Cubase 11 iper high CPU usage on A Mac Mini late 2012

[arfo]

Hi everybody,
hope this is the right place for posting this question...
Is it normal that Cubase, only for being opened, NO project loaded, takes over 50% of CPU?, according to system monitoring?
I’m using a MacMini late 2012, I7 quadcore, 16GB RAM, 256 SSD drive (32GB free space…), OS Mojave...
And when I trying to unmix vocal from a 20’ video with Spectralayers it arrived at 560%?
I notice CPU temperature is often very high in situations where I wouldn’t expect (iStat pro 4.92).

I did a pass with Malware Bytes and everything seems to be ok...

Thanks,
Arturo

[OneWorld]

I have had this with other versions of Cubase, especially the later versions but after a while it seems to fix itself. You might try looking at the Studio Setup/Audio System/ASIO Guard settings, usually on 'normal' I think some users even turn it off

I have a PC which is fairly well spec'd and I get the meter jumping level jumping up and down, even when Cubase is in idle state. Though not as high as 50% more like 25% when I was on Cubase 8.5 it was about 5%

I work at 128 samples. Have the latency settings on your interface changed?

[arfo]

Hi, OneWorld,
I checked Audio Guard and it was set on Normal so I tried to switch it off and i set buffer at 128 (I change it depending on the situations) and I notice a light improving but something is still not going as it should: I can't have 95% CPU used for a project I created in Cubase 4.5, with a lot of effects that now are not more avalaible...
I can't figure out what's the issue but it is going worst recently...

Thank you for answering,

Arturo

[James Perrett]

Is there a fan that could be clogged up with dust? I've had that happen to me in the past and cleaning out the fan made a massive difference.

[arfo]

Hi James,
I hadn't considered this possibility, I could try to open the Mac MIni and check it, even if it's quite completely closed, actually...
Thank you for answering,
Arturo

[OneWorld]

Hi, OneWorld,
I checked Audio Guard and it was set on Normal so I tried to switch it off and i set buffer at 128 (I change it depending on the situations) and I notice a light improving but something is still not going as it should: I can't have 95% CPU used for a project I created in Cubase 4.5, with a lot of effects that now are not more avalaible...
I can't figure out what's the issue but it is going worst recently...

Thank you for answering,

Arturo

Good luck with it. There are those that will deny it, but in my experience, with each incremental step in the various Cubase Versions, the CPU use and latency has increased. I used to be able to go right down to 32 samples, nay bother except when I had big Native Instruments stuff loaded, but in general use, Cubase, going back to say C6 would do no more than tickle the belly of the CPU. With C11 I can work at 128 samples, and the CPU trundles along at about 25% which is fine, but I hanker for the days of 32 samples and hardly any CPU strain.

I do like Cubase though, it's MIDI implementation is legendry. It comes with some excellent VSTi so I guess this (CPU drain) is the kind of thing that prompts upgrading the computer, and that's progress!

I would have thought though, given Apple's highly regarded implementation of Audio/Video, the spec of the machine you have is perfectly adequate to handle C11. Do you have a VST that is loading that is hogging memory/cpu. I don't know how you would do it on a MAC but on a PC you can check system use using a thing called Task Manager and whilst it will not report on the various parts of Cubase is consuming, it does give a complete report of what is loaded and running and what power/memory they consume.

Do you have access to another interface? So you can try one against the other, or are you using the Audio interface that, I believe, is an integral part of a MAC?

Can you load Cubase with any but the essential VSTs?

I doubt this will apply in your case, I do remember at one stage I was getting problems with crackling in Cubase, an earlier version, and it was down to the NVIDIA graphics card I had fitted, I changed to AMD - problem solved

[arfo]

Hi again,
today I tried opening the same old project in Cubase 10.5, that I still have running, with a 128 buffer, and it actually used a bit less of CPU but not in a significant way... (I use the equivalent of task manager that's called System monitoring)

I also tried to deactivate asio guard but I didn't notice any improvement...

While I use a MOTU828mkII fw soundcard, an old but still very good one, I rely on MacMIni default graphic board (Intel HD Graphics 4000 1536 MB) but I'm not using videos or heavy graphics...

I'm afraid I'll have first to reinstall OS (no hd overwriting) then, if anything changes, to format but, as you can imagine, I'm still hope not to...

Thank you for helping!

Arturo

[sadbass]

I had that exact Mac mini previously and I believe it's mostly due to the GPU on those Macs. Since they are not replaceable, I bought a used Mac Pro (late 2013), 64gb, 1 TB SSD this solved my problem but you should be able to get by with an iMac.

[arfo]

Hi Sadbass,
I'm starting to think my MacMini is getting too old for current softwares requirements...
I'll consider a refurbished solution too, thanks for giving me the idea
Arturo