Subject:cpu usage

Posted by: Hardyman5000

Date:8/5/2007 1:58:01 PM

My acid pro locks up using my E-mu usb0404 alot. It seems to work better with my m-audio card. I set my bit rate the same and my sampling frequency but it still does it. By using task manager I found my cpu usage WAY higher with the usb device. Any advice? I have 736mb of ram and a 1.5ghz processor.

Subject:RE: cpu usage

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:8/12/2007 7:18:38 AM

> My acid pro locks up using my E-mu usb0404 alot. It seems to work better with my m-audio card.

EMU does not have a good track record of working with ACID. There may be nothing you can do about this other than to sell the device. I have found that M-Audio's cards are better for overall compatibility and trouble free use. (I use an M-Audio FW-410)

> By using task manager I found my cpu usage WAY higher with the usb device. Any advice?

USB is a dumb device and so the CPU is used for all data transfers. Firewire is a smart device and does not require the CPU to transfer data. This is a major difference between USB and firewire that many people overlook. My advice would be to use your M-Audio card for all of your audio work or get a Firewire audio device instead of USB.

~jr

Subject:RE: cpu usage

Reply by: mobiledjs.com

Date:8/18/2007 11:37:03 AM

ACID will definitely freeze up more while waiting for other devices.

Some other ideas to optimize your experience....

1) Try a different/better sound card interface (firewire, cardbus, pcmcia, etc).
2) Try using ASIO4ALL on the internal sound card for your laptop. I am having good success with my AC97.
3) Disable/Bypass any plugins/vst/effects until you plan to render the final project. Also make sure that in your settings you do not have selected "keep bypassed fx running" otherwise bypassing them will gain no CPU.
4) Try using a different drive for your working/project files separate from the operating system/program drive. (do not partition the drive to accomplish this). You could also try a higher RPM drive. And remember to defragment. This can cause huge delays if it's busy looking around the drive for data.
5) Make sure you close other programs running. I have seen CPU spikes with Outlook and other programs open, even AIM. Virus and spyware software can also be a huge CPU hog. If the program freezes try to hit the stop button and wait patiently otherwise you will freeze up the program permanently. Version 6.0d seems much better at recovering from this. You could also try earlier version.
6) Optmize your computer. Give priority to background services and disable non-essential services to lower CPU usage.
7) Restart your computer before starting work on a project and just open Acid by itself. I usually find this gives it a good clean start. However, if left open for a long period of time and minimized I find that it starts to act up more upon returning.

Subject:RE: cpu usage

Reply by: tascolas

Date:8/18/2007 10:05:44 PM

Hi guys
Actually firewire also uses cpu but less than usb typically.Their main difference that makes the audio world lean to firewire more than usb, is that firewire has a sustained data transfer whereas usb does not. External audiocards are highly driver and system config depended and an immature or poorly written driver can lead any type of card to 30-40% cpu usage even when being idle . The thing here is i had a hell of a time last year with M-audio firewire 410 on my sony FE11 laptop & xp pro sp2 with the system constantly losing the already installed driver so many times that i actually returned back to the very old M-audio quattro (USB) which works brilliantly . Go figure :-)
PS: I had the very same problem with the usb quattro some years ago with my old compaq p3 and xp pro laptop. As the m-audio driver matured the card now behaves correctly all times whereas the m-audio firewire interfaces have proven to be unreliable. I've also tried the firewire1610 and the firewire Audiophile and they both too exhibited the same problem losing the already installed driver plus they exhibited lower than normal volume output and (the 1610 also had hum noise through the analog connections) which in my book doesnt have much to do with drivers but malfunctioning -worse than mediocre - hardware. If u are one of the lucky guys that have a firewire 410 with normal volume output and stability in drivers (or u think so ) then its fine by me :) . Just for the sake of troubleshooting though, if u have access to an Edirol firewire interface ,A/B the m-audio and the edirol. I recently found the firewire Edirol cards having a 5-6db louder and also clearer signal against their respective m-audio counterparts and a very stable driver as well . Cheers

Subject:RE: cpu usage

Reply by: Hardyman5000

Date:9/14/2007 9:08:24 AM

Thanks for the info. I will be upgrading to a new computer and hopefully that will help some. E-mu emailed me a link to a site that tells how to optimize xp. They said to go pci or optimize, which reading between the lines told me that it was going to use more cpu than my m-audio card. I wish they advertized that! I've optimized but then you've got to watch out for what it messed up. I've since compromized. I think I will go with a quad core because they seem to get good reviews here. Thanks

Subject:RE: cpu usage

Reply by: coolout

Date:9/17/2007 1:55:07 AM

I had a Proteus X for a while and although it sounded pretty good, I noticed that I couldn't get the same latency as other cards i've used on the same CPU.

Also the E-mu control panel didn't seem very responsive, and felt bloated/redundant.

Why do you need patching for a 2-channel interface?

I think they just tried to do to much with all the hardware based effects or they just didn't beta test with enough real people using less-than-new CPUs.

My old Terratec card is rock solid compared to the E-mu.

I had a similar experience years ago with ego-sys and edirol interfaces.