Axiom's GUI bug/issue (very high CPU usage by simply keeping the GUI open)

[Blue Cat Audio]

It's kind of awkward and funny at the same time that by simply keeping the GUIs of some plugins open the CPU go crazy and temp jumps up to above 85~90 degrees! I just showed this to one of the friends who is a sound engineer and he could not stop laughing... after all these are all audio related tools and visuals should not in anyway waste such precious processing power.

Saying that, I can't even imagine having these plugins' GUIs open on a 4k or 5k monitor! That would be a nightmare and to be honest dangerous as if someone unknowingly leave the GUIs open on such super high resolution monitors, there will be a risk of damaging the components.

Thanks for reporting back. Unfortunately that seems to be the best that can be done on our side right now. This is due to major performance regressions in Apple's Core Graphics framework with their new operating systems. They probably improved the quality, but at the expense of performance, and Retina does not help either, as that's a lot more pixels to process. Why do you think you need new hardware almost everytime a new Mac OS is out...?

There would be no difference on a 4k or 5k monitor, except that you will start getting slower refresh rates for some GUIs if you keep them all opened. The limit is 100% CPU on a single core (as on Macs the GUI runs on a single thread). Even if it's hot, it cannot be damaged anyway, as it will shut down as soon as the temperature is too high.

[Blue Cat Audio]

I've tested the new preview (VST/Standalone). I deliberately created a complex stereo-path patch to push it a bit and that is definitely freaking it out at times. In particular, using Late Replies as a global effect has been problematic.

It's workable. Could it be improved? Have I overlooked any significant measurement?

I also like that new feature which you probably don't want to mention yet!

Thanks for reporting back. As expected the GUI speed improvements indeed do not change anything to the real time DSP thread (=LCM). The figures are pretty high though, so I am thinking there must be something special with your CPU that interacts badly with Late Replies. Maybe we should follow up by email to dig deeper into this and try to find which effects is so CPU intensive on your system?

Feel free to talk about the new features btw! Axiom 1.3 is indeed a big release and we are now getting close!

[Vaultnaemsae]

Thanks,
I'll be in contact via email. I haven't had much time to test so haven't gone deep yet.
The feature I was referring to is the new preset browser - much better than previous preset access method!

[Blue Cat Audio]

And there is even much more on the Destructor side...

[drawbar]

Experiences of Axiom and Windows10/Cubase.

First, I like Blue Cat’s Axiom guitar effects very much.

My rig: I7-8700K 3.7G desktop PC Win10, resolution: 2560x1440. Steinberg UR44C soundcard, Cubase 10.0.40.

Axiom inside Cubase with Re-guitar, Blue drive, Chorus and Reverb. Monitoring via Cubase. The lowest latencies I manage to get with this are about 9 Ms in/ 11 Ms out, with 256 samples buffer size. That is just playable, but even then I get occasional spikes and real time peak warnings.

Disabling the metering and change the output data rate to a smaller value do not have any effect.
I also compared three separate guitar effects plugins. Bias FX2 was as demanding CPU hog as Axiom with comparable amount of effects. Native Instruments Guitar Rig 5’s CPU usage was much lower, without any hiccups in my rig.

[Blue Cat Audio]

This is odd: on similar configurations we can get down to 64 samples with no dropouts, even when using more effects.

It's difficult to compare with much older software, as the modeling quality is definitely different.

[drawbar]

This is odd: on similar configurations we can get down to 64 samples with no dropouts, even when using more effects.
..

Odd it is. Anyway it is good to know this. So I have to check more things yet (?) before getting another audio interface. Besides, with the same configuration I tested also an older RME Multiface, and got almost the same spikes while on 256 or 128.

As I turn Axiom plugin off, CPU average load is near zero and no real time peaks.

Perhaps other experiences of Axiom users with near or different setups?

[Blue Cat Audio]

Just in case, have you checked our Windows PC optimization guide for audio? It was written with laptops in mind, but it also applies to Desktop PCs.

Dropouts are indeed not only about CPU usage, especially if it happens randomly.

[drawbar]

I have narrowed the problem somewhat. It seems to appear only inside Cubase as plugin. Neither Axiom standalone or Studio One plugin do not create such behaviour, and I can get down to 64 samples with them without problems.