System Overloads

Can anyone give me some advice on how to stop system overloads in logic. Is this to do with not having enough ram? I have a hard drive where i store my CPU hungry folders/banks. Is it worth getting an SSD card? I know about freezing tracks and other tips to take the strain off the CPU but as you can see, i dont know what the actual cause of the system overloads is. Will getting the latest mac make a difference? At the moment i have an iMac 2010 model, 3.06 Ghz intel core i3, with 12GB RAM installed.

System overload is normally the CPU maxing out. To monitor what's going on, click the metronome/note icons to the left in the LCD display at the top of your Logic window and choose Custom. Double-click the CPU/HD meter to open it in a floating window. Monitor both the CPU and HD activity while you're working and see which one is peaking at the time you're getting those alerts?

On the machine you have, the CPU is weak, so an ssd won't help with your system overloads.

 

A new iMac will definitely help, especially with 4 cores.

Yes it is the CPU i can see is maxing out. I suspected it was my Mac that was lacking in specs. Looks like i will have to start saving for a new one haha Thanks!

More RAM is always better, but it also seems to not be a solution. A better CPU is probably the solution.

 

I was concerned about how much horsepower I was going to have to buy when I got my iMac, but I could not do definitive research that would tell me. I knew I would regularly have 40 tracks or better.

 

So I erred on the side of caution and got the 4.0 i7 Skylake, and a large fusion drive, to address raw CPU and I/O as potential bottlenecks.

 

The last potential bottleneck is RAM, and I only got 8G, because I could upgrade that if needed.

 

But as it turns out, I have never had a system overload. I use 9 Space Designers on separate busses and 2 high-end delays (so essentially all reverb and delay is handled there), and a linear EQ on the output. I use lots of enveloper and noise gate plug-ins, single channel EQs on every track, but not really much else, a few autopans, a few other incidentals.

 

My HD meter (I/O) always stays low. My CPU meter does max out occasionally, and I can actually detect the song playing slower sometimes when this happens, but I do not get any overloads at all (not like I did when I exceeded 6 tracks on m y 2011 MacBook Air with a dead fan--I actually used to run that on top of a metal cookie sheet to get a little heat sink action).

 

So I have few complaints, and have not had to resort to track freezes or mixdowns.

 

What I do not really know is if more RAM might make a modest improvement on how hard the CPU has to work or not. Obviously it has to work harder if there is more VM paging going on, but my best guess would be that more RAM really would not make much of a dent, especially since the paging is to a SSD.

 

So, bottom line, if you need lots or tracks and/or lots of resources get the top-level fastest i7 if you are buying (the fusion drive probably is also helpful) but if you have a computer and you are getting overloads, the Q still remains whether more RAM might help. My feeling is that it will help a bit, but probably not much, but this is based only on my anecdotal experience.

Thanks for the informative answer. I have spoken to a few people who suggest the same thing  - That i should get a top range mac (i7). I use a lot of tracks , usually about 80 every project and the system overloads are really annoying. Freezing the tracks does help but then i obviously have to un freezer every time i need to edit a channel. I best get saving and i will probably get one on finance.