CPU issues with RTAS plug ins

Hi all, Something I noticed when running BFD and any of the heavier-weight plugins... I get the "CPU is max'ed out error remove some plugins" on the initial playback of sessions I have. This issue seems to go away after the initial error. It is almost like the plug-in needs to be initialized and cached or something, so on the first run the CPU gets bogged down with playing the session and loading the plugin too. I am obviously making some assuptions about the Protools architecture etc. It only rears its head with the larger plugins and once I get the error it seems fine afterwards. Has anyone else seen this behavior? Any info is appreciated. Rick Pro Tools 7.1.1 LE Digidesign 002R iMac 2.0 Ghz Duo 2 Core 1G Memory

i get it with amplitube 2....

I get this problems using Battery 2 and Xpand,its really annoying. Only happens the first time i hit playback and then its fine for the rest of the session. Cheers

BFD is a cpu/ram hog!

Glad to see I am not the only one. I would like to mention the issue I have been seeing is not specific to BFD, although due to its CPU and memory needs seems to easily bring out the problem. As a test I tried opening a problematic session (one that fails on the 1st run consistently), then via the mix window opened each plug in instance that normally causes a hiccup prior to playing the session. The session played without incident. So either the plugins don't pre-initialize when opening a session and are loaded as the session plays / records, or the time I spent opening the plugins allowed PT to initialize them. Not sure of the program flow / threading model. The issue seems to be that the heavy-weight plug-ins for LE anyway load as you go and can cause CPU resource issues if the plug-in is resource intensive. This issue shows up at any point in the session where the plug in is needed. So a session can play for 2 minutes without a problem and once the point where the heavy weight plug is needed the error will occur. Again, once I have the initial error the problem goes away for the remaining of the session. Thanks...more food for thought.

BFD will work fine on your system, if Lite is not then there's likely something you need to adjust.. either your computer doesn't have enough RAM (unlikely as it's brand new - you do have at least 1.5GB right?) or maybe your hardware I/O buffer size in PT is set too small.

Same error here on the first attempt to playback a session with a few plug-ins - but then fine afterwards. Out of curiousity, what are your buffer and processor settings?

Thanks for the tip! I have only 1gb RAM at the moment. 1 more on order. Should I go up to 3gb? Settings: H/W Buffer Size: 512 Samples; CPU Usage Limit: 90%; DAE Playback Buffer: Level 2 (Default). Thanks in advance.