I’m on M1 ax Pro. My CPU usage is at 77% when GP is open. Each Rackspace is around 30% CPU in GP. Is such a high CPU normal?
That depends on the plugins used of course.
Note that you can make some clever plugin choices that result in lower CPU cycles. → [blog] Clever ways to optimize your plugin usage
If you’re talking about the regular CPU usage (rather than just the audio thread usage which is displayed on the top right of the main GP window) then sure…..every single thread running on your computer contributes to that number. You may have plugins that are creating tons of non-audio threads and if you have plugin editor windows open then they’re sucking up CPU cycles for their GUIs as well. If you don’t have enough RAM, your computer may be swapping as well (though that might cause some audio glitching)
A rackspace reporting 30% audio thread is fine.
Yes. It’s around 70% regular CPU usage. I’m on M1 Max 64ram. MacBook hits up and starts the fans. Is tgere some way to check what is causing that?
Are you using Rosetta by any case?
Some other thing: If your fans start running hot when you load Gig Performer, it's probably not Gig Performer! - Gig Performer®
As I said earlier, If it’s only happening with GP, then you have plugins that are running lots of threads outside of the audio thread and using up lots of regular CPU cycles as they do so.
If the plugins are not well designed, those threads may stay running all the time, even if there’s no audio and/or they are in other rackspaces. Switching rackspaces simply disables the audio thread and it is up to the plugins to recognize they are bypassed so as to turn off unnecessary threads.
Further, you may just have too many of those particular plugnins.
I’m not. But the fans do go crazy.
Is it a whole projesct that uses global CPU or an individual Rackspace? Would decreasing number of Rackspaces lower the global CPU usage?
GP is only explicitly managing the audio thread. It lets the plugin know that it is being bypassed but it’s up to the plugin to make any adjustments to reduce its usage for non-audio threads.
So it’s the total number of plugins in your gigfile that is contributing to that 70% value.
You should probably create a brand new gig file and, in a single rackspace, insert (and remove) a single plugin and see what the overall CPU usage looks like. If you find one that raises the CPU % significantly then that will give you some useful information
Cheers. I’ve started doing exactly that. Thanks for your help.