Live 5.0.3 Still Causing CPU Spikes!!!

dpel · Post by **dpel** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 2:23 am

hi all,
sorry to report this,
it's still happening on my machine. especially when i leave a song open for
an hour or longer and come back to hit "play" and the song creeps along
with ugly sounding glitches and the cpu climbing beyond 300 %

looks like i'm going back to 4.01 AGAIN.

Merry Christmas

Human Koala · Post by **Human Koala** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 9:01 am

is your soundcard is an usb card ?
because with my m-audio quattro it's the case too
INMHO it's due to the energy saver of the computer who cut the power on the usb port not because of Live ...

HK

henry ford · Post by **henry ford** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 1:58 pm

hmmm....interesting theory. However even if thats so , when you consider how many ableton users have laptops , and in turn how many ableton users would be using external audio devices , you'd think that this should be taken care of. by the abes programming that is. Besides , its not happening in live 4. So...I dont think you're theory holds much water

dpel · Post by **dpel** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 6:47 pm

henry ford wrote:hmmm....interesting theory. However even if thats so , when you consider how many ableton users have laptops , and in turn how many ableton users would be using external audio devices , you'd think that this should be taken care of. by the abes programming that is. Besides , its not happening in live 4. So...I dont think you're theory holds much water

both interesting points. my card is an Echo Dj, but i run my sets off a firewire drive.
also, henry, you are correct it does not happen in 4.0.1.

i do notice that my C drive disc activity light is more active when my sets start up
in 5.0.x than 4.0.1 ...and the glitches and cpu spikes happen in this period.

leandro · Post by **leandro** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 10:36 pm

same here... this problem is still happening to me in 5.03 .. cpu spikes, audio dropouts... but now, its not only when i launch a new clip.. it also happens randomly...
energy settings aer in higher performance... i tryed with my m-audio fw 410... and also with the built in audio from my PB... its all the same...
i tryed taking a memorie slot out... and the problem is worse...
any chance that this can be fixed in 5.04 ?

supster · Post by **supster** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 1:06 am

same here:

- bad "skittering" glitchy nasty sound when starting up an arrangement, just about anywhere on the grid. same sound, but not necessarily a CPU spike - every time it loops around to the beginning of an arrange loop.

have to add this is a very horrible, extremely non-musical sound that wrecks concentration and makes mixing in the arrange grid nearly impossible

also:

- extremely slow, lagged copy/duplicate/move with all clips of any type and size on the arrrangment grid. no noticable improvement

- white screen of death on any lockup, means 2 - 5 minute waits are routine, opening and closing sets take anywhere from 2 - 10 minutes. no improvment

- Live still takes up ~350MB of RAM on program startup - basically blank template, all devices off.

sorry guys, im sure this release cleaned up a lot of issues but the major showstoppers - for me (and a lot of others from the reports since the release of 5) are still here

these problems make every project take 30 - 50% longer than they probably should be taking with all the waiting;

ive decided for now i cant use Live for anything but fairly minimal projects and all audio whenever possible. and some DJing full tracks. anything else is not practical

oh .. and again sorry for the negative feedback but .. merry christmas

you guys work hard enjoy the holidays ..
.

simon-d · Post by **simon-d** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 11:36 am

Just wan't to make a counter attack. Im using my intern soundcard on my 17" PowerBook with 2gb ram, Live 5.02, and I have none of the above issues. So it can't just be the software. Maybe if you guys posted a full spec list of your computers, we would be able to point out similar hardware or software features, that might course the problems?!

Kind regards, Simon

kabelton · Post by **kabelton** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 1:31 pm

I work on different projects/songs in live 4.14 and 5.03.
and this:

- extremely slow, lagged copy/duplicate/move with all clips of any type and size on the arrrangment grid. no noticable improvement

is really a pain in the neck.
4.14 is much better than 5.03 in graphic performance.

latitude 800, 1GB ram, 1.8 GHz Centrino

henry ford · Post by **henry ford** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 1:44 pm

simon-d wrote:So it can't just be the software.

brother - my full machine spec has been emailed to the abes , a long time ago. As has everyone elses.
one thing that seems common place with the abletons live5 is that its not consistent from system to system. they seem to have it working on their machines without any problems. but out of , for example , 100 common setups - it seems to me that its only ticking along smoothly on about 15. i thought one of the jobs of a decent programmer was to make software that functioned unilaterly. To hell with your theory. im not using anything rare , or uncommon and im tired of re-iterating my machine spec. because it seemingly doesnt make a lick of difference. maybe the next laptop ill buy , ill buy a second hand one off the ableton debugging/programmer peoples.

and now , on 5.03 ....im getting seriously ugly pops and clicks on tiny tiny sets taking up around 8% cpu...ive tried three teensy sets and they have ALL had ugly audio output....im not even going to depress myself by testing out the midi again , or on the fly looping.

supster · Post by **supster** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 3:09 pm

henry ford wrote:one thing that seems common place with the abletons live5 is that its not consistent from system to system. they seem to have it working on their machines without any problems. but out of , for example , 100 common setups - it seems to me that its only ticking along smoothly on about 15.

yes im beginning to think a couple of things:

- there's a lack of vendor specific / configuration specific testing during developement.

its like they write the software to whatever api's they write them to and cross thier fingers its going to work with everything. im serious about this - i dont think there is much if any

- there may not be any real coordinated testing procedure or farm of typical machines for testing with thier support staff. ive never recieved a return email commenting on any hardware or software i have on my machine, or asking me for more info. never.

I have never seen an acknowlegement or list of known hardware issues anywhere, any effort to determine hardware/configuration commonalities in the issues people are having is hidden, because they never talk about it here on the board from what ive seen

i think some of these issues could be resolved with a focused effort to:

- find the hardware / software commonalities with the people that are experiencing them, then

- notify people when there is a KNOWN hardware / software incompatibility .. like the VST compatibilty list

- work internally and with the vendors behind the scenes to resolve it asap

i think weve tried everthing we can on our own, theres only so much you can do here on the board, we dont know each other, its really hard to communicate sometimes,

very easy to lose track of whos who and who is running what and try and troubleshoot all this ourselves.

it needs to be coordinated by ableton for it to work. all they have to do is acknowlege these problems and openly work with us to fix them

but so far there doesnt seem to be much interest in doing that from them

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 3:48 pm

henry ford wrote:but out of , for example , 100 common setups - it seems to me that its only ticking along smoothly on about 15.

Based on what? You mean, in the bugs and problems section there would be more people posting problems than not? That's hardly a surprise, is it?

Loads of people have no problems.

They just can't be bothered saying it all the time.

gomi · Post by **gomi** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 4:09 pm

leandro wrote:same here... this problem is still happening to me in 5.03 .. cpu spikes, audio dropouts... but now, its not only when i launch a new clip.. it also happens randomly...
energy settings aer in higher performance... i tryed with my m-audio fw 410... and also with the built in audio from my PB... its all the same...
i tryed taking a memorie slot out... and the problem is worse...
any chance that this can be fixed in 5.04 ?

i don't experience these at all on my powerbook.
unless i put in too many softsynths.

also your firewire 410 is going to be using anywhere from 10-20% of your CPU
(that live will not report as usage) depending on your sample rate and track count.

firewire sucks.

here is live playing 1 loop on my mac mini and my edirol fa-66

kernel_task 19.9%

supster · Post by **supster** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 4:29 pm

Machinate wrote:Loads of people have no problems.

They just can't be bothered saying it all the time.

machinate,

ive seen a lot of software products released from a lot of companies.

there are releases that are 'basically ok, with a few problems that need to be straightened out'

Live 5 is not one of those. im sorry, its just not. you read this board every day,

pay attention - you get the sense that it runs fine on most peoples gear? based on what?

honestly:

i wish people would seperate "ableton are really awesome guys, basically really down to earth and cool, invented this great software / tool that we really appreciate being able to have" from

"people that sold us something that is not working, and we need it to be fixed"

the two ideas are not incompatible, and we are not assholes for getting mad that certain long term issues are not being addressed, and we cant work because of them.

its a nightmare for some of us and weve been really patient, really invested a lot of hard work and money into getting things to work, and its like banging your head against a brick wall sometimes.

if its not your problem, please dont come in these threads and piss on them. just stay out of it or help
.

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 5:09 pm

supster wrote:pay attention - you get the sense that it runs fine on most peoples gear? based on what?.

No I do not - I don't have anything to base that claim on - some people do have a ton of problems - some people don't! I was inquiring into the very subjective quote, that suggested that 85% of live users had problems - I was *not* pissing on the thread, nor was I implying that you were an asshole for getting mad.

Even though I can appreciate the fact that the debate gets a bit heated at times I really do think that a move away from conjecture and animosity in this debate will help your cause significantly.

Okay, now I'm thinking: Should we try to organize an effort to zero in on the source of these problems? Like, setting up test scenarios, doing hardware comparisons and really focused work on catching these problems?

If we collaborate on this we could probably do more work than the ableton coders ever could.

supster · Post by **supster** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 5:37 pm

Machinate wrote:
supster wrote:pay attention - you get the sense that it runs fine on most peoples gear? based on what?.
No I do not - I don't have anything to base that claim on - some people do have a ton of problems - some people don't! I was inquiring into the very subjective quote, that suggested that 85% of live users had problems - I was *not* pissing on the thread, nor was I implying that you were an asshole for getting mad.

Even though I can appreciate the fact that the debate gets a bit heated at times I really do think that a move away from conjecture and animosity in this debate will help your cause significantly.

Okay, now I'm thinking: Should we try to organize an effort to zero in on the source of these problems? Like, setting up test scenarios, doing hardware comparisons and really focused work on catching these problems?

If we collaborate on this we could probably do more work than the ableton coders ever could.

yes they do get heated because some of us are actually sitting here dealing with some really bad long term problem RIGHT AT THE MOMENT we are posting in here

so .. sorry if i implied that you were less than helpful or maybe implying yourself that we are ungrateful cretins, because theres always at least one that jumps into a thread where people are trying to get something fixed that does that

in a way i think its really awesome, that people feel that kind of loyalty toward ableton because i do too. wtf would i be pulling my hair out over certain things for two years now for if i didnt?

so its not animosity, its frustration. i do get the sense that that they are really great guys, just as strongly i get the sense that thier testing and problem resolution procedures are haphazard, ok?

ive done a lot of QA for companies (some really large ones) and personal troubleshooting of all kinds with my own shit over the years and friends and family and etc etc ... so i generally know how these things go .. or dont go ..

i also understand that theyre a company and publicly admitting known problems with specific hardware and software is problematic; you publicly state something like that and it might complicate business relationships or negatively affect sales

but there definitely needs to be an organized effort to track down the source of some of these large problems, that affect a good proportion of people, and determine what the root cause is.

in some cases it could be really simple, might be one thing and *poof* it clears up. in others in might be buried deeper in the code and theres nothing we can do.

ideally we would like to think that we shouldnt have to - that they have enough testing in place and the resources to devote - but like i said im beginning to think they might not.

so the quesiton is are there enough people willing to participate in helping track this stuff down?
.

Live 5.0.3 Still Causing CPU Spikes!!!

Live 5.0.3 Still Causing CPU Spikes!!!

mmmhhh