CPU 90-100% :/

[clarbaden]

sup guys I was just mixing one of Ola's songs and decided to test my CPU to see what it could handle until it craps out.
I had superior, ampeg svx and had 8 guitar tracks with tse 808> Legoin> lecab 2 then all running into a guitar bus which had a master EQ. I checked my task manager on playback when there where 4 guitar tracks playing simultaneously and my CPU was 90-100%.
My CPU specs are pentium dual-core E5300 @ 2.60 GHZ With 4 GB of ram running windows 7. Also to note I am using the latest version of Reaper with my asio buffer settings at maximum.
I just wondered if any of you have a solution for this problem, obviously I know that every CPU can eventually crash but I wondered if there was a peice of gear I could get like a CPU that could handle alot of tasks being performed at once. cheers

 

[Shinozoku]

Uhm... Double your ram? Windows 7 usually needs about 8 gigs to run optimally. It might take some weight off of your cpu.

 

[ManFromMars]

Hmm, I have no problem running Win 7 on 6GB RAM. If you check your RAM usage and it isn't (almost) maxed out, then adding more won't help.

I'm not sure how Windows monitors its CPU usage, but I think if you have a dual-core CPU and your processor is at 100%, you are using 100% of 1 core. Don't know how Reaper does its multi-threading so don't know if adding a CPU with more cores would help.

 

[clarbaden]

My ram only uses like 2GB max, do you both have the same processor as mine?

 

[onqel]

I would upgrade that cpu

 

[Shinozoku]

I'm going on what I've heard. I'm not fortunate enough to own a GOOD Windows OS yet I'm going on what my techie buds who work with computers for a living have told me.

 

[Terminus]

Optimize your system by making sure there are no other processing hogging up memory and/or processing power while you're using Reaper. You could also bounce the guitars down to wav format to conserve cpu (and learn to commit to the sound you have made instead of waffling over your settings lol), and of course like the other guys pointed out, upgrayyyyed.

 

[ManFromMars]

My ram only uses like 2GB max, do you both have the same processor as mine?

No I have a Core i7 (4 cores, 8 threads). But if you're only using 2GB RAM then more RAM won't help with your processor issues. If indeed they are issues - do you notice a performance problem in the real world, or are you just worrying about what the CPU monitor is telling you? Try halving the number of tracks and/or effects, then increasing, see what happens to the task manager CPU monitor.

Shinozoku: are your techie buds Linux users perchance? (seems to be a lot of unwarranted prejudice against Windows performance from the keen linux and mac folks... though of course plenty is warranted. I am also a keen linux user ).

 

[ManFromMars]

Also, if you're not doing anything else with your computer i.e. minimal background tasks etc, Reaper may well just be hogging your CPU because it can. You only need to worry about it if you start getting real-world performance issues, I would think. Again caveat: I don't know how Reaper works with regard to memory management/threading etc.