DSP issues- SOLVED!!!

[JNeffLind]

Hello all. I'm having serious DSP issues when running Reason and getting "Computer too slow to play song" pop ups on songs that used to play easily. I'm also getting audio glitches where there'll be a moment of silence (like a half second) and then the song will keep playing. I've recently upgraded to Windows 10 and Reason 10 and am wondering if these upgrades are the reason for my issues, and if so, what I can do about it.

How do I solve this problem? More RAM? I currently have 32.0 GB which used to be plenty. As I said, songs that used to play fine now have problems, despite nothing being changed in the song.

My processor is an Intel Core i7-4930K CUP @ 3.40GHZ.

Thanks for your help!

[Tumble]

ASIO drivers up to date with Win10 also?

[JNeffLind]

ASIO drivers up to date with Win10 also?

Not sure about that. And not sure how I'd go about checking that. The ASIO drivers are working, i.e. I've got an ASIO driver selected in preferences and sound is coming out lol. Not sure if they're working properly though...

[Loque]

Since I noticed some devices produce cpu leaks, I disabled the warning.

[normen]

Since I noticed some devices produce cpu leaks, I disabled the warning.

What is a "cpu leak"?

[MikeMcKew]

It seems like your specs shouldn't be giving you those problems. What kind of things are you doing when these issues occur? Lots of VSTs/devices, lots of things happening at the same time?

Anyway, I would check your interface driver (what interface are you using) - an update or reinstall could help. You can max out your buffer size when you're mixing (it's annoying to have it maxed out while you're tracking though). Also, I've heard various reports of hyperthreading both helping and hindering performance, so maybe try A/B testing that to see which is better. Of course, closing other programs and ending extraneous processes can help as well...

[Loque]

Since I noticed some devices produce cpu leaks, I disabled the warning.

What is a "cpu leak"?

Stupid auto correction. Cpu peak! I mean, sometimes a device just uses his amount of cpu when started just for a short time. If you do not reach the limit of your cpu, just disable it and go on.

[normen]

Stupid auto correction. Cpu peak! I mean, sometimes a device just uses his amount of cpu when started just for a short time. If you do not reach the limit of your cpu, just disable it and go on.

Ah, alright

[JNeffLind]

It seems like your specs shouldn't be giving you those problems. What kind of things are you doing when these issues occur? Lots of VSTs/devices, lots of things happening at the same time?

Anyway, I would check your interface driver (what interface are you using) - an update or reinstall could help. You can max out your buffer size when you're mixing (it's annoying to have it maxed out while your tracking though). Also, I've heard various reports of hyperthreading both helping and hindering performance, so maybe try A/B testing that to see which is better. Of course, closing other programs and ending extraneous processes can help as well...

Thanks for the suggestions Mike. I do have my buffer size maxed out. I'm using a focusrite 2i4 1st generation. I tried uninstalling all the drivers and re-installing new ones. No change. Also tried disabling hyperthreading and didn't notice any change so I've turned it back on now. Any other suggestions? I'll try anything.

[Loque]

What sample rate are you using and what devices, re, vsts? Did you turned off any power saving for your cpu?

[JNeffLind]

What sample rate are you using and what devices, re, vsts? Did you turned off any power saving for your cpu?

Hey Loque. Thanks for your help.

My sample rate is 44,100.

I don't use any VST's. Reason purist baby!

As for what I do have in the tracks, here's an example. 4 Selig Levelers. 4 Chenille. 5 Pulverisers. 12 Audiomatics. 2 Reason Piano patches. 1 Glitch. 4 Synchronous. 1 echobode. 1 Carve. 3 Antidotes. 1 Vecto. 1 Quad. 1 Predator. 1 Parsec. 2 Reason Electric Bass patches. 3 Dr OctoRex. 1 Rough Rider. 1 FRG compressor. Everything has parallel processing, including about 5 parallel tracks for the drums where I squash the shit out of them.

Here's the song by the way if anyone is interested in what I did with all that mess:


Now that I look at this, maybe it's just that my songs are too big. The thing is though that the song used to play fine and nothing has changed except changing to Windows 10 and Reason 10. What do you think? If the song is too big, do I just need more RAM to play it? (don't really want to deal with bouncing to audio tracks if I can avoid it)

Don't think I have my cpu on powersaving mode...

[househoppin09]

It would help if you specified what you upgraded from--what OS and Reason version were you on previously when you were getting better performance? And, are you absolutely sure you didn't change anything else on your system, hardware or software, at the same time that you upgraded to Win10/Reason10? Also: when did you first notice this, exactly? If it was sometime around mid-January, the culprit could be the Meltdown mitigation patch that Microsoft pushed out around then, particularly given that your CPU is an Ivy Bridge (no INVPCID to help prevent performance hits from that patch).

You can forget about the RAM, btw. At 32 GB, the idea of that being any sort of bottleneck whatsoever is kinda hilarious...

[Steedus]

I experienced the same issues you describe after upgrading to reason 9.5 and then 10. Tried a new more powerful computer but it didn’t get rid of the issue. It was better but didn’t get rid of it completely. Just figured it was modern reason as I upgraded from 6.5 which ran like butter.

[JNeffLind]

It would help if you specified what you upgraded from--what OS and Reason version were you on previously when you were getting better performance? And, are you absolutely sure you didn't change anything else on your system, hardware or software, at the same time that you upgraded to Win10/Reason10? Also: when did you first notice this, exactly? If it was sometime around mid-January, the culprit could be the Meltdown mitigation patch that Microsoft pushed out around then, particularly given that your CPU is an Ivy Bridge (no INVPCID to help prevent performance hits from that patch).

You can forget about the RAM, btw. At 32 GB, the idea of that being any sort of bottleneck whatsoever is kinda hilarious...

The tracks in question were made in Reason 8 & 9 and I was running Windows 7. I'm not sure if it started in January because I just recently revisited the tracks after a long time away from them.

As for changing anything else. Here's a fun tidbit that might be a clue. The guy that built my computer sold me a pirated version of windows 7, claiming it was legit. (he's since gone out of business) When I upgraded to Windows 10, it recognized the pirated version and fucked my whole system up. I had to buy Windows 10 and re-install literally everything. At that point I started getting crashes on my computer where it would say "WHEA uncorrectable error" and just keep resetting itself over and over again with the same error message. The only way I could stop the cycle once it started is to turn the computer off right after it restarted (while it was loading) with the power button, then turn it back on. I don't have to wait any period of time. Just turn it off and then back on again. Reset doesn't do the trick. The computer keeps the cycle of crashing and restarting if I try to fix the problem with reset. Only the power button works.

I'm glad I gave you a chuckle thinking I needed more RAM. I'm a writer/musician, not a computer guy, so I admit my ignorance. If anyone needs a sonnet written I'm your man. Computers, not so much.

Any suggestions?

[JNeffLind]

I experienced the same issues you describe after upgrading to reason 9.5 and then 10. Tried a new more powerful computer but it didn’t get rid of the issue. It was better but didn’t get rid of it completely. Just figured it was modern reason as I upgraded from 6.5 which ran like butter.

Well I'd say I'm glad I'm not the only one, except I know how much it sucks dealing with this. You have my sympathy man.

[normen]

Did any of you guy check if moving the graphics card PCI slot helps and did you check your DPC latency? Somehow it sounds to me like the props use different UI code causing the graphics subsystem of the computer to create "pauses" waiting for the hardware (i.e. interrupts), thus increasing DSP load.

Edit: Also I think they enabled hyper threading cores by default now so that might play into it as well - they left them out for a reason before.

[JNeffLind]

Did any of you guy check if moving the graphics card PCI slot helps and did you check your DPC latency? Somehow it sounds to me like the props use different UI code causing the graphics subsystem of the computer to create "pauses" waiting for the hardware (i.e. interrupts), thus increasing DSP load.

Edit: Also I think they enabled hyper threading cores by default now so that might play into it as well - they left them out for a reason before.

Thanks for your input Normen. I think I have figured out what was causing my problems. I didn't have "use multi-core audio rendering" turned on. I don't know if I turned it off and forgot about it (used to party too much, there's a lot I don't remember) or if the default is for it to be turned off in Reason 10. Whatever the case, I turned on multi-core audio rendering and now the song plays mostly with two bars of DSP with it spiking to three bars occasionally.

Thanks to everyone for their help.