Hello, I’m creating rather complex GP files that are meant to be triggered by three different midi devices and two audio ins simultaneously. Each rackspace typically hovers around 20-30% in GP’s CPU monitor without me even triggering the rackspace with audio or MIDI.
What is a comfortable (safe) CPU range I should be shooting for?
thnx
Under 50% when playing and you should be safe when using patch persist
And if I wanted to improve my computer to better handle CPU load, what would I do? I’ve followed the optimization guide, I’m wondering about hardware improvements.
What is your sample rate and buffer size? What audio interface are you using? Are you on Windows or Mac?
sample rate- 44.1
Block rate- 256 (would prefer 128 if I could afford the CPU)
Interface- PreSonus 1824C
Windows 11
Assuming you also did implement the energy settings (which make a huge difference), you can’t do much about it. Your sample rate and buffer size are not out of the ordinary, so you can’t improve (much) on that. I don’t know what system you use (laptop or desktop). In a desktop you might be able to upgrade the CPU, but that doesn’t come free.
If you’re foreseeing a heavier load, you could think about using multiple GP instances. Drawback is the increased complexity and it’s also not always possible, depending on the use case and design.
Another thing you might consider is replacing plugins that are CPU hungry with others that are more efficient. For example some plugins doing compression and/or limiting can be using more CPU than useful, while others, although less fancy, use a lot less. For live performance, most of the time the audience is not going to notice the difference in quality (if any). But I appreciate the fact that you don’t like to replace the plugins that are ‘the core’ of your design and/or sound.
Some plugins do have quality settings. You could lower these, as long you’re happy with the results. Oversampling in plugins is also something to look at. Sometimes oversampling is very useful, sometimes it’s a complete waste of CPU.
My two cents
Multiple instances works a charm for me… I have 6 running on separate cores. Yes it gets a bit more complicated, but there’s a part of me that loves that! 