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Unusual DSP Workload

Posted: 27 Sep 2016
by LastReaper
Hi guys! I am in dire need of assistance here. :(

As stated in the subject, I'm having unusual amounts of DSP workload at the moment and I am really unsure why it is the case. I have solved DSP problems before but this one is something else for me.
I'm running Reason 9.1. My PC has a 4.0GHz Intel i7 6700k quad core CPU with 16gb of RAM and I'm using windows 10. My sound card is the RME Babyface Pro plugged in a USB3 socket at the back panel. Decent setup imo. Everything is up to date*** and should run smoothly as it always did. It doesn't.

Now, the problem is that my dsp workload peaks for seemingly no reasons at all because the windows task manager shows 15-25% of cpu usage (peaks at 40% sometimes for a second at best). I played back the busiest part of my song at the lowest sample rate (44.1) and highest buffer size (2048 samples) and intense crackling/pop noises still occur. When I stop playback during that part of the song the dsp workload stays at 4 bars and takes a long while going back down to 1-2 bars even when there's absolutely no sound. I'm using about 31 REs, 10 of them are instruments. Weird stuff. Never happened before.

***I believe the problem started happening when I updated my windows 10 to an update that was like a couple of weeks old (the one with the windows defender monitoring thing for those who know). If I recall correctly I was finishing the arrangement of my song before updating. When I re-opened the project the next day the problem appeared. Should I back up to the older version and see if that changes anything?

Any help and information is appreciated! Thanks in advance! Peace

Re: Unusual DSP Workload

Posted: 28 Sep 2016
by Loque
Background scans of AV or Windows Indexing Service maybe.

Re: Unusual DSP Workload

Posted: 28 Sep 2016
by LastReaper
I've disabled both windows defender and the search indexer (if that's what you meant) and still the problem persists. -_-
I believe I am not the only one dealing with issues regarding recent windows 10 updates. I've looked through comments on random pages around the web and there's a lot of people complaining about the updates. I'm gonna try to back up and see what it does. Thanks for helping!
Man, do I miss windows 7...

Re: Unusual DSP Workload

Posted: 28 Sep 2016
by LastReaper
I just backed up to an earlier build using the recovery setting, and now it works as good as before, no dsp overload. Microsoft is struggling hard with windows 10 stability...

Re: Unusual DSP Workload

Posted: 28 Sep 2016
by Kenni
LastReaper wrote:I just backed up to an earlier build using the recovery setting, and now it works as good as before, no dsp overload. Microsoft is struggling hard with windows 10 stability...
I've had no issues with Windows 10 so far, except for this "tiny" bug that made the login prompt not show when I booted the machine, rendering the computer useless. :D

I really like Windows 10, but unlike Windows 7, the bugs that they DO find, arent generic. They seem to differ in nature from user to user, which is normally a very bad sign.

Re: Unusual DSP Workload

Posted: 28 Sep 2016
by ionly
What's Windows CPU performance doing in idle? I was getting a whopping CPU 40% until I switched off Windows 7 automatic updates (after 4 weeks of investigation)

Cheers

EDIT: Windows 10 did not behave either after upgrading (Stacked Buffer issues)

Re: Unusual DSP Workload

Posted: 28 Sep 2016
by Gorgon
My Windows 10 idles on 3-4% with a lot of programs open. Sounds like a local issue.

Re: Unusual DSP Workload

Posted: 28 Sep 2016
by WongoTheSane
You could bring up the task manager, click on the "Performance" tab, then on the "Resource Monitor" button, which opens a new window. Here you can sort by "Processor" to see which task is responsible for the CPU usage. Don't forget to unfold the "Services" section and check there too, as a service could be the culprit too. I'm on Windows 7 but it should work the same in 10.