Major glitching issues

You might try QuickCPU.
You can set up a custom profile that allows you to raise the base frequency, and control the range it operates in. What you don’t want is Turbo kicking in and out—that in itself will cause audible pops. You can however use the range that Turbo operates in and keep it there, You want to find the balance where your CPU is operating at an elevated Ghz range without overheating. It takes a little experimentation, but you will find improve performance.
Will it be enough for what you’re wanting to achieve? I don’t know. It’s worth a shot, before you go scrap that laptop and buy something else.

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The irony is that on my Mac, I’m using TurboBoost to prevent my Mac from going too fast and get too hot. So far it has had no impact on Gig Performer (three weeks with 12 shows with no issues a few weeks ago)

@dhj Clearly your machine has some room to spare in the processing dept. and isn’t prone to spike when the turbo comes on. In lesser machines, what can happen is a sudden demand for processing(a CPU hog plugin, for example) comes in coupled with a turbo increase in processing power and a subsequent increase in fan usage and causes some pops and cracks. You want a machine that operates at a static frequency, with a static fan speed—and then to push the limits as defined by those two rules. No jolts or bumps.

My problem here is I can’t seem to find any way of managing the Turbo function, or even disabling it in the BIOS. And this laptop has no fans or vents, it’s a very minimalist thing.

I though that Intel has the hand on what exactly the turbo boost do… :thinking:

No, through QuickCPU I can control my CPU frequency.
My 2 gig laptops have a i7-7700HQ which runs a base of 2.8GHz. Through a section called SpeedShift, I can modulate (among other things) max, min, and desired frequency.

I save that to a profile that loads every time, and the result is I get the same boosted frequency every time, and it never changes. In essence, I am using the Turbo Boost, but keeping it steady.

ScreenHunter 03

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Very interesting!

Many thanks,
I’ll give that a crack

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Wow, this seems like some very important information that (I think) most people would know nothing about!

I thought SpeedShift is frequently mentioned as one of the CPU throttling components to disable in order to optimize a computer for audio production.

I wonder if this Quick CPU app (or similar) is something basically everyone who has a Windows laptop dedicated to Gig Performer should use.

Maybe too late, but just in case it helps someone. (I think it is in the performance guide also): Create a new power profile (use control panel, not the new and sexy settings app). This power profile must be a ‘high performance’ profile.

Tweaking an existing ‘balanced’ or low performance profile is NOT the same.

For me this made a big difference

I downloaded and setup quickCPU yesterday on my i5 8225U windows laptop.

When I set it to maximum performance, I saw my clock frequencies peg at 3 ghz. This laptop has always struggled to maintain a long term boost (I think there’s some rather aggressive cooling settings going on I’ve never been able to bypass), and usually settles around 2 ghz… makes it VERY unstable for live use.

I played a Pianoteq NY Steinway patch that tends to cause cpu overs for 30 minutes with no glitching! And, my thermals hovered around 60 C. Hotter than it normally gets, but still no where near 100 max.

I’m just blown away at the life this breathed into my struggling little ultrabook laptop.

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One explanation for your processor’s weakness is that it is a “U” class processor, which means that it is optimised for low power consumption at the expense of high performance.
By using Quick CPU to to improve performance, you are boosting power consumption, which naturally leads to a reasonable temperature rise.

When choosing a processor, it is very important to take this suffix into account, depending on whether you want a powerful processor, an economical processor or other features.

For more information: Intel Core Processor Suffixes

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Indeed, while I didn’t know that a U processor would struggle when I bought that laptop… it’s about 4 years old and wasn’t intended to be a workstation. I previously had a Muse Receptor, and sold it when I moved last. When the need arose to start using software platforms again, I used what I had.

While GP took care of the software side of things, I still have yet to get a suitable hardware replacement for the Muse.

Having rode this struggle bus for awhile, I would agree with most windows users that a 3ghz H or greater processor is probably the best route. Maybe someday my constantly unexpected life expenses will die down enough to get an ADK or PCAL system… or maybe I’ll go to the dark side with a Mac.

Cheers

I’ve recently moved from Windows to Mac and I am VERY happy with the results.

X

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Yes, we are ready for the part 2 :slight_smile: Part 1 is here.

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The complete conversion is not quite done yet. I have eight more old songs and three new ones to get in place to call it done. Once it is, I will definitely write part 2.

X

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Thanks! I featured your story Pt.1 in this blog.

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I moved to the dark side of the Force one year ago. I had been fighting for 6 months with a high performance, high price gaming windows notebook and I was without any will to keep on fighting. I found a company in Italy selling Windows notebook designed for audio production and their offer was technically ok but high price (2800 euro for an i7 well packed).
At same price I could buy a MacBookPro with M1. So I decided to cross.
With windows you have always a high risk that audio board drivers can collide with other drivers because supplied by different producers.
Newer and slimmer notebooks have aggressive BIOS preventing you to boost clock and avoid thermal control because you risk to burn the CPU.
I was a hard Apple enemy but I must admit: since the night I installed my VST collection I never touched drivers, buffers, settings.
I open GigPerformer, choose instruments and play. No issues, no time lost, incredible performance, no fan noise.
The only drawback: don’t update OS until audio companies agree. I bought mine with BigSur, I will turn to Monterey this Christmas holiday, I will not turn to Ventura until very safe.
You can survive with windows if not using notebooks, with a NUC or a tower machine you can choose hardware and drivers and play with clocks and BIOS settings until you find a good balance, but weeks of testing are necessary.
With a Mac you don’t need any testing at all.

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