System Overload = Ram or CPU

i get a system overload with sessions.
ive got all my drums tracked out...Kick, Hi hats, shakers, snares, claps, as well as synths, strings...stuff like that.
PLUS vocals and their effects on them.
i keep getting a overload error and my question is this a Ram issue, or a CPU issue.
ive got a macbook core 2 duo...so i hope its not a CPU problem.
thanks in advance!

Hi Tim,
you really don't say how much ram do you have,
you should have all you can afford at least 1 GB,
Also I think your main problem is your internal HD
that runs at 5400 rpm, to audio you should have
and external running at 7200 rpm (firewire/USB2).
While you don't have what I'm stating above,
try to freeze tracks, to prevent those error messages all the time.
The freeze button, it's a "snow flake" on the right of the Record or mute buttons.
Regards,
Jorge

Similar Messages

Macbook Pro / Logic Pro 9 / CPU 'System Overload'

Dear Members - I have read a few threads from some google searches but can't find a solution to my current problem.
I have a MacBook Pro (2010):
Mac OS X
2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
I don't run much else on my MacBook other than MS Office, Firefox Web Browser and Logic Pro 9.
Now that my recording projects are getting more sufficient, I am using a lot more plug ins but running into the same problem over and over: 'System Overload'. My CPU maxes out and the programme stops.
I've followed a fair amount advice and done all the necessary adjustments in terms of Logic preferences to run smoother. However, I need to be in the position to have as many tracks and as many plug ins as I want!
I'm looking for advice on what I can to improve my machines performance. I love my MacBook Pro and wonder (and hope) there is something I can add to it to make things run smoother. For instance, I keep hearing about the new Mac Mini and wonder if there is any way I could hook both my systems up. I'm not sure whether that is possible and can confirm that my spec and technical knowledge isn't good at all.
I look forward to hearing from you. Please let me know if you need any more information.
Thanking you in advance!
Martin

Now that my recording projects are getting more sufficient, I am using a lot more plug ins but running into the same problem over and over: 'System Overload'. My CPU maxes out and the programme stops.
I've followed a fair amount advice and done all the necessary adjustments in terms of Logic preferences to run smoother. However, I need to be in the position to have as many tracks and as many plug ins as I want!
As many plugins as you want, did I hear that correctly? Every machine has is limits, a few of Logic's high end plugins can bring the most powerful Mac_Pro to it's knees if used incorrectly.
Personally, I'm not fond of using two machines, it's much more of a hassle than you might think.
I assume you're using a bus for effects where possible (instead of inserts).
And you are freezing tracks when necessary. If you're into the mixing stage of a project and do not need low latency, up the Logic audio I/O buffer to 1024. Try the Process buffer at Large.
Check out this article.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3161

Will adding more RAM reduce system overloads?

I'm running Logic Express 8 on a mac mini (core 2 duo) with 2GB or ram. I was thinking of adding more RAM (4 or 8GB). I tend to see "system overload" errors often. Generally, rebooting seems to fix the issues. Do you think adding more RAM would make any difference? Generally I have maybe 15-20 tracks.
Thanks

No, unless the overload has to do with RAM, which it ususally hasn't.
Nevertheless, adding RAM is a very good idea to help instruments with high RAM requirements like EXS24.
To reduce system overload:
- let Logic be the only open application
- if necessary, raise the audio buffer in the preferences to the next higher value.
- while playing back, have an empty audio track (or the master track) selected.
Fox

System Overload (LPX) - more RAM or SSD?

I am an amateur producing EDM with Logic Pro X and after a couple of tracks, I get system overload quite often.
The machine is a MacBook Pro mid-2012 (non retina) with 500GB 5400rpm HDD, 4GB ram and i5 2.5ghz.
Therefore, I'm thinking about upgrading my mac, but I have a really tight budget after spending a lot of money on plugins for LPX,
so should I get a 256GB SSD or upgrade my RAM? And if I upgrade my ram, should I take out one stick and put an 8GB in for a total of 10GB, use a single 8gb stick or 2x4GB?
Thanks.

For what it is worth.. I just got hold of a WD VelociRaptor Duo Thunderbolt 2TB for $550 off of Amazon.. and the beast really flies...
It actually clocks faster than any of my Samsung SSDs.... coming in at 389GB/sec for reads and 383GB/sec for writes over Thunderbolt... and holds steady over repeated tests I have run today... and it's 2TB folks... which is great for storing and accessing large K5 libs...
Worth a look at imho....

System Overload ...i know ..I'm not the 1st ...

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Replies : 10 - Pages : 1 - Last Post : Aug 10, 2009 12:04 PM by: Pancenter
4feet4
Posts: 17
From: Pasadena
Registered: Mar 12, 2009
System Overload ...i know ..I'm not the 1st ...
Posted: Aug 9, 2009 7:52 PM
Any quick tips on what to do? My project is small - while monitoring my CPU usage it never goes above 30 while running the project - I've got 2.78 GB of free disk space - 4Gig Ram - I dont use my IMAC OSX 10.5.5 for anything but Logic? Hoping to get around this CONSTANT issue - thanks for your help.
Imac Mac OS X (10.5.5)
Larry Mal
Posts: 654
From: Saint Louis, Missouri
Registered: Sep 27, 2007
Re: System Overload ...i know ..I'm not the 1st ...
Posted: Aug 9, 2009 9:48 PM in response to: 4feet4
Well, if you are saying you have only 2.78 GB's of space on your hard drive, then you'll want to have more. You should leave about 10-15% of your drive free.
dual 2.8GHz Mac Pro, Macbook Pro 2.16 GHz Mac OS X (10.5.6) 2 GB RAM
4feet4
Posts: 17
From: Pasadena
Registered: Mar 12, 2009
Re: System Overload ...i know ..I'm not the 1st ...
Posted: Aug 9, 2009 10:51 PM in response to: Larry Mal
I'm running LP8 - I have an IMAC OSX 10.5.5 - 2.4 processor - 4 GB RAM - M-Audio Fast Track Pro interface (USB direct to MAC) - I do NOT have an external hard drive ( sounds like I should ? - although I was told by others my system would be sufficient) - I use ALL instruments/track options ( midi etc) and will need to in the future - I want to be able to run a full music project 10-15 tracks. So far I'm running 4-5 tracks -(1) midi - the rest are audio with little to no effects ( in one project I'm using an LP8 template but deleted most of the tracks to cut down on the load ). Don't know if I can freeze these tracks-I'm new to this - thats why I'm looking for options ........ i was also using a 3rd party software in the project - Steinberg Groove Agent 3 (drums) but it was giving me the same error ..even when it was the ONLY track in the project....(its not fully compatible) - however I was finally able to create a full drum track with GA3 - play the midi data back - and record it to an audio track - therefore deleting the midi data I was having issues with and keeping the drums.... hope this helps?
Imac Mac OS X (10.5.5)
4feet4
Posts: 17
From: Pasadena
Registered: Mar 12, 2009
Re: System Overload ...i know ..I'm not the 1st ...
Posted: Aug 10, 2009 6:39 AM in response to: 4feet4
Updated
Imac Mac OS X (10.5.5) 2.4 Processor, 4 GB RAM, M-Audio Fast Track Pro Interface, No External HD
Larry Mal
Posts: 654
From: Saint Louis, Missouri
Registered: Sep 27, 2007
Re: System Overload ...i know ..I'm not the 1st ...
Posted: Aug 10, 2009 7:54 AM in response to: 4feet4
Perfect. Well here are some suggestions:
1) Logic 7, 8 and 9 all have a "freeze" function. Logic 9 has a new "bounce in place" function which I haven't used yet. These will make temporary audio files of your MIDI instruments so that you are able to play them as finished audio for the most part and free up CPU power. ( I haven't yet used "bounce in place", I just got Logic 9.) This will help with MIDI instruments quite a bit, and you can still go back and change them by un-freezing... I guess "thawing" would be the proper term.
2) The reason I was asking about your audio interface is because I was wondering what you had available. You very definitely want to record to a non-system (on that Logic nor your operating system are on) drive. Firewire is much superior to USB, which is why I'm glad to hear you are using USB as your audio in. By using Firewire in and Firewire out, on an iMac, you would be halving the bandwidth. In your case you are not.
You will add very much stability to your Logic work by adding an external Firewire drive and recording audio to it, and working on Logic projects there! If you have the money, I'd go with Firewire 800, which is frankly overkill, but why not. Firewire 400 drives will work fine for you. Add one and many of the overload messages will disappear, simply because right now you are pulling information from (in the form of calculating what the virtual instruments and Logic are doing) and writing information to (in the form of writing what those instruments and Logic are resulting in) to the same disk.
Try these two things and get back to us. I think you'll be very happy with the results.
It's also important to pay attention to your buffer size. When it is not important for you to play with it in real time, you want to make it be 1024. Otherwise as low as possible. So when you are recording audio to a MIDI drum track, you'd want it to be very low so you can play along accurately. When you have all that done, and are editing MIDI only, then put the buffer higher. When mixing, put it higher.
Let me know how this works, good luck, L
dual 2.8GHz Mac Pro, Macbook Pro 2.16 GHz Mac OS X (10.5.6) 2 GB RAM
4feet4
Posts: 17
From: Pasadena
Registered: Mar 12, 2009
Re: System Overload ...i know ..I'm not the 1st ...
Posted: Aug 10, 2009 9:10 AM in response to: Larry Mal
Ok Great - Thanks - makes sense - I was using a Lacie with Protools an my PC ( it recently crashed) - I was under the impression I would have enough processing power with out it on the MAC.
Looks like I can pick one up for just a little over $100 ( I'm rolling in that kind of cash) ... please clarify though - you stated: "Firewire is much superior to USB, which is why I'm glad to hear you are using USB as your audio in. By using Firewire in and Firewire out, on an iMac, you would be halving the bandwidth. In your case you are not" ....are you GLAD to hear I am using USB as in - We may have found the problem .... go external to free up processing ? Please confirm.
Thanks again
Imac Mac OS X (10.5.5) 2.4 Processor, 4 GB RAM, M-Audio Fast Track Pro Interface, No External HD
CCTM
Posts: 249
Registered: Mar 11, 2007
Re: System Overload ...i know ..I'm not the 1st ...
Posted: Aug 10, 2009 9:28 AM in response to: 4feet4
4feet4 wrote:
Ok Great - Thanks - makes sense - I was using a Lacie with Protools an my PC ( it recently crashed) - I was under the impression I would have enough processing power with out it on the MAC.
As stated in an earlier reply, if you only have 2 or 3 gigs of free space on your Mac hard drive, processing power is NOT the problem. Your boot disc is way too full. You should have at least 20-30GB free.
Running a second drive for the audio side will, of course, help, but you MUST clear out the main hard drive (or fit a larger one) before you run into even more serious problems.
HTH
CCT
Larry Mal
Posts: 654
From: Saint Louis, Missouri
Registered: Sep 27, 2007
Re: System Overload ...i know ..I'm not the 1st ...
Posted: Aug 10, 2009 9:37 AM in response to: 4feet4
Well, you have enough processing power, that isn't the issue. All the processing power in the world won't matter if you have 64 megabytes of RAM, there will be a bottleneck. Another bottleneck is with data transference. Like I said, when using a single drive to transfer date from as well as to- which is what you are doing when you are using Logic, running within the scope of the operating system, and hosting virtual instruments, all of which is writing the resulting audio information to the same drive, at the same time, then you are creating another problem. But you don't have to do that, by sending the audio written to another drive other than the one the audio is being generated from.
In other words, your processing power is both faster than and irrelevant to the physical limitations of the hard drive itself.
Another bottleneck would be if you were recording tracks on a Firewire in, and sending that to and external Firewire drive out. This is one of the limitations of the iMac, there is no way to add what is called another bus, which is simply another pipeline for data transference. You can get around that with a Mac Pro, in which you add another internal hard drive, which connects directly to the motherboard, and has its own bus. Or by adding another Firewire PCIe card, which will add another Firewire bus, again, with its own data transference. On an iMac, you have one Firewire bus, and one USB bus.
Clear? You can imagine these as pipes of water. The more pipes you have leading to and from a location the faster it will go.
USB, in your case, is a dedicated pipeline in. Nothing (well, your mouse, maybe a flash drive) is using that pipeline. Your Firewire is a pipeline out, in this case- you could reverse this, it doesn't matter*. If you use Firewire in and out, then you are sending water flowing in both directions in the same pipe. It will work, but not as well. By adding a dedicated bus, you would be adding another pipe to flow in one way, while the original flowed the other way. No impedances.
I don't see why you can't use the Lacie drive you already have, though. It's quite likely your crash wasn't due to it. No need to buy another drive, if it's Firewire, anyway. Just give it a shot- this isn't a cure all, but just good audio practice. Let me know how it pans out. Good luck, L
*Firewire is better than USB in all situations. But you seem to be going a track or two of USB audio in, so I'd use USB for that. For light use it's fine. Then you can use your superior Firewire bus to write the audio to the external Firewire drive.
dual 2.8GHz Mac Pro, Macbook Pro 2.16 GHz Mac OS X (10.5.6) 2 GB RAM
4feet4
Posts: 17
From: Pasadena
Registered: Mar 12, 2009
Re: System Overload ...i know ..I'm not the 1st ...
Posted: Aug 10, 2009 11:12 AM in response to: Larry Mal
L - Thanks for laying that out in simple terms - learning a ton and loving it ( when things work) - I will pick up another Lacie - my old Lacie for my PC crashed - I'm better off starting from scratch ( I'm still trying to retrive some data of the old one) ... I'll let you know how it works. I would have got an external drive outright but the Logic Certified guys at Apple told me I would not need one - sounds like this is the big problem. I'll use the freeze method when needed also....... maybe I'll have better luck with Groove Agent 3 with the external drive.
Much appreciated-
(TBD)
Imac Mac OS X (10.5.5) 2.4 Processor, 4 GB RAM, M-Audio Fast Track Pro Interface, No External HD
Larry Mal
Posts: 654
From: Saint Louis, Missouri
Registered: Sep 27, 2007
Re: System Overload ...i know ..I'm not the 1st ...
Posted: Aug 10, 2009 11:39 AM in response to: 4feet4
And free up some room on that system drive.
dual 2.8GHz Mac Pro, Macbook Pro 2.16 GHz Mac OS X (10.5.6) 2 GB RAM
Pancenter
Posts: 3,306
From: Southwest U.S.
Registered: Apr 22, 2007
Re: System Overload ...i know ..I'm not the 1st ...
Posted: Aug 10, 2009 12:04 PM in response to: 4feet4
4feet4 wrote:
L - Thanks for laying that out in simple terms - learning a ton and loving it ( when things work) - I will pick up another Lacie - my old Lacie for my PC crashed - I'm better off starting from scratch ( I'm still trying to retrive some data of the old one) ... I'll let you know how it works. I would have got an external drive outright but the Logic Certified guys at Apple told me I would not need one - sounds like this is the big problem. I'll use the freeze method when needed also....... maybe I'll have better luck with Groove Agent 3 with the external drive.
Groove Agent 3 loads samples into memory so I doubt if your luck will change.
The -first- thing I would do is clear some space on your hard drive, my feeling is that OSX is writing swap files and the drive head is working overtime to try and find free space to write. That in itself could cause an overload.
Free drive space now or expect more problems than you're currently experiencing.
pancenter-
Power Mac G5 1.8GHz Dual, 4GB RAM Mac OS X (10.5.5) RME Audio - MOTU MIDI, Mac (Logic 8.02), Intel/XP-Pro Quad Core PC

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Topic : System Overload ...i know ..I'm not the 1st ...
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Replies : 10 - Pages : 1 - Last Post : Aug 10, 2009 12:04 PM by: Pancenter
4feet4
Posts: 17
From: Pasadena
Registered: Mar 12, 2009
System Overload ...i know ..I'm not the 1st ...
Posted: Aug 9, 2009 7:52 PM
Any quick tips on what to do? My project is small - while monitoring my CPU usage it never goes above 30 while running the project - I've got 2.78 GB of free disk space - 4Gig Ram - I dont use my IMAC OSX 10.5.5 for anything but Logic? Hoping to get around this CONSTANT issue - thanks for your help.
Imac Mac OS X (10.5.5)
Larry Mal
Posts: 654
From: Saint Louis, Missouri
Registered: Sep 27, 2007
Re: System Overload ...i know ..I'm not the 1st ...
Posted: Aug 9, 2009 9:48 PM in response to: 4feet4
Well, if you are saying you have only 2.78 GB's of space on your hard drive, then you'll want to have more. You should leave about 10-15% of your drive free.
dual 2.8GHz Mac Pro, Macbook Pro 2.16 GHz Mac OS X (10.5.6) 2 GB RAM
4feet4
Posts: 17
From: Pasadena
Registered: Mar 12, 2009
Re: System Overload ...i know ..I'm not the 1st ...
Posted: Aug 9, 2009 10:51 PM in response to: Larry Mal
I'm running LP8 - I have an IMAC OSX 10.5.5 - 2.4 processor - 4 GB RAM - M-Audio Fast Track Pro interface (USB direct to MAC) - I do NOT have an external hard drive ( sounds like I should ? - although I was told by others my system would be sufficient) - I use ALL instruments/track options ( midi etc) and will need to in the future - I want to be able to run a full music project 10-15 tracks. So far I'm running 4-5 tracks -(1) midi - the rest are audio with little to no effects ( in one project I'm using an LP8 template but deleted most of the tracks to cut down on the load ). Don't know if I can freeze these tracks-I'm new to this - thats why I'm looking for options ........ i was also using a 3rd party software in the project - Steinberg Groove Agent 3 (drums) but it was giving me the same error ..even when it was the ONLY track in the project....(its not fully compatible) - however I was finally able to create a full drum track with GA3 - play the midi data back - and record it to an audio track - therefore deleting the midi data I was having issues with and keeping the drums.... hope this helps?
Imac Mac OS X (10.5.5)
4feet4
Posts: 17
From: Pasadena
Registered: Mar 12, 2009
Re: System Overload ...i know ..I'm not the 1st ...
Posted: Aug 10, 2009 6:39 AM in response to: 4feet4
Updated
Imac Mac OS X (10.5.5) 2.4 Processor, 4 GB RAM, M-Audio Fast Track Pro Interface, No External HD
Larry Mal
Posts: 654
From: Saint Louis, Missouri
Registered: Sep 27, 2007
Re: System Overload ...i know ..I'm not the 1st ...
Posted: Aug 10, 2009 7:54 AM in response to: 4feet4
Perfect. Well here are some suggestions:
1) Logic 7, 8 and 9 all have a "freeze" function. Logic 9 has a new "bounce in place" function which I haven't used yet. These will make temporary audio files of your MIDI instruments so that you are able to play them as finished audio for the most part and free up CPU power. ( I haven't yet used "bounce in place", I just got Logic 9.) This will help with MIDI instruments quite a bit, and you can still go back and change them by un-freezing... I guess "thawing" would be the proper term.
2) The reason I was asking about your audio interface is because I was wondering what you had available. You very definitely want to record to a non-system (on that Logic nor your operating system are on) drive. Firewire is much superior to USB, which is why I'm glad to hear you are using USB as your audio in. By using Firewire in and Firewire out, on an iMac, you would be halving the bandwidth. In your case you are not.
You will add very much stability to your Logic work by adding an external Firewire drive and recording audio to it, and working on Logic projects there! If you have the money, I'd go with Firewire 800, which is frankly overkill, but why not. Firewire 400 drives will work fine for you. Add one and many of the overload messages will disappear, simply because right now you are pulling information from (in the form of calculating what the virtual instruments and Logic are doing) and writing information to (in the form of writing what those instruments and Logic are resulting in) to the same disk.
Try these two things and get back to us. I think you'll be very happy with the results.
It's also important to pay attention to your buffer size. When it is not important for you to play with it in real time, you want to make it be 1024. Otherwise as low as possible. So when you are recording audio to a MIDI drum track, you'd want it to be very low so you can play along accurately. When you have all that done, and are editing MIDI only, then put the buffer higher. When mixing, put it higher.
Let me know how this works, good luck, L
dual 2.8GHz Mac Pro, Macbook Pro 2.16 GHz Mac OS X (10.5.6) 2 GB RAM
4feet4
Posts: 17
From: Pasadena
Registered: Mar 12, 2009
Re: System Overload ...i know ..I'm not the 1st ...
Posted: Aug 10, 2009 9:10 AM in response to: Larry Mal
Ok Great - Thanks - makes sense - I was using a Lacie with Protools an my PC ( it recently crashed) - I was under the impression I would have enough processing power with out it on the MAC.
Looks like I can pick one up for just a little over $100 ( I'm rolling in that kind of cash) ... please clarify though - you stated: "Firewire is much superior to USB, which is why I'm glad to hear you are using USB as your audio in. By using Firewire in and Firewire out, on an iMac, you would be halving the bandwidth. In your case you are not" ....are you GLAD to hear I am using USB as in - We may have found the problem .... go external to free up processing ? Please confirm.
Thanks again
Imac Mac OS X (10.5.5) 2.4 Processor, 4 GB RAM, M-Audio Fast Track Pro Interface, No External HD
CCTM
Posts: 249
Registered: Mar 11, 2007
Re: System Overload ...i know ..I'm not the 1st ...
Posted: Aug 10, 2009 9:28 AM in response to: 4feet4
4feet4 wrote:
Ok Great - Thanks - makes sense - I was using a Lacie with Protools an my PC ( it recently crashed) - I was under the impression I would have enough processing power with out it on the MAC.
As stated in an earlier reply, if you only have 2 or 3 gigs of free space on your Mac hard drive, processing power is NOT the problem. Your boot disc is way too full. You should have at least 20-30GB free.
Running a second drive for the audio side will, of course, help, but you MUST clear out the main hard drive (or fit a larger one) before you run into even more serious problems.
HTH
CCT
Larry Mal
Posts: 654
From: Saint Louis, Missouri
Registered: Sep 27, 2007
Re: System Overload ...i know ..I'm not the 1st ...
Posted: Aug 10, 2009 9:37 AM in response to: 4feet4
Well, you have enough processing power, that isn't the issue. All the processing power in the world won't matter if you have 64 megabytes of RAM, there will be a bottleneck. Another bottleneck is with data transference. Like I said, when using a single drive to transfer date from as well as to- which is what you are doing when you are using Logic, running within the scope of the operating system, and hosting virtual instruments, all of which is writing the resulting audio information to the same drive, at the same time, then you are creating another problem. But you don't have to do that, by sending the audio written to another drive other than the one the audio is being generated from.
In other words, your processing power is both faster than and irrelevant to the physical limitations of the hard drive itself.
Another bottleneck would be if you were recording tracks on a Firewire in, and sending that to and external Firewire drive out. This is one of the limitations of the iMac, there is no way to add what is called another bus, which is simply another pipeline for data transference. You can get around that with a Mac Pro, in which you add another internal hard drive, which connects directly to the motherboard, and has its own bus. Or by adding another Firewire PCIe card, which will add another Firewire bus, again, with its own data transference. On an iMac, you have one Firewire bus, and one USB bus.
Clear? You can imagine these as pipes of water. The more pipes you have leading to and from a location the faster it will go.
USB, in your case, is a dedicated pipeline in. Nothing (well, your mouse, maybe a flash drive) is using that pipeline. Your Firewire is a pipeline out, in this case- you could reverse this, it doesn't matter*. If you use Firewire in and out, then you are sending water flowing in both directions in the same pipe. It will work, but not as well. By adding a dedicated bus, you would be adding another pipe to flow in one way, while the original flowed the other way. No impedances.
I don't see why you can't use the Lacie drive you already have, though. It's quite likely your crash wasn't due to it. No need to buy another drive, if it's Firewire, anyway. Just give it a shot- this isn't a cure all, but just good audio practice. Let me know how it pans out. Good luck, L
*Firewire is better than USB in all situations. But you seem to be going a track or two of USB audio in, so I'd use USB for that. For light use it's fine. Then you can use your superior Firewire bus to write the audio to the external Firewire drive.
dual 2.8GHz Mac Pro, Macbook Pro 2.16 GHz Mac OS X (10.5.6) 2 GB RAM
4feet4
Posts: 17
From: Pasadena
Registered: Mar 12, 2009
Re: System Overload ...i know ..I'm not the 1st ...
Posted: Aug 10, 2009 11:12 AM in response to: Larry Mal
L - Thanks for laying that out in simple terms - learning a ton and loving it ( when things work) - I will pick up another Lacie - my old Lacie for my PC crashed - I'm better off starting from scratch ( I'm still trying to retrive some data of the old one) ... I'll let you know how it works. I would have got an external drive outright but the Logic Certified guys at Apple told me I would not need one - sounds like this is the big problem. I'll use the freeze method when needed also....... maybe I'll have better luck with Groove Agent 3 with the external drive.
Much appreciated-
(TBD)
Imac Mac OS X (10.5.5) 2.4 Processor, 4 GB RAM, M-Audio Fast Track Pro Interface, No External HD
Larry Mal
Posts: 654
From: Saint Louis, Missouri
Registered: Sep 27, 2007
Re: System Overload ...i know ..I'm not the 1st ...
Posted: Aug 10, 2009 11:39 AM in response to: 4feet4
And free up some room on that system drive.
dual 2.8GHz Mac Pro, Macbook Pro 2.16 GHz Mac OS X (10.5.6) 2 GB RAM
Pancenter
Posts: 3,306
From: Southwest U.S.
Registered: Apr 22, 2007
Re: System Overload ...i know ..I'm not the 1st ...
Posted: Aug 10, 2009 12:04 PM in response to: 4feet4
4feet4 wrote:
L - Thanks for laying that out in simple terms - learning a ton and loving it ( when things work) - I will pick up another Lacie - my old Lacie for my PC crashed - I'm better off starting from scratch ( I'm still trying to retrive some data of the old one) ... I'll let you know how it works. I would have got an external drive outright but the Logic Certified guys at Apple told me I would not need one - sounds like this is the big problem. I'll use the freeze method when needed also....... maybe I'll have better luck with Groove Agent 3 with the external drive.
Groove Agent 3 loads samples into memory so I doubt if your luck will change.
The -first- thing I would do is clear some space on your hard drive, my feeling is that OSX is writing swap files and the drive head is working overtime to try and find free space to write. That in itself could cause an overload.
Free drive space now or expect more problems than you're currently experiencing.
pancenter-
Power Mac G5 1.8GHz Dual, 4GB RAM Mac OS X (10.5.5) RME Audio - MOTU MIDI, Mac (Logic 8.02), Intel/XP-Pro Quad Core PC

"system overload" in logic pro 8 on my Mac Pro with only three tracks

I am running Logic Pro 8, on a 2.66 Quad Core Mac Pro w/ only 1GB of RAM. I have not had the money for the much needed ram upgrade, yet.
The day before yesterday I opened a project I had opened many times, with only three tracks - two audio and a midi synth with only a few notes. These tracks are fairly well plugin-ed up, but this Mac Pro has always eaten them up, no problems. When I tried to play the project, I got system overloads every 2 seconds, rather precisely actually. My CPU usage reads low in logic and with iStat, but suddenly it peaks to 100% on my third core and I get the system overload.
I had my buffer size at 128, so I switched it to 1024, it worked, and then I switched it back again and everything worked like it used to!
But now I have to go through this slightly illogical little procedure everytime I open a project. I have read threads here about this subject before, back I cant seem to apply them / understand them in relation to my particular situation.
any ideas?

Join the club...wait for them to patch/update it.
I've tried the various work arounds, sometimes they work temporarily, sometimes not at all.
For the overloads the most reliable "work around" is to select each track, open the VI/FX modules associated with that track, then close them, go to the next track and repeat the process. OR, if you know all the modules (VI/FX) you're using, just open each one. This will "initialize" their existance BEFORE the audio engine hits them in playback.
My guess is LP8 tries to reduce it's memory foot print and does NOT initialize all the VI/FX in a saved project that is just opened until it actually needs to use them -- a good idea one would think. However, when you do your playback and it hits the VI/FX for the first time (after you just opened your saved project) it appears the audio engine stalls waiting for the VI/FX to initialize the 1st time around and hence the overloads error. Obviously I can't prove this since I don't have access to the code, but I'm a developer and this would be my logical guess based on the evidence at hand.
I can reproduce the problem consistently:
1. Start LP8
2. Open existing project with 3 tracks (staggered to start a different times) with different VI on each track
3. Have 3 buses with a different FX on each bus
4. Do nothing other than hit Play
Overload when it hits start of 1st track VI, stop, restart, overloads when it hits start point of 2nd track VI, stop restart, overloads when it hits start point of 3rd track.
Why wasn't something this obvious caught in testing? Good question.
Rob.
Message was edited by: Rob A.

System Overload & How to get the best G4 Performance

Okay all you Logic and OSX Gurus. I need your help. I've finally made the LOGIC leap from OS9 and have hit the SYSTEM OVERLOAD wall like many of you before me.
I've been pouring over this, and many other Forums and Blogs, for about two weeks now, and have tried many of the fixes / solutions to no avail. I estimate I'm now getting about 25% of my OS9 Logic performance from Logic in OSX.
One specific case in point is this. A four minute song sketch. No tempo changes. Four midi tracks, 6 Audio instruments and 2 EFX (1 Guitar Amp Pro, 1 Space Designer that's no even being used).
I have unsuccessfully tried to Bounce this to disc for two weeks now. The AUDIO and DISK I/O Meters barely register until the GUITAR AMP PRO track brings the AUDIO METER up to about 1/3rd usage. At various points in the Bounce the G4 will completely FREEZE, and I will have manually restart.
THINGS I HAVE TRIED, and continue to try are:
- Repairing Permissions
- Trashing Preferences
- Updating MOTU Drivers
- Changing Processor performance setting - which I cannot do BTW, because my system does not seem to support this option.
- Closing all Widgets
- Freeing up more Space on my Mac OSx startup disk (I now have 78.41 Gig available on a 114.49 Gig drive)
- Run Cocktail to clean up System logs and temporary files
- FREEZING TRACKS as a temporary 'fix'. This did nothing BTW but add more strain to the CPU and I still had about 1/3rd the usage with my GUITAR AMP Plugin (and it still crashed).
- Increased AUDIO BUFFER to 1024
So, (and I guess this is really two sides of the same question)...
1) How do I FIX this SYSTEM OVERLOAD problem, and
2) How do I "optimize" my Dual 1.25 G4 in order to get the best performance possible out of LOGIC PRO?
OTHER QUESTIONS I HAVE ARE:
- Does the G4 have the processing power needed to run LOGIC PRO?
- I'm confident adding RAM will "help" (can't hurt), but am I really dealing with a RAM Problem here or, again, can these processors really handle it?
BTW - I'm not looking for an excuse to go shopping for a Quad G5 (I mean who needs an excuse... . But, I'm really trying to determine if at the end of the day I will spend money on RAM, Hard Drives, whatever..., and then still be frustrated and end up shopping.
- Are SCSI drives a problem with Tiger / Logic? These Cheetah drives are fast (10,000 RPM), reliable, and have been great drives to record on. I'm trying to do this simple bounce to one of the Cheetahs and as I said it's just not happening.
- Does the startup volume size effect performance?
- Does the amount of free space on the start up drive effect performance?
- Firewire 400 vs 800? My sample library is on the Firewire drive, and I'm thinking this does not pull a lot on the CPU as these get loaded into memory before playing? Am I right about that? It is Firewire 400.
A long letter and a lot of questions. I thank you all in advance for any answers, guidance or direction you can give. Please also let me know if there is something I HAVEN'T asked, looked at or should be doing.
Best,
Kevin
Kevin Saunders Hayes
SYSTEM SPECS
Machine Name: Power Mac G4
Machine Model: PowerMac3,6
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (3.3)
Number Of CPUs: 2
CPU Speed: 1.25 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 256 KB
L3 Cache (per CPU): 2 MB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 167 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.4.8f2
Logic 7.1.1 (885)
Pro Application Support 3.1
MOTU 896 - Latest drivers
2 - Seagate Cheetah 9 gig SCSI drives
1 - Oxford Firewire (Up to 400 Mb/sec) with EXS Library
G4 Duel 1.25 Mac OS X (10.4.3)

And after months of using Express, and a week of
using Logic, I hadn't had a system overload until
today. Now I'm having them all the time. It wasn't a
set up change, it wasn't running on the battery, it
wasn't running software monitoring, it's set up with
512 i/o buffer, medium processor buffer. And it
wasn't brought on by number of tracks - that's for
sure. After it started happenind and I took a break &
came back, I was sitting on my couch, Powerbook in
my lap, tapping a beat in with the onscreen
keyboard.... a SINGLE instrument, mind you. NO plugs,
no other tracks of ANY kind. And it happened.
There's a lot of great, relevant and very helpful info on this forum and it all helps and it all counts. But..... so many people are suffering this when moving up to Pro 7 from either Pro 6 or Express. One expects a change in system load when a major update comes along but more and more people are reporting that simply recording 1 or 2 tracks of audio, pure, no plug-ins or EQ is causing an overload whereas in the previous version(s) this was easily accomodated. This, you may have guessed, has happened to me as well. Are we to accept in 1 version increment (albeit a major one) there is such a massive increase in demand from hardware that you cannot record a pure no-plug-in stereo track? When going back to 6.4.3 it will happily record 8 at once, let you EQ and reverb and then do another 8 AND then another. With no troble at all.
It is pointing more and more towards fundamental flaws in the programming. Did L7 come out too soon? Are we just beta testing what is pro software? We are only on 7.1.1 and 6 went to 6.4.3 but at no stage was it this bad at the fundamentals of what the App is for. I love Logic, I really do, but I think, even with all the great help we are fighting what Apple should be addressing. Not that you can find/contact/talk to or get any sort of response from them.
I have tried but have gone back to 6.4.3 until 7.1.2 or even 7.2 appears, but I'm not paying for 7.2. My £200 upgrade from 6.4.3 is now sitting on a shelf desperately wanting to use it.

"Disk too slow or System Overload"

So while I'm doing rather simple things like recording vox or even playback, the audio stops and I get the message:
"Disk is too slow or System Overload.
(-10010)
The Sudden Motion Sensor may have parked the hard drive head, or the disk performance is not sufficient to read or write all audio tracks, or the system was not able to process all data in time."
I'm running on Intel Dual Core i5 2.3's, 4 gigs of RAM with about 230 gigs of free space. I have turned the SMS already to it can't be that. Does anyone know what the problem could be?

CosmicChild wrote:
Thanks for the reply. Mind if I ...probe... you for some more info?
Too many CPU intensive VI- what is VI?
HDDs- what is that?
thanks you!
VI = Virtual Instruments. Logic software instruments or third party software instruments.
HDD = Hard Disk Drive
pancenter-

Will I have less system overload with new mac?

Hi guys,
I have a mid-2009 (Duo Core 2.3 ghz. 12 gig ram) 27" iMac.
Lately I very often get system overload. I am still using Logic 9. When I open the CPU meters both Audio cpu meters are maxed out (so in red).
When I test the same project in logic X, it doensn't have the system overload pop up , but the right CPU meter is maxed out, and the left one is in half.
My question is, if I buy a new macbook pro now. i7, 16 gig ram. BUT still use Logic 9. Will I still have those system overloads on the same project?
Or does it really going to make a difference?
I hope this makes sense
Regards,
Jack

I don't think anyone can give you a concrete answer, no one knows how you use Logic or what plugins you're using in your project. Logic works with hundreds of variables so definitive yes or no answers are rarely accurate.
It's my personal opinion that it's more about the user and how he/she knows to use Logic rather than the system it's run on. There are still studios that use old 2.5gHz dual processor G5's that run enormous projects. Logic can quickly take down any Mac computer if used without regard to how plugins and virtual instruments are used.
I take it you're running Mavericks not ML 10.8.5

The best DAW for Logic and big sample libraries... no more system overload

I'm planning on going big and getting the Mac Pro Two 2.66GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 16 GB of RAM and add two additional 1 TB drives, one for samples and one for projects. It's been suggested that I include a RAID 5 and that it will make streaming of the samples faster and also safer and more reliable for backing up data.
With my current setup I constantly have to freeze tracks of sampled instruments or I get system overload.
Do I need RAID or am I better off without it?

Gabe Garza wrote:
With my current setup I constantly have to freeze tracks of sampled instruments
I'm not sure why you consider this a bad thing.
Having to constantly freeze/unfreeze takes time and disrupts workflow. It's a good option to have if you need it, but much nicer if you don't.
Johnny,
I would strongly advise against diving straight in with 16GB of RAM. There are a lot threads around that discuss how much RAM Logic can even recognize, you should check them out. I don't remember the details very well, but I feel like 16GB was more that it can handle (maybe that was just for ESX...). In any case, don't buy a Mac pre-installed with all that memory; Apple charges way too much for their RAM, and you can find perfectly functional, guaranteed RAM from third-party sellers. I bought my Mac Pro with the base amount of RAM and have added as needed, and I recommend you do the same.
When you play your projects, look at your CPU window.
Look at the Audio and Disk I/O meters.
If Audio is peaking, you need more CPU's
If Disk I/O is peaking, a faster I/O on your hard drive is needed.
I would also recommend doing this. Are you getting "core audio overload" messages, or another type? If you get core audio overload messages while your System Performance meters aren't peaking (or getting close to it), getting a faster machine isn't necessarily the answer. Core audio overloads are kind of tricky--some people with slower machines get them rarely, others with very fast machines get them often. If you haven't read up on this issue, I recommend you do so.
I'm not too savvy on RAID arrays, but I have a few thoughts. How likely are you to need your PCI slots for other cards? The specs for the Mac Pro lists 3 PCI slots, which I believe means 3 empty ones, i.e. doesn't include the one that holds your graphics card. Do you expect to add a second graphics card? PCI based audio interface? Anything else like that? A RAID setup will occupy one of those PCI slots, just keep that in mind. Second, while a RAID 5 array is a pretty secure way to store your data, you ought to have an external backup drive anyway, so maybe it wouldn't be worth it ($700 for a RAID card, yikes!). Lastly, it's likely that any of the most popular 1TB drives (search barefeats.com for some articles on these) will be sufficient to do what you need them too. I don't know how involved your Logic sessions are, but I've never maxed out my disk I/O while using my Western Digital Caviar 640.

System overload on brand new MBP 15"

Hi everyone,
Last week i bought a new 15" retina Macbook pro (2.0 Ghz quad-core i7, 8gb RAM, ssd). I mainly plan to use it for recording and mixing in Logic. With my previous macbook (13" 2011 model, the cheapest at that time) i got the system overload quite frequently. I bought this new 2000 dollar Macbook, and I still get this error.
Don't get me wrong, I understand what this error means and why it's there, it's just that I thought such an expensive machine would be able to handle this easily. There is one core that it continuously spiking and 4 others are only at 15%. My overall CPU load (according to MiniUsage) is only around 15% when I get the error. Also, the fans are completely quiet.
Is there a way to push my macbook into full processing power? Or is your advice to buy the even more expensive one? I understand that the cores are 'only' 2.0 Ghz each, but is this not enough for logic? Should I return this one if this is what I plan to do with it?
Again, I am aware of the tricks to reduce the CPU load (split track and plugins, Low latency mode, select an empty track etc) and I know logic can only assign one thread to one core, but I don't want this to be neccesary on a brand new two thousand dollar machine. On top of this it seems it's not pushing the CPU when it's needed.
So I think my question is, should i buy a different system, or is this just normal for a new macbook pro? Because now I'm kinda stuck with a "bad bargain" feeling.
Some advice would be greatly appreciated!
Joep

Sounds like you need to increase your buffer. Go to prefs - Audio and increase the I/O Buffer size to the next highest setting, then keep going up if you still experrience issues.
Remember you can use Low Latency Mode if you have a delay when recording. Shocks me that they have relegated this feature to such a obscure place, but a quick google search or peek in the manual will help you find it and use it.
Btw, this is my backup .me account, so nvm the low level.

Error message System Overload. (-10011)

Hi,
I just purchased Logic Express 9.
I have a macbook, which matched all the minimum or recommended specifications. E.g. 2GB RAM for large projects. And yet my computer fails to keep up with even playing the demos. It stops at random points and an error message comes up:
System Overload.
The audio engine was not able to process all required data in time.
(-10011)
I have installed the latest update.
I have no other programs running
and I am currently running the demo files off a fast external HD, however I have tried running them off my computer and the demo disc.
Does my computer simply not have the processing power?

Hi,
I have a 2006 Macbook with 2GB's myself.
Your problem is that every Hardware has it's limits when it comes to playing audio. Our little Macbooks haver their limits earlier, a Mac Pro with tons of CPU power & ram will have it later.
To avoid hitting this "CPU ceiling", you can do several things:
1st: Set the audio buffer to a higher value. Though i run my Macbook at 64 or 128, you should try 256 or higher to start with. Set this in Logic's preferences->audio
2nd: Depending on the number and load of the plugins in your channelstrips, CPU load will increase dramatically. Using less plugins or less CPU hungry plugins will certainly help.
3rd: If you have a software instrument track selected during playback, Logic reserves huge amount of CPU power for realtime processing for this single track, leaving all the other tracks with less CPU potential. So, if you just want to play back a project, select an (empty) audio track or the master track instead. This will free up lots of cpu power.
4th: If you have tracks that have been finished for so long, freeze them. This will take the load away from the cpu and put a rmixdown of this single track to your harddisk. However, if your HDD is very full and/or slow and busy with other tasks, you might get the same error, but usually, it helps a lot.
Fox
Fox

"Disk too slow or System Overload" ... hardly

Hi all!
I hung onto my 2007 MacPro until just before summer when I upgraded to be on the safe side. I do orchestral work and have been accustomed to running heavy VSL projects on one single machine pretty effortlessly. On my new 12 MacPro, things are working even smootherEXCEPT for this "Disk too slow or System Overload" happening from time to time on fades. The projects in hich I experience this behaviour are audio only, orchestral mixes of between 60 and 70 audio tracks and I get the message when executing fades on all tracks simultaneously. I can't remember getting this on my old MacPro which had a fraction of the cpu-power and not nearly as much ram.
My specs are 2x2.66 6-Core w/32GB ram, and all audio files, fade files and othe project files, are written to two 2 TB 7200 disks in the internal disk slots, configured as striped RAID. This gives more than enough speed and I still have 1,64 TB of free space on the RAID set.
This issue comes and goes and I can't seem to figure out what triggers Logic's problem to read fades fast enough. Just now I had some corrupted fade ailes, rebuildt them and now Logic can't get past the fades at all unless I start playing in the middle of them.
I can't understand why this problem should be introduced on a configuration much, much faster than my previous MacPro where this problem hardly ever occured. I even doubled the I/O buffer from 512 that I was using on my old mac, to 1024 with no difference at all. Increasing Process buffer size to "Large" doesn't have any affet either.
Any clues anyone?
Best regards,
Ginge

Good point, nice link!
But the thing is I'm not using any software instruments and apart from one EQ on a track here and there, two Tube tech plugs and two sends to Altiverb (of which one is inactive). This kind of load was not a problem on the old heap and shouldn't be a challenge for a 12-core... Also, without changing anything apart from the move above, it is now playing with only one pixel-high movement on the meter, like you would expect it to do.
BTW the quirk is now back on the project that was fixed. I did new fades at another position and CPU 1 is now maxing out again. A new set of fades means equal fades on regions on 63 tracks playing simultaneously.
As I'm writing I'm becoming aware of one interesting aspect: the project files contains imported aaf data and to save space I'm leaving the media-files at the original location where it was put by Pyramix who exported the aaf. I figure there shouldn't be a difference if the audio files reside in a folder called "Media files" or "Audio files". These folders are sitting on the same disk albeit not in the same subfolder. If anything, I'd assume it would minimize potential for error caused by having several copies of files with identically names on different locations on the disks. But now it seems the issue is less likely to appear if I save the project including assets, copying external audio files (on any disk), or at least that is how it looks like right now. New fades are working fine after I've done this.
Doesn't make sense to me but it seems to make a difference...
Ginge

CoreAudio: Disk is too slow or System Overload. (-10010)

I keep getting this error when I'm playing a song that has 16 tracks and effects on each track, but each track is frozen (!): CoreAudio: Disk is too slow or System Overload. (-10010). I'm running a G4 and have 2G RAM. Is this common? What can I do to prevent this? Thanks for any advice you can give!
-David

In addition to Rohan's suggestions you have more options depending on how you work and what phases of the project you are in.
Something overlooked very often is polyphony enabled for the EXS24-some patches are set to 64 drop the polyphony to either the minimum you will need or less (if less you will notice older notes cutting out-but you can set it to the necessary number upon bounce or export). Some mono patches from sound designers are set to 32 or 64-even if you enable unison this is often worthless.
Up your buffer size-I usually have my PBook at 512-I usually do offline editing, location recording and sound design with the book anyways.
Export the track.
Set virtual memory in EXS prefs to 'on' and with the largest RAM allocation-slow disk, lots of activity.
If you use certain exs patches often but only parts of them trimming the excess off the instrument can improve performance. If you have a piano program with good samples you can initially create a lite version with 2 velocity layers and then when it is time to get things sounding good revert the instrument to the original 5 layer-obviously this makes a huge difference depending on what you are using the piano for, leave it if it is critical.
Save the Channel strip and export as audio file while keeping the sequence in your session. Like Freezing but you can manually trim the file start position and set the bit depth. Freeze files render from the start until the last audible sample and then truncate the tails, meaning even if you can't hear it it is still pulling "silence" from disk as long as there is sound after it. Exporting as 24 or 16 bit will effectively reduce your file size by 25 (24bit) or 50 (16bit) percent. If you know you don't have to edit a performance for weeks to come exporting it will solve alot of problems for CPU.
Someone should back me up on this one but at the moment I want to say EXSamples load into memory regardless of freeze settings-reducing your resources.
Disable the filter (if live or playback-N/A with Freeze)-it is often not critical for some patches. The more synthetic sounds or sounds with fewer/shorter samples rely on them.
Disable Unison.
Most sample libraries were not recorded at 88/96k-there is no benefit in running them in sessions in these Sampling rates as far as the EXS sound quality goes.
That should keep you busy for a while, just some tuning to up your system performance.

HT1935 "Disk is too slow or System Overload-" Only 1 soft synth in project

I am getting the message "Disk is too slow or System Overload…" message when trying to playback in Logic Pro 9.1.8. This happens with only one soft synth plug in within any project. I am running Lion 10.7.5 on my Early 2011 13" Macbook Pro, upgraded to 8GB of RAM. This happened before I upgraded the RAM too.
I have checked all of my Logic preferences and they're set to what Apple suggest to keep CPU usage in check.
I have tried turning off my "Motion Sensor" and it still happens, so I don't think it's that.
If someone could advise me on what might be causing this I'd be very grateful.

Hi
Which Soft Synth plugin?
Does the problem happen with all plugs or 1 specific one?
CCT

System Overload = Ram or CPU

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