Hi,
In C7/64bit/Win8 I also suffered heavily from CPU spikes in projects that ran just fine under Cubase 6.5
I tried several things to improve my system and my problems became smaller (however C7 still isn’t as performant as 6.5 was). Here is what I did, I don’t know what of those steps really helped, but together the did improve my situation a lot and CPU spikes are a lot more seldom now:
BIOS:
- disabled on-board Audio in the BIOS (free up irqs and maybe prevent interferences with my main audio device)
- enables Plug&Play OS in the BIOS (maybe lets Win8 distribute IRQs better?)
Cubase - Devices - Device Settings - VST System
- disabled ASIO guard
- disabled “Boost Audio” (II set it back to “Normal”)
- enabled “Optimize Audio”
Audio Driver:
- raised buffer size (this of course always helps the CPU)
General changes:
- Tried to avoid older 32bit Plugins whenever possible
On my current project I can now squeeze my system load over 75% without audio dropouts, I still get spikes every now and then, but overall my setup is alot more stable now (still not as cool as 6.5 was, but I can work with it now)
Hope thise might also help other users…
Cheers,
Codex