Skip to main content
Inspiring
Mar 25, 2020 10:19 AM UTC
Answered

Audition CC 2015 only uses around 40% of RAM and crackles - why? Fixable?

I'm using CC 2015 in Win10.

4GB of RAM might not be enough at all for Audition but for now thats all I have.

What I noticed: whenever I'm using Audition only, my overall RAM workload never goes above 50% but Audition lags and crackles. Why isn't it using all my available RAM up to the 3.1 GB, I gave it in the properties?

This topic is closed to new replies. Start a new post to keep the conversation going.
LuciferSamCorrect answer
Inspiring
Apr 1, 2020 1:13 PM UTC

The most common cause of breakup problems is having the buffer sizes set too low. That's in Preferences>General>Audio Hardware. But the closer you get to the minimum spec with a machine, the more you have to turn off in it to get any acceptable performance at all. Primary suspects are Wifi polling, and anti-virus software...


Alright, this WAAAAYYY helped me out:
The partition, AA was running on, didnt have its own virtual RAM and Windows always took Audition its virtual RAM away, its temporary memory.

SOLUTION:
System -> advanced System Settings -> Performance Options -> Advanced -> Virtual Memory -> change
Now manually set your Virtual Memory. (Windows doesn't need too much, I gave it 3000-6000 MB and another 3000-6000 for my other partition, on which AA is running.) A maximum of about 1,5 x physical RAM is perfect for me. This solved all my lagging, recording and crackling problems.

 

SOOOO: No more skipped samples but only fast recording and playback.

5 replies

SteveG_AudioMasters_
Community Expert
Community Expert
Mar 25, 2020 10:30 AM UTC

Why are you trying to make a correlation between RAM usage and lagging and crackling? They are very unlikely to be related. If you only have 4GB of RAM in your machine, and you've allowed Audition to use 3.1GB (which may well be more than it needs) then the rest of your system hardly has any - and since it's the OS that is providing Audition's background services, then it is far more likely that depriving the OS of RAM is what is causing your crackling and poor performance. 4GB is Audition's minimum spec requirement, and if you are going to use that little, then you have to apportion it carefully.

Translate
Inspiring
Mar 26, 2020 7:19 PM UTC

Alright, I wasn't trying to make a correlation, I just had no idea why
it wouldn't work properly. Knowing absolutely nothing about what
resources AA uses for what, I thought: maybe it has too little memory to
work with. Now I tried bringing the RAM up, that's being reserved for
other processes, but nothing changes, whatever I type in
(AA:3gB/others:1gB or 2/2 or 1/3) - always the same crackling and
lagging. What else could be the problem? Is my processor too weak? RAM
usage, by the way, is only around 50% overall while mixing. So that's
not at all the problem? CPU says 27%.
Question: What are common problems causing lagging etc in AA? What could I change?

Translate
SteveG_AudioMasters_
Community Expert
Community Expert
Mar 26, 2020 9:31 PM UTC

The most common cause of breakup problems is having the buffer sizes set too low. That's in Preferences>General>Audio Hardware. But the closer you get to the minimum spec with a machine, the more you have to turn off in it to get any acceptable performance at all. Primary suspects are Wifi polling, and anti-virus software...

Translate