:( Hi guys. I have Pro Tools M-Powered 8.0.3 and a 2011 iMac, 2.5GHz, 4 GB RAM, OS X 10.6.8. I have a session that is fairly busy. It's a live mix of a rock band with lots of percussion. There are 25 mono tracks and 8 stereo tracks in this session. I do have a lot of plugins on these tracks. The computer is showing 80-85% CPU usage on 4 cores. The thing is, I've got 85% CPU usage when everything is idle: I mean when the transport is stopped, no tasks are being carried out. This is my question: should there be 85% CPU usage even when everything is idle?
Oh and another thing- I'm getting the message "A CPU overload error occurred...try increasing H/W Buffer Size...or removing some plug-ins." I have already increased the H/W Buffer to the max, 2048 Samples, the Host Processors all the way to 4, and the CPU Usage Limit to 90%. The computer is very sluggish, and exhibits many symptoms of being maxed out.
So I need a bigger mac with more RAM, more cores, and faster CPU speed. Eventually I will get one. But in the meantime I just wonder- should the CPU usage be at 85% even when it's idle? Or is something else going on? Thanks for any insight that you can provide.
Oh and another thing- I'm getting the message "A CPU overload error occurred...try increasing H/W Buffer Size...or removing some plug-ins." I have already increased the H/W Buffer to the max, 2048 Samples, the Host Processors all the way to 4, and the CPU Usage Limit to 90%. The computer is very sluggish, and exhibits many symptoms of being maxed out.
So I need a bigger mac with more RAM, more cores, and faster CPU speed. Eventually I will get one. But in the meantime I just wonder- should the CPU usage be at 85% even when it's idle? Or is something else going on? Thanks for any insight that you can provide.