advantage but I have to admit, the difference between my old machine and my newer machine wasn't as night and day as I thought it would be. It was better but it wasn't soooo much better. I have more head room but I still need to watch my resources. I was kind of hoping that the machine would be so powerful that I wouldn't have to worry about certain plugins but I still do.


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## CoffeeLover (Mar 13, 2021)

your dell machine should be perfectly fine.
i sold my i9 9900ks z390 designaire 128 gb ram
i sold it for about 1500 bucks last summer but kept kept all the drives.i sold it so i could afford an apollo x8 
and now im back on my old z170 i7 6700k
and 64gb. its perfectly fine although i do feel i could use more cpu power for automation and plugins but i can manage with this the next 3 years or so. 
i expect when i upgrade,that we will see PCI 5.0
and DDR5 so im keeping using my machine untill then.


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## CoffeeLover (Mar 13, 2021)

also you can try all the recomended windows optimisations also turn of C states in bios 
i have both turbo boost and cpu hyperthreading turned on while ive read it not recomented but it dies give me bit extra. 
ive got asio guard settings in cubase set to high and boost. 
you can download also winshut up and turn off even more regestry and bloatware.
i have a master template that consist of over 2000 tracks in disabled mode. ive got about 150 tracks enabled on one project and my cpu is around 35 percent on idle and will bounce between 45 and 70% when tracks are being played
i have this template also saved as multi tracks 
like -"strings-spitfire-Tundra" and so on. 
its less cpu heavy and more modular aproach.
omnisphere and uhe patches are useless if i want to use them in a huge template and spitfire player can get very heavy but i usually am just a close mic kind of guy so its not all to bad . i almost always use the modular aproach i find it saves ton of cpu resources. i have vepro7 that saves even way more but i dont want to use that aproach cos "Lazy" i had it up on my last system and cubase ran flawlessly but i find it to be a tedious job to build endless templates and im not gonna go through building over 2000 tracks for vepro and route all that. im so done at administrating jobs for my DAW for now and i just wanna make music.
oh and by the way i am running windows.
i am running windows 10 LTSC 
i get security updates and thats it 
no bloatware but i think there is not much of a difference with that and well optimized windows pro. i am experimenting with win pro for workstations and i dont see much difference. 

anyway 
goodluck


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