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How does my Activity Monitor show >300% on Logic Pro x?

I am running a 2Ghz quad core i 7 with 16 gigs of RAM and an ssd as my primary drive. My system monitor shows percentages between 60 and 80% and when i start Logic Pro X on my Yosemite OS they increase up to a 100% and i can't even get a song to play because it shouts System Overload and stops the process of playing my tune. The weird thing is that sometimes my activity only shows 20-40% and Logic is playing fine...Any suggestions?


Best,

Thomas

MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)

Posted on May 21, 2015 10:53 AM

Reply
8 replies

May 21, 2015 11:03 AM in response to LeChefs

You have a quadcore processor with HT (HyperThreading), meaning 4 real plus 4 "virtual" is 8 CPU-cores, meaning when you totally max out your Mac it'll be at 800 % CPU.

Also, the refresh rate of Activity Monitors' CPU-meters is slower than that of Logics', so AM may miss CPU-peaks Logic doesn't.

Why your session is behaving as you describe is unclear, because I have no idea how it is set up and what plugins are in use in it. An all-encompassing screenshot of your mixer may help, as well as as screenshot of your audio preferences device settings (Logic Pro>Preferences>Audio>Devices>Core Audio)

May 23, 2015 9:24 AM in response to LeChefs

Well, a few things spring to mind when seeing your mixer: first, Reaktor is a CPU-guzzler, especially in Live mode (= when its' track is selected). You also have quite a few instances of Kontakt, and 3 instances of Massive (as if it's named after its' CPU-impact). I cannot accurately assess which is the bigger contributor though, since the CPU load of all these very much depends on how they're configured - but each of those can easily be configured so they can overload any CPU.

So, if they already stress the CPU when playing 0 voices, chances are you're going to see CPU-overloads pretty soon, especially since you have relatively slow CPU-cores.

You should try to find out which of these instruments are the heaviest contributors, then reduce their load by either turning off any onboard effects (especially reverbs), or by freezing the tracks.


In your Audio preferences: when mixing, there's no reason to not use the 1024 samples buffer - this alleviates CPU-pressure. Also, set the Process Buffer Range (the mixers' buffer) to Large.


Logic Pro X: System Overload messages - Apple Support

How does my Activity Monitor show >300% on Logic Pro x?

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