Perf meters show activity when idle

[rob_tky]

Does your effects CPU meter show activity when nothing is being played?

[rob_tky]

Maybe my question was too enigmatic, sorry.

Since my K behaved strange last 2 weeks, I'm paying attention to everything now.
I noticed that on Perf Monitor page, any program/combi, effects CPU meter shows constant activity few to ~10%, when nothing is played. Sometimes more. On Era of Kronos it's between 20-30%.
Even if I turn off all effects.
I did not notice that before.

If anyone could have a look at their Perf Meter page would be appreciated.

[Sharp]

Turning them on or off means nothing, they are still assigned to the IFX / MFX / TFX and therefore using CPU. You have to set the IFX / MFX / TFX slot to “No Effect” in order to truly stop them from using Effects CPU.

In short, what you are seeing is perfectly normal.

Regards
Sharp.

[rob_tky]

Thank you Sharp
I was surprised with amount of idle activity, in some combis up to 50 %
Well, anyway, glad to hear that is "normal"

[danatkorg]

From the Parameter Guide's description of the Performance Meters page (also available in the online help):

Effects CPU
The KRONOS uses multiple CPUs for playing synthesizer voices, and a separate CPU for effects processing including IFX, MFX, and TFX. Note that effects integrated into EXi use the voice CPUs instead, and show up on the meters as EXi fixed resources, as described above.
This meter may also show activity reflecting the mixer infrastructure.
Note that effects continue to take up processing resources even when they are turned Off or bypassed. If you want to free up the processing resources, change the effect selection to 000: No Effect.

[StephenKay]

Thank you Sharp
I was surprised with amount of idle activity, in some combis up to 50 %
Well, anyway, glad to hear that is "normal"

Note also that if you look at the performance meters directly after changing programs or combis, you will be seeing up to DOUBLE the effects usage during the overlap period of SST change. There is a setting for the length of the overlap in the Global Basic page, I think it defaults to 5 seconds.

In order to allow SST to work, basically you are running double the effects for the overlap period since once sound must be maintained with all its effects while the new sound becomes active with all its effects, until the overlap period ends. Try watching the Perf Meters directly after a change and then wait for 5 seconds or so and watch the effects usage drop. If you're not actively using SST for live performance, you might want to set this overlap period to something much shorter so it doesn't get in the way of quick patch changes and immediately playing. I've seen this setting/feature apparently contribute to voice-stealing when playing polyphony intensive combis one after the other, where if you play in the overlap period you will get voice-stealing, but if you wait until it is over, you won't - because more CPU has been freed up.

[rob_tky]

Thank you Stephen. I did see the increased activity during the overlap period when switching programs/combis. That actually made me realize that it's not a glitch but part of SST.
Though the levels of idle activity were reaching even 70% in some cases during program switch.
I had strange "digital/metalic" sound distortion issue recently (as we've discussed in the other thread), and at that time one cause I thought about was: extreemly overloaded CPU/system for whatever reason, so I wanted to check if my idle levels are reasonable.