Extreme CPU usage in Ableton caused by Ebosuite

Technical questions and support
1

Dear Ebosuite developer team,
Since I purchased Ebosuite, I have been using it without issues, maybe some 3-4 months.
I had 4 Evideo in feeding my 4 cameras in high quality, although the CPU usage increased about 20%, It was still something I could work with.
However recently, having Ebosuite loaded into the project increases the CPU from 20% without it, to more than 80%. It is a slow rise to the top, followed by sometimes by a crash.
To exemplify, I deleted all Ebosuite tracks and just loaded an Eclips on 1 audio track of my project, with one mp4 on a clip. The CPU usage started increasing as I mentioned before, reaching around 70-80%, creating sluggish response from my system. Even after deleting this audio track and quitting Ebosuite app, the CPU usage of Ableton continues on this 70% level (I must add that the transport is not engaged). I must restart Ableton to get to normal levels-.
I have downloaded and installed the latest update, rebooted my computer, and nothing seems to avoid this issue.
It is clearly a bug of some kine, I would very much appreciate any comments or fixes you may suggest. As it is currently unusable.
Thanks!

2

Just to add to the post above, my system:
Ableton Live 11.02
Catalina
MacBook Pro 2019
2,3 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9
16gb Ram
AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 4 GB graphics

3

Hi Alfonrock,
Sorry to hear that. Let’s try to find out what is happening en get you up and running asap. Do you have these problems since you are using Live 11? Can you try the same scenario in Live 10? Does that make a difference?

4

Hi there,

I have the same problem. Tried everything and still happening.

Jeroen, please could you help me on this ?

this happened on ableton 10 and also on ableton 11 on a macbookpro 2017 2.9 GHz Intel Core i7

Thanks in advance

Varo

5

Hi Varo, I am not sure if Alfonrock’s issue is related to EboSuite, but let’s figure out what is happening. I have a few questions to get started:

  1. Are you experiencing exactly the same issue as Alfonrock, so when you add an eSession (previously called eClips) in a set with a .mp4 video, the CPU usage grows to 80%?
  2. Are you using the latest version of Live (and therefore latest Max for Live)?
  3. Do you have the same issue when you run the demo set? Download that demo set here:
    https://www.ebosuite.com/sharedfiles/EboSuite_Examples.zip
  4. What codec is the .mp4? What happens if you use the Hap codec? Does it happen with a specific codec?
  5. Does it also happen when you add this .mp4 to the set only, so without EboSuite plug-ins?
  6. Does it happen when the eSession plug-in is in the set, but the EboSuite application is turned off (closing the output window will close the application, an error will appear in eSession’s interface)?
  7. Are you using EboSuite 2.0?
6

Hi Jeroen,

Thanks for the fast reply.

  1. In the beginning of using Ebosuite all worked fine and the CPU usage was ok. Then after months it started to get incrised like it happens to Alfonrock. Even over 100%. At that moment, obviously I have to restart Ableton.
  2. no, now I’m using Ableton 10.3.0
  3. It doesnt open eBosuite when I run demo set
  4. How can I know what code is the .mp4 ?. It doesn’t happen with .HAP.
  5. I think yes.
  6. It happens when using eSimpler + Simpler. Never use eclips or essesion due to currenttly using ableton 10
  7. Not yet. Ebosuite 1.9

Also, I wanted to know if ebosuite will be smooth running on a new iMac and without a eGPU ?
and the best currently way to render the whole project to a 1080 video file ?

Thanks !

Varo

7

Hi Varo,
It seems that this issue is not EboSuite, but Ableton Live and Mac OS related.

  1. If EboSuite used to work fine and didn’t change, then it is probably something else that makes it work worse now. Did you upgrade the OS or Live in the meantime?
  2. Ableton Live 10.3.0 should work fine
  3. That is strange. Let’s look into that. Do the plug-ins show the ‘Click here to restart EboSuite app’ message in the interface? Can you email me a screenshot of the Max Window to contact@ebosuite.com? To open the Max Window, right-click on the title bar of an EboSuite plug-in and select ‘Open Max Window’.
  4. If you select the video and press CMD-i (Get Info), it will show a window with information about the file, like the codec. .mp4 is usually H26. This codec is decompressed on the CPU (and has inferior performance), so that could explain high CPU usage. We recommend to use HAP or ProRes. You can use the eConvert plug-in to convert your videos to HAP (or the AVF Batch Converter application).
  5. If it happens without EboSuite plug-ins, it is probably not EboSuite related.
  6. Can you turn off the EboSuite application when you see the CPU usage rise and check if that reduces the CPU usage significantly?
  7. EboSuite 2.0 has some optimisations for video playback, but I don’t think this is EboSuite related, so upgrading might not solve this.

I have very good experiences with EboSuite on iMacs. It is important that you don’t use a Fusion drive, but an SSD drive. And the quality of the graphics card will also make a big difference.

I screen record my compositions with Syphon recorder or QuickTime Player. That works ok, but it depends on the power of your hardware and the amount of effects, generators and videos you are using at the same time. Sometimes I play the track half speed while recording and then speed up the recording 200%. That can work really well, but if you use autonomous or random parameters the result might look different, because they don’t slow down when you slow down the track.