Video window does not cause it. 

More data:

Standalone, 64bit vip2 does NOT exhibit the issue. 

As plug in Reaper doesn't seem to have the issue...but, I can't get reaper to pass audio anymore--it's not an app I use, I installed it to demo last year and it must've lost all my config. 

Lit actually spikes the CPU even when nothing is playing back--meaning, cubase open, song loaded, but not currently playing. 

Turned off hardware video acceleration and the problem got a bit worse, so I turned it back on. 

I will Update Cubase, since that's the only place this problem is showing...but, I don't know that I want to do that until my current project/session are done for fear of it causing some other issue. Thoughts? Are you guys using the latest version there on win7x64?

Decided the risk was worth giving you guys feedback while it was fresh in your mind. Upgraded from cubase 6.0 to 6.05...no change in behavior. 

Again-doesn't even have to be playing back, so it's not like it having to update the GUI while playing is causing the issue. 

Unrelated note, for anyone else reading, now bfd2 64bit crashes cubase. Off to get THAT update now. 

Latest bfd2 public beta fixes it's crashing. Tried other third party VIs...play3, bfd2, jbridged atmosphere, kontakt4, as well as old version of VI and VE. None duplicated the issue with vip2.

@popmann said:

Turned off hardware video acceleration and the problem got a bit worse, so I turned it back on. 

Turning down hardware video acceleration should never be done, it will only give worse performance. It does in fact sound like your system has some problems with video acceleration. Have you tried updating your graphics card drivers?

Which CPU meter are you referring to when you speak of "20% jumps to 50% with gui open"?

I am also experiencing this problem.  When using VI Pro2 in standalone mode, I see a large difference in Windows Tasks Manager CPU usage depending on if the GUI is open or not.  With the GUI open VI Pro2 uses 30% of my CPU.  WIth the GUI minimized to the task bar VI Pro2 only utilies 5%. I get similar differences inside Cubase and when using VI Pro within Vienna Ensemble.

I've assumed that something is being redrawn in the GUI very frequently.  Minimizing the GUI is an easy workaround, but I would like to see this fixed.

Actually, turning off acceleration, while it should yield worse performance, is solid trouble shooting for video overlay related issues. The fact that it didn't make it MUCH worse means they may be making a API call that my hardware isn't accelerating, and it's driver instead is passing it along to the CPU. 

Task manager is the meter I'm looking at. Cubase's asio is not strictly a CPU meter...and it just jumps from 25% tp overs/glitches and back if you watch it during playback. 

I have downloaded the latest nvidia drivers. Will install tonight, but even if that fixes this for me, this is something a good software dev will address if they can duplicate it. It's not like year old unified drivers should cause bug behavior like this. They can add that to their knowledge base, but they will want to address whatever API call they're making. If they're making DX10+ acceleration calls for a 2d instrument GUI, they should change the call. If it turns out its just some oddball card specific thing...might just suck to be me. 

What's odd, PKeter...is that I don't get that at ALL in stand alone mode. I wish I had another host to fully test. Reaper has always had plug GUI issues, and I really don't feel like troubleshooting it's config to get all the routing worked out. I have Logic on the Mac upstairs, but that really would only tell us if totally different hardware undera a totally different OS running at a totally different bit depth had the same issue. It likely won't--the VSL devs would've noticed this if it were happening across the board. If I had to make a prediction, it's that they (likely unknowningly) made a very uplevel DX call that a 9500GT isn't accellerating--and it's driver is hadning off the the CPU to full fill.

Sorry, if that's too geeky. It's what I do for a living. And also why I HATE updating Wintel machines at home. I've FINALLY gotten a great performing Wintel 64bit machine...update one thing, and that can fall apart. See how the VIP2 demo has gotten me to update Cubase, which caused BSOD with BFD2, so I had to update THAT...now, I'm going to update the video drivers...potentially chipset drivers if that doesn't fix it...I hope at the end of this, I still have a stable system. :) 

...I'm feeling more confident, because I bought a Korg Kronos a while back that means I only turn this thing on for string sequencing and drum editing. So, if it totally craps out, I'm not actually at work stoppage. And why I'm demoing the library extentions...and VIP2...looking to make it a dedicated string sequencing box, which is what it's really become anyway.

Latest nvidia drivers=no different behavior. If anything, between the cubase and now video driver updates, the over all CPU usage has gone up a few percentage points. 

Also note, in stand alone, the difference in minimizing is about 7%-which technically is doubling the CPU usesge for a single live instance...but, I guess I didnt consider it because showing the single GUI in cubase takes it from like 20-25% to 50-60%, a much more noticeable jump. 

VIPro 2 is a pretty graphics intensive gui, since there is lots of visual feedback. But these graphical updates are running in a low priority thread, which will never affect audio performance. So even if you do see a jump in CPU on your task manager, this will not affect audio performance at all.

There might be some optimizations possible from our side, which we will look into.

@MS said:

VIPro 2 is a pretty graphics intensive gui, since there is lots of visual feedback. But these graphical updates are running in a low priority thread, which will never affect audio performance. So even if you do see a jump in CPU on your task manager, this will not affect audio performance at all.

  

That is a really good point. Have a look at the ASIO Performance meter in Cubase to see if that jumps. If it doesn't, you have nothing to worry about. If it does, you still have a problem.

DG

Yes, I have. As I mentioned the asio meter goes from about 20% to OVER causing the audio to glitch repeatedly while the GUI is up...only when the GUI is up. This is why I noticed the problem. Not like I'm hanging out looking at task manager! [;)] for fun. 

OK. I have isolated this further. It appears it has something to do with the particular couple of Cubase projects I'm working on. If I start a new project in Cubase...load up the VIP2--assign it a medium workload, whether the GUI is open or not, it makes only a slight difference on the CPU.

So, I will trouble shoot it from here on out as if it's a Cubase project issue and report my findings to Steinberg (and here)...I don't know if it's something to do with some other plug in running in that project that somehow only manifests in VIP2...? Or the VST Expression maps being used in it...? Or just some sort of project corruption....? But, I can duplicate it 100% of the time in those projects, but not in a new one--even with VIP2 under the same or heavier workload. Seriously weird. And, people wonder why I hate computers so much. [:@] It's all I do every day--fix malfunctioning ones. Nothing I hate worse than working on my own when I get home. 

Anyway, it does appear that VIP2 is only one ingredient in the "CPU eating reciepe" here.

Well...new project...same exact midi tracks (exported from the big project) jumps from 5-10% playing back to 25-30% with the GUI open. Not quite the same increase, but more than is acceptable. 

Cutting the display to 16bit color buys a few percentage points, but just a few. 

Im really not feeling good about buying this. If it means I'll need to replace my video card, too...adding up the library extensions, Ssd raid, and vip2, AND a new video card...getting to be quite a pricey upgrade. I do love the VSL chamber/solo sounds, but neither LASS nor the often maligned PLAY version of QLSO give me these system issues. 

I have been working on some GUI optimizations, perhaps you could send a mail to support@vsl.co.at "To Martin", then I can send you this version of VIPro, to see if your situation improves.

Thanks,

Email sent. Thank you. 

 I appreciate Martin's help and "beta build". So much so that I went ahead and bought the app. However, it seems the GUI is still hitting the CPU really hard.

We're tryingto isolate whether it's his i7 just absorbing the calls or his Quadro video chipset takingthe load off the CPU better than my Geforce. Very conflicting reports on the web about how much Win7 really uses the GPU...and how much the drivers for "gaming" video cards do at ALL for 2.5d Win7 acceleration. Lots of benchmarks have intel and nForce integrated laptop graphics besting $700 2 space 3d monsters when it comes to Windows acceleration.

Is this noticable to anyone else?

I just LOVE how CPU light VI/VE has always been (and the underlying engine still is, depite all the cool new DSP it's doing now...I don't break 30% on a full arrangement with whatever audio tracks/processing I'm doing on top of it. But, now, open the VIP2 GUI and it's pushes it up to 50-60% and causes the audio to glitch.

Okay, so VI Pro 2.0 is killing my CPU.

I have not been as good as I should with using EQ and saturation etc. but I started using them when VI Pro 2.0 came out. Therefore, I thought that my use of many plugins was killing my CPU. But after testing everything with and without extra plugins, buses, reverbs, and any combination of things.. I saw no change.

THEN I found the culprit! Just loading multiple VI Pro 2.0 instances instantly causes my CPU usage to jump tremendously. I'm monitoring it in the task manager and the resource monitor in windows. It's bad all around. I wouldn't mind if it was just the task manager, but I can't load NEARLY as many instruments as I did before. I'm currently using about a 65% sized template compared to my old one and I've reached my limits. With VI Pro 1.0 I had many more instances (in some cases double) and I was using less CPU than I am at it's worst now.

Is there any more news than the private testing version listed on here? I wish I had known this was VIP 2.0 earlier to report these results but I've been very busy with personal matters and the holidays.

Thank you,

-Sean

Sorry, I should have clarified. I can still load multiple instances. It's just that I run into performance issues with maybe half of what I used to load. I loaded just the instances with no samples loaded and I still see the same cpu performance. With samples loaded, I just have an unusable glitchy performance the more I load now. I realize VI Pro 2.0 is an upgrade, but I wouldn't imagine I'd have to upgrade my CPU for it also. Not much else is cpu intensive, right?

-Sean

Hi everybody,

Martin has kept on working on the optimization of VI PRO, there will be a new version available as soon as we are through the tests.

Best,

Paul

I just sent him my test results. While still more CPU usesge than any of my other VIs (none of which show significant difference between GUI opened or closed)...it's WAY down from what it was. And in my "real world test" (as opposed the shared test project we've been using) its working fine at 128samples on full arrangements with only occasional minor audio glitches. 

While I CERTAINLY welcome further improvement, I want to thank Martin for working on this so diligently. I did go ahead and buy my permanent vip2 license. Being in IT, I'm glad to help and also understand the development cost calculations that can equal a company having the attitude that it's not worth the development time to make code more efficient. I want to publicly thank VSL for perusing GUI optimization despite it running great on i7/Quadro powered machines. I know I, for one, would rather spend money on more VSL samples for vip2 than on building a new box that wouldn't matter if the GUI were optimized or not. 

Thanks you. I look forward to the official release as well as any further testing I can do for the team at VSL. There are not a lot of software products I honestly LOVE(I am a hardware guy at heart)....these samples played with the vip2 engine...I do. The sound of strings I've always heard in my head are now under my fingers.