Sorry, another System Overload thread: G5 vs Mac Pro version

Since there are likely some very knowledgeable people here that choose not to deal with the pathetic forum software over in the Apple discussion area (preview, bolding, quoting are all broken at the moment!), I thought I'd open a thread here to get as much feedback as possible on this problem.

 

I really don't want to start another bitch-fest. Seriously. I'm just as disgruntled as everyone else who's been frustrated with these System Overload errors, but I just want to get back to making music as soon as possible and put this behind me.

 

I just got one of the new 8-core Mac Pro's last Fri to replace my aging dual 2.5GHz G5 PowerMac. The G5 had the dreaded AMD-8131 PCI chipset which is known to not work well with the UAudio UAD-1 cards. Honestly, I was able to get quite a decent number of plugin instances before running into trouble, but I hoped that these problems would go away on the Mac Pros. Not only did they not go away, my entire Logic experience has worsened, and I am now seeing CPU spikes and System Overload messages like never before - even on relatively small projects with 7 audio tracks, 5 of which are playing at any given time (the other 2 are tom tracks which have been processed with strip silence).

 

After speaking directly with UAudio, my concern has shifted away from them as they seem to be confident that their stuff is just fine on Intel-based Macs, and even with Leopard. But now I'm at a loss and I don't know what to do.

 

Just to make sure I wasn't completely losing my mind, I decided to temporarily go back to my dual G5, which is still running Tiger, btw (10.4.11) and load up some projects that are giving me trouble on the Mac Pro. I swapped in my audio hard drive and fired it up. Much more consistent behavior. No System Overloads. No audio dropouts. Tried 4 different projects.

 

I then moved the audio hard drive back into the Mac Pro and fired it back up. Consistent but random audio dropouts on all projects. System Overload messages in the projects with higher track counts. CPU spikes galore. Even jumping around to different points within a playing project resulted in audio artifacts that I did not hear on the G5.

 

To say that I am disappointed would be an understatement. I am shocked! I am staring at the G5 wondering if I should just go back to it and return the Mac Pro! I can't believe I just typed that! This makes no sense to me.

 

BTW I've tried the "nice" command to increase the process priority for Logic but this had little if any effect. I only have 2GB of RAM on the Mac Pro, but I'm not seeing any page-outs and I only had 2GB in the G5 anyway. (More RAM is on the way from OWC, though). I suppose this could be a Leopard problem but I've seen posts of this happening to Tiger users as well.

 

I do have one question - I apologize if this has been answered before, but does anyone know why Logic's CPUs meters will spike but not the CPU meters in Activity Monitor? Attached is a screenshot showing the CPU History meter a few seconds after I got an overload message in Logic.

 

Note that I also had the CPU Usage window open in Activity Monitor but did not see those meters spike either.

just a suggestion.....maybe your computer is faulty

Well - maybe - but everything else runs just fine.

 

I want to add that I used the Migration Assistant to bring over my apps and settings from my G5. Now I know some of you are going to have a problem with this, but after going through a reinstall of Tiger on that machine not long ago, I was not willing to go through it again, nor did I think it was necessary. In my opinion, the Mac filesystem is laid out quite logically, much more so than Windows. Plus there is no registry to corrupt, and the audio drivers have to be reinstalled anyway. (I have a Fireface 800, btw). Copying over the home directory, applications, and preferences should really not be a problem.

 

If anyone honestly things that reinstalling from scratch will help, maybe I'll give it a shot. But if this winds up working, I would be very surprised.

that changes everything

 

 

i would set aside the time for a clean install....no shortcuts

 

 

1st os x

2nd logic

 

 

nothing else (no uad, even ).....start with a new project using only logic stuff....see how you go

 

then, if you feel comfortable to do so, install extra plugs...repair permissions after each install and check how each impacts your performance

 

hassle, yes....but essential....something is wrong here, and at least with the clean install you are eliminating a lot of possibilities as to where these errors are occurring

Ok fine. I've been thinking about it - at this point I've got nothing to lose but time. Why not. If a clean install works, I will be amazed, and I will lose a ton of respect for OS X. This should not be necessary, but here goes....

I concure with el-bo...I think that's really the only way to do it, AS MUCH of a pain in the royal ass as it is.

 

Please keep us posted, and we'll try to help you through it! Many of us will be making the G5 to Intel switch this year (myself included...) Though..damnit..my Quad G5 seems to work just fine

while you are at it, i'd take the opportunity to 'zero-pass' format your system drive

 

with the os x disc 1 in the drive, boot up while holding the 'c' key...hold it till after the chime....

 

ignore the install dialog onscreen and look to the menubar

 

 

select disk utility, at which point you can perform repairs/formats/partitions on the start-up disk in the same way as an external drive

To late for the zero-pass I'm afraid. 6 min left in the Leopard install. Will keep you posted.

good job....i'm excited for ya

 

 

 

remember....just logic

 

 

good luck

i still think the format would help you.....this maybe the only opportunity you get to really start from scratch

 

 

aren't all the programs that may cause conflicts still gonna be on the hard-drive ??????

aren't all the programs that may cause conflicts still gonna be on the hard-drive ??????

Not really. Sure the data won't be zero'd and can be recovered and reconstructed if absolutely necessary, but the only time I'd zero out a drive is if I were selling the computer and wanted to make sure the buyer could not access my data in any way. I don't think I'm taking a chance by not zeroing out the drive. If this doesn't work, there's no way I'm going to think: "gee, if only I zero'd out the drive". I did an erase & install - that's good enough for me.

 

Logic is being installed now, but I'm getting sleepy. Might not be able to fully test this until tomorrow.

One thing that worked for me (after a lot of trial and error) was to install the system to a bootable FW hard drive.

 

I was plagued by Overloads... plagued.

 

However, since doing this I have yet to receive one. In fact, it's been a complete and total lifesaver for me where Logic Pro is concerned, and I'm beyond happy that it's worked out. I can now run 7-10 virtual instruments with buffers @ 64 and a CPU usage of about 25% per core. That's with multiple effects like compressor, Delay Designer, and channel EQ on each track with a piddly little 2.16GHz Core 2 Macbook with 2GB memory... nothing bounced. It's night and day different, though I don't actually plan on leaving the buffers @ 64.

 

Once I start judicious use of my multiout synths, as well as busses, freezing and increased buffer sizes, I figure my DAW will behave the way I expected it to on this machine, which was previously unusable.

 

Reinstalling cleanly is a good idea, to be sure, but I can tell unfortunately that it did nothing for me. Back up your system before such an extreme step so you can back out if it doesn't work out.

 

If I were you, knowing what I now know about the problem, I would buy a bootable FW drive (if you don't already have one), install the system to it, and use the Migration assistant to copy everything over. Then, leaving the original drive intact and complete, boot from the FW drive and see if that helps.

 

If it does, you can then decide whether to wipe the external with a clean copy of the OS and a fresh install of everything else (which is what I eventually ended up doing, BTW).

 

Read my post on this page to get a feel for the level of trial-and-error I gave to the problem, and then decide whether you want to do similarly by STARTING with a clean install and working up from there:

http://www.logicprohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=15806&highlight=overload

 

That's rather dated now, and only about 70% of what I eventually ended up doing.

 

Reinstalling cleanly might work for you, of course. I'm simply saying that running the system from an external drive DEFINITELY worked for me, after many months of trying to find something about my system.

 

Good luck with it man!!!

Sorry to hear you're getting these on an 8-core Mac Pro. I've been waiting to see if the raw horsepower of such a machine would help before purchasing one. Juries still out, but I'll put this on my list of things to think about.

 

Take care,

- zevo

Edited January 16, 2008 by inmazevo

yeah, erase and install....that's the one....

 

thought for a moment you were just re-installing the os...

 

 

 

when i reinstalled i just zero'd to make sure that my hard drive worked fully, but it's not necessary

Thanks, zevo - too late to try your suggestion, though, as Leopard is already done installing and the Logic install is in progress.

 

My backup, btw, is my G5. I still have my UAD-1 cards in it, and all my audio stuff is on a separate drive, so going back is no problem. (I also have backups of both drives on external FW drives).

 

I'm going to read over that thread now.

 

el-bo - glad you agree with the erase & install. I'm definitely going to have some things to say on this entire situation once I'm done, whether it works or not.

Oops.

I was too late.

 

Ah well. Reinstalling has worked for some, it just didn't work for me.

Here's hoping that you are up and overload free by the time you finish!!

 

Again, good luck...

- zevo

 

FWIW - I always format the drive before reinstalling the OS as well (Erase and Install). It guarantees a known starting point.

The Logic installer is reporting 6h 21m to go. I'll certainly pass out by then. Maybe I'll go start a sampling rate argument over on Gearslutz.

The Logic installer is reporting 6h 21m to go. I'll certainly pass out by then. Maybe I'll go start a sampling rate argument over on Gearslutz.

Oh, very good! So easy to get people riled up over there. [shakes head]

The Logic installer is reporting 6h 21m to go. I'll certainly pass out by then. Maybe I'll go start a sampling rate argument over on Gearslutz.

 

ROTF..nice

Oh, very good! So easy to get people riled up over there. [shakes head]

Yes, I'm currently amusing myself by reading the "ProTools HD Is King of the Hill" thread.

I am sorry to say that the reinstall did not help in the slightest bit. I did an erase & install of Leopard, then installed the Fireface drivers, and then Logic. I also copied over the demo content and opened up each project. They all worked beautifully, of course, and I never saw any of the CPU meters get anywhere near peak levels for any of the projects.

 

Then I installed the UAudio software, Altiverb 6 and PSP VintageWarmer.

 

I decided to load up the Brandi Carlile demo song and start adding plugins to it. I added 10 Altiverb and 10 PSP VintageWarmer instances to various tracks and had no trouble. I then started adding UAudio plugins, and that's when I started seeing problems. It seems that the more UAudio plugins I load, the more likely it is that I will see the CPU spike. It also seems slightly worse when I add UAudio plugins to the main output bus.

 

Why on earth would my CPU usage spike as I add more UAudio plugins? These plugins are not native plugins - they are supposed to be processed on the cards. This just can't be right! One thing I know for sure - Logic's CPU meters do not match up at all with the meters in Activity Monitor. I don't understand this.

 

Now I am right back to square one. Identical problems. I can play back that simple 7-track project I mentioned and watch the CPU meters peak randomly. This is incredibly depressing.

actually, it was very worthwhile....it rules out all other possibilities but the uad card

 

logic aint broke

your mac aint broke

leopard aint broke and neither are all your other plug-ins

 

but all of the above + uad= bad

 

 

at this point, i would direct my energy more towards uad support...........and if possible, avoid using the uad plugs so that you may start to get something out of your new machine while waiting for a solution

 

what do you think ????

Dude, you're asking a crack addict not to use crack. I'm going to pursue this with UAudio. I'll also start looking for UAudio replacements. As much as I hate Waves (they STILL don't support Leopard), I've heard that their API plugs are very good. I'm sure there are others. (But man the UAudio plugs are really sweet).

Dude, you're asking a crack addict not to use crack. I'm going to pursue this with UAudio. I'll also start looking for UAudio replacements. As much as I hate Waves (they STILL don't support Leopard), I've heard that their API plugs are very good. I'm sure there are others. (But man the UAudio plugs are really sweet).

It sounds to me like it is a UA-Leopard compatibility issue. Third-party plug compatibility is the biggest reason I haven't made the jump from Tiger to Leopard yet.

 

I'm sorry about your crack. I imagine you'll get a "fix" before too long (in both senses of the word). 8)

though it's not my realm of experience, i often follow threads where people look for decent waves replacements etc

 

 

i'm sure you'll be able to find some good native plugs that make the loss of the uad card bearable......

 

it's not as though you need extra dsp....you've got native power 'till tuesday'

and for the moment just remove the uad card and ENJOY using your new computer for a while

 

 

maybe get some 'JOY by vince'.....one whiff's gonna really brighten up your day

Yeah I'm glad I went through this because at least now I know where the problem is. Those demo projects are very helpful! It was good to see really large projects (by my standards anyway) perform so well on this machine. UAudio told me they are "cool" with Leopard, so I guess I'll have to press them and hopefully get some answers.

 

I would LOVE to understand the relationship of Logic's CPU meters to the Activity Monitor meters. I think this is key to being able to figure out what's going on. It seems that Logic's CPU meters are reporting something different.

I will see the UA folks at NAMM and see if this UAD-1/Leopard thing is a known problem or if it is system specific.

 

But personally if it is a choice between using my UAD-1 cards or having Leopard I will stay on Tiger.

I specifically asked UAudio if there were any known problems and they said no. If you find out anything further at NAMM, please do let me know. (I had an opportunity to go this year but turned it down - I'm starting to regret it now).

 

I actually tried to install Tiger on this machine, but it wouldn't let me.

I specifically asked UAudio if there were any known problems and they said no. If you find out anything further at NAMM, please do let me know. (I had an opportunity to go this year but turned it down - I'm starting to regret it now).

 

I actually tried to install Tiger on this machine, but it wouldn't let me.

Well, I suppose you can tell them that now there ARE some known problems. Does it matter who "knows" it?

Bummer it didn't work out, but at least there's some hint as to what the issue might be with your system. That, though not exactly what you want to hear, is encouraging at least.

 

Do you have a spare external FW drive, or can you afford to get one on the cheap (doesn't need to be too big... just big enough to use as a system disk)?

 

It MIGHT be worth a try to install your system to it, and use Migration Assistant to copy your recently installed system over to it.

 

I emphasize might, because you seem to have noticed a system specific (ie UAD stuff) that causes the issue. I couldn't find anything system specific with my machines... at least, nothing that I could do anything about since in my base case tests there wasn't anything but Mac hardware and Mac software going on.

 

But I'm not naive enough to suggest that just because it worked for me, it would necessarily work for you.

 

Worth a try, though, given that the alternative is living with the Overloads or a workflow you might not prefer to have (ie - no UAD stuff for now).

 

Good luck,

- zevo