Traktor Pro 2.5 CPU overload

[smiTTTen]

most definitely.

[dj matt blaze]

Agree with RockingClub. The theory sounds absurd. Multi-core support "should" distribute the processing workload across however many cores you have available. The difference should be analogous to the revs a 3.5l V6 car would need to do 60mph versus a 1.6l 4 cylinder vehicle. In short, multicore 'on' should decrease load.

In addition, the fact that the load is much higher when Traktor is idle makes little sense either. The CPU works when it has to, it doesn't snatch a bunch of CPU bandwidth and think, "nice, I'll keep that for later in case I need it." If I am wrong about this I would love to get a qualified and detailed explanation.

Most of you know I am the guy who did the Kontrol S4 Windows optimization diary thread and have written a few articles for DJTT on this subject. The machine I use does have some grunt with an i7 and 8GB running Traktor on a dedicated Win7 partition. It uses less than 800MB to load windows and has run every version of the Traktor since the [much maligned] S4 version, flawlessly. Well, it did up until 2.5. The difference is considerable. I had to go from 5.3 to 5.7ms and to be honest, I won't be utterly surprised if I have to go up a level again once I start doing stupid stuff with the F1.

Whatever people think about NI, they aren't fools and will no doubt be looking at the load issue. There might be an update in a month or 3 months - who knows. I am not stoked with the situation at all and if I wasn't planning on bashing some pretty lights I would roll back.

To those of you who have a perfectly well running system prior to 2.5 - I wouldn't waste an inordinate amount of time trying to make adjustments to your machine. Obviously the wifi/bluetooth/aero/etc should be off but it's likely you are already doing that. If not, go back and read the diary post, it's a sticky in the S4 forum.

For now....we wait.

I am just letting you all know what I read and what I discovered with Traktor Pro 2 a year ago. When I turned mulitcore on, my meter spiked up , turned it off and it went down. My cpu load was at 1/4 before I turned it on so it wasn't like it was bad. I figured that was the only logical reason, telling Traktor to use all cores will cause the CPu to load up resulting in higher CPU usage but this begs the question what is multicore support good for then and why even have it if thats what it does? I have quad core, my latency is 10.2 overall, sample rate at 256, and everything runs fine so the multicore thing doesn't bother me. Its that old addage. "Doctor, when I do this it hurts" Doctor replies, "Well don't do that"

[smiTTTen]

I certainly wasn't casting aspersions in your direction. You relayed something that sounded plausible in the hope it might help ppl. I'm glad people like you share what they know. I just get annoyed when people post nonsense as fact on blogs. The fact of the matter is that there is likely a bug in the code that causes the use of multicore option to incorrectly handle how it processes data. Some people have had positive results with it turned on (not me) but most have not. I'm gonna guess that primary coding is done on OSX and then ported to Windows. This is often why you see disparities in different platform versions of the same product.

Rainer over at Traktor Bible has this documented on his site under the Traktor Bugs sections:

MULTI-CORE SUPPORT LEADS TO HIGH CPU LOAD

Several users experience a dramatically higher CPU load in version 2.1.1. Sometimes it can help to disable the multi-core support on Preferences/Audio Setup. If this does not help, you should go back to version 2.0.3.

Issue in: Traktor 2.1.1, 2.1.2 (?), 2.5.0 (?) added on October 4, 2011
Fixed in: unknown

Note for 2.1.2/2.1.3 I leave this bug in the "not fixed" section as there are still Traktor users seeing a high CPU load in general, and some while Multi-Core support is enabled.

Note for 2.5.0 It is still difficult to make a general statement in regard to the higher CPU load. Traktor 2.5 users make different experiences. Some don't see much changes, some see improvments, some see a higher load than in previous versions. And, the Traktor versions cannot be compared, as Traktor 2.5 and the remix decks introduced much more new functionality, which of course needs more CPU cycles. As long as a higher CPU load does not cause any audio problems, I would not be worried too much.]

[djmoonie]

There is something very strange going on under the hood in traktor, buts its not anything new.. I've noticed the following observations from traktor pro v1 onwards:-

Having keylock on can cause the CPU load to increase, whether or not the deck that is locked is playing, or even has a song loaded!

Turning on an effects unit for a deck can cause the CPU load to increase, whether or not their are effects even loaded on that effects unit (let alone active), and like the keylock issue, regardless of whether or not there is even a track present, let alone playing on the target deck.

With no tracks even loaded, with all decks keylocked, and all4 effects units switched on on every deck (although the effects themselves switched off), I can get my CPU 'idle' up about 30-40% on my laptop.

[DeviousD]

Ok, so I had been working on this for a minute, adjusting all the ms and multi core, etc. I believe either my 1tb usb3 running through a usb2 port is not running fast enough (recently switched from a 500gb fw800 drive for music space) or maybe my older MacBook Pro Titanium is slow with the Traktor2.5. I have seemed to fix the problem though by playing the songs directly from the internal drive and not an external. While this probably isn't practical for all DJ's out there, I think it will suit my needs as a club DJ, not that you always need access to your whole library unless at a wedding, etc. Maybe this will help out some of you. The load doesn't even move now.

[DeviousD]

Ok, so I had been working on this for a minute, adjusting all the ms and multi core, etc. I believe either my 1tb usb3 running through a usb2 port is not running fast enough (recently switched from a 500gb fw800 drive for music space) or maybe my older MacBook Pro Titanium is slow with the Traktor2.5. I have seemed to fix the problem though by playing the songs directly from the internal drive and not an external. While this probably isn't practical for all DJ's out there, I think it will suit my needs as a club DJ, not that you always need access to your whole library unless at a wedding, etc. Maybe this will help out some of you. The load doesn't even move now.

Wow, worked for one gig, now I'm working on cue points and it is worse than before, wtf.

[ParisCreative]

I sadly have this issue as well. No external drive. Tried toggling multi-core. This is clearly a bug that Traktor needs to address.

[teambama]

I've had huge problems with this, this week. Very frustrating. Things are almost OK with the F1 unhooked.

I'm in the final round of a Dj competition Thursday & it looks like I need to use straight vinyl to be confident. I don't understand. Was working fine after update & all of the sudden i'm in the red or overloading...

[Jester]

Go back to 1.2.7. Best, most stable and awesome version ever. Well, 3.4 for us OG's

[ParisCreative]

What is even more odd is I am seeing comments on both Mac and Win platforms. And it seems of little consequence if you have a F1, X1, or anything that matter hooked up.

Pre 2.5, my CPU load would never peak unless I had other apps open like Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. I can do a clean reboot, open Traktor, and it's going full tilt.