VST Performance

Hi,

Started to get some issues with the VST performance meter - well not the meter but when it indicates red I get dropouts and so on making it impossible to edit and mix. It’s a recent thing.

When I set up a new project with no tracks, no plugins, nada the blue meter is indicating that something is going on and hits up to 70% though the average load stays at around 20%, CPU is at zero. As soon as I start to add things it is soon hitting the red. Nightmare.

I have gone through the optimisation recommendations for running Nuendo but maybe people here can share anything they have discovered to make performance better or ways to approach or think about this problem. I did search but as usual I seem to be the only person having this problem ha ha.

As a small aside, when I upgrade to 8.3 as I plan to do shortly should I remove my 7 installation?

Thanks all