VM2 slows down a machine that it shouldn't

[daeldred]

My machine has the following specs
Windows 10, 32Gb of RAM, AMD 1700 Ryzen 7 (8 core), Dual Monitors. 2 SSD's and 3 HDD's
Boot drive and MS stuff on 500GB SSD
Dual Monitor system
DAW (Cubase 11) and recording programs on a 1TB SSD
Libraries etc. are on a 2Tb Enterprise Drive.
Everything up to date - BIOS, programs, Drivers, etc.

Here is my situation:
Running a medium size build within VM2 standalone. Reaches a certain point (in size) and it slows down to less that a snails pace. According to Task Mgr. it is using around 20% of available CPU, tons of RAM available. No other programs or services running that I can find.
I have tried to crash this system by running everything I can (including daily backups using Paragon). Have successfully run background programs, movies, youtube, searches, etc. at the same time and have not been able to crash this system.

Have attached the preset that I am having issues with to this post. I welcome you to give it a try and any and all feedback is sincerely welcome! (including if I am doing something really stupid)

[ColinP]

Hi,

Your preset runs without any problems at less than 4% total CPU load on my Windows 10 Ryzen 7 4800H laptop.

It sounds like you have might have some VM settings that are not favourable.

Performance issues in VM are so common that I have a website page dedicated to this - https://www.adroitsynthesis.com/performance-tips/.

Hopefully the tips will help, but if you still have problems then please let me know as I am always interested in trying to figure out new ways to optimise VM performance on various platforms.

[cherryaudio Greg]

Hi,

I'm also not noticing anything unusual with that preset. Since you're using the standalone version, go into Voltage Modular's CPU settings and play around with the multi-thread and OpenGL settings. Try turning them off and restarting VM. Does that have an effect on the issue? Does turning off one or the other? Does reducing the number of threads have an effect on the problem?

Greg

[Steve W]

I took a listen in standalone VM. Not sure the patch is working right (that is, the way you intend). The sequencer plays a 4 note-pattern. When I stop the sequencer, I get a steady-pitch, bleed-through oscillator tone.

I have a considerably older PC with far less resources than your PC. I don't even have OpenGL. When running the patch, Task Manager shows VM at between 7.3 and 13.8% CPU, which is very light for my decade old PC. My VM patches always go higher than that (until I reach the limits of my system and trim the patch).

System Interrupts are running about 15-18%. I mention that because sometimes it seems that some modules in VM patches push the System Interrupts % higher than others.

With the patch running, my overall CPU is about 32-35%. For that small a percent (remember its an ancient PC with limited resources) I usually do not get as many audio glitches when other PC resources get used (such as visual activity, internet/browser activity) as I am getting with your patch.

I didn't analyze what you have to try to figure out what you are doing. To me this seems like an early building block, test-of-concept patch. Now sure where you are headed with it, but as it is, it seems to have an awful lot of stuff going on for a 4-note pattern. (Is it all to support the L/R alternating notes?)

I have had the patch running for a while now. VM, System Interrupt, and overall CPU % are still what they were at the beginning of this test. No slowing down over time. It does tax my audio resources PC because when I use the PC keyboard, the mouse, select different programs that are running, etc. I get more audio glitches than I usually do for the large size of the audio buffer I am using. I almost never use a buffer size of 2048 samples (the highest I have), but at lower sizes using the keyboard and mouse with your patch cause the total CPU and number of audio glitches to increase.

Not sure if running this in a DAW will show different results for me.

Hope this helps.