I followed through making the exceptions in Win11 Virus scanner and also went back into Roaming and deleted the files again. Music Maker started without error but was laggy and crashed when creating an AI generated song.

Just an update;

I had a image backup of my computer system before installing any Magix software. Its not a clean install of Win11 but its clean of any Magix products. In this test I only installed the free version of Music Maker. The result was the same; laggy and the computer fans start racing as the software struggles to play the timeline.

As a joke I have is old x220 Thinkpad running Win10. It must be at least 10 years old. Intel Core i7-2820M CPU, 8 Gigs of Ram and Intel HD Graphics 3000. I installed the free version of Music Maker. It runs smoothly!!

So what can be the problem with my 3 month old i9 13th Gen, 4070 Nivida Graphics, 16 Gig computer? It may be Win11 but I don't think that is the issue. Update my drivers? - they are the latest. I have proven that Music Maker can run smoothly on an old computer; it just struggles with this new gear. Maybe its a matter of waiting for a new update to the software. Regardless, I'm out of ideas, so unless anyone on this forum has a suggestion, I think its time to contact Support.

@Can-Dive

Hi

. . . . the computer fans start racing as the software struggles to play the timeline. . . . .

Do the fans ramp up when Music Maker is left idle for a while after starting?

That is very odd, what drive type(s) are installed in your computer?

How many tracks are being used and are they all loops, VST instruments or a mix of both.

What are the buffer sizes set to in the Program settings, Audio/Midi tab?

John EB

@johnebaker

Hi John,

Thanks for responding.

...Do the fans ramp up when Music Maker is left idle for a while after starting?...

In terms of the fans, when the program starts up they will increase in speed but settle down if left to idle. If you start populating the tracks, the fans will ramp up again as well as if you move the scrubber or play the project.

Please see the following specs of the NVMe drive installed;

As compared to the SSD drive in the old Thinkpad;

...How many tracks are being used and are they all loops, VST instruments or a mix of both....

It doesn't matter. It struggles with one track and a single drumbeat. Playback is laggy. Moving the scrubber is laggy. If you download a sound pool, you know how it floats over to the list once installed - laggy too.

I noted in Task manager that the Nividia 4070 is not being used; only the Intel UHD graphics chip.

...What are the buffer sizes set to in the Program settings, Audio/Midi tab?...

Currently Windows DirectSound 1024. See my screenshots in my previous post. I played around with all these settings and there were no material change.

I must admit I'm a bit stumped. I did lodge a ticket with Magix Support but First Line is probably going to tell me to reinstall the software which I have already done a number of times. Also I checked the integrity of Window system files using dism and SFC. The system is sound.

Typically in these situations the first response is to update the drivers. In this case it may be I have to resort to using an old driver Music Maker is happy with. Which driver is causing the bottleneck? I don't know - that's the mystery. And I'm not too keen on using older drivers because that has the potential of messing up other programs.

@Can-Dive

>> I noted in Task manager that the Nividia 4070 is not being used; only the Intel UHD graphics chip.

Just a guess -- possible conflict between the Intel and Nvidia graphics? What happens if you remove the 4070 from the system?

@Can-Dive

>> I noted in Task manager that the Nividia 4070 is not being used; only the Intel UHD graphics chip.

Just a guess -- possible conflict between the Intel and Nvidia graphics? What happens if you remove the 4070 from the system?

Thank you for the suggestion @gjonny. I can not physically remove the GPU from the laptop but I can disable it in Device Manager. I conduced alternate tests disabling either the Intel graphics chip or the Nvidia 4070. No improvement to the lagging. Rather than disabling the graphics cards, you can also go into Win11's Graphic settings and select Music Maker and prioritise either card or let Windows decide. Unfortunately again no improvement when selecting and testing the different options.

But I have some good news; further testing today of AI music generation resulted in the system completing the song without crashing. Not sure why but at least that seems to have resolved itself. This is after testing Music Maker on an image backup with no Magix products installed to rule out any programming conflicts. This was not the issue so I reinstalled my latest image to bring the system back with all Magix products installed.

@gjonny I believe you are on the right track - I too believe it has something to do with the graphics system. Ironically, Music Maker runs smooth as soft butter on my 10 year old Thinkpad with a 2nd gen i7 CPU! I'll wait for Magix Support to respond but if you or other members have any more suggestions, I am happy to try them out.

@Can-Dive

Hi

. . . . It doesn't matter. It struggles with one track and a single drumbeat. Playback is laggy . . . .

Open Windows Task manager, Perfomance tab and monitor the CPU, Disk and GPU's acivities - are any of them being overloaded when Music maker is running and you try playing?

These are the Audio settings I use on my laptop, and the fans rarely ramp up to be heard when playing back compositions.

Are the drivers up to date - the current Intel driver is 31.0.101.5382, and the RTX driver 551.86 (31.0.15.5186)

@gjonny

. . . . What happens if you remove the 4070 from the system? . . . .

@Can-Dive is using a laptop.

Depending on the the make/model, there are 2 possible configurations of GPU usage when both are active:

• The Nvidia does all graphics processing with the iGPU driving the screen.
   
• The laptop can be set to a 'hybrid' mode where both GPUs can be used for graphics processing, this is how my Lenovo is set up using Lenovo Vantage. This was the decider for me, as I am mainly into video editing where both GPUs availability is a benefit. When I was looking for a new laptop, other manufacturers and suppliers, either would/could not provide any information or asked 'why do you want to do this'.

John EB

@johnebaker  @Can-Dive
>>@Can-Dive is using a laptop.
Ah, yes.  <slaps forehead>  Thanks for the info.  I didn't realize there were systems made with dual graphics units.  How can you tell I'm not much of a gamer?  :-)  

But it still sounds like some kind of graphics issue.  A GPU can be disabled in Device Manager, and technically I imagine this should be the same as disabling in the bios.  But is it?  What happens if you disable a GPU directly in the bios?

I'm out of my depth here, so I'll shut up now.

@gjonny

Hi

I know that moment too! 😂.

. . . . . But it still sounds like some kind of graphics issue. . . . .

That is my suspicion too.

. . . . A GPU can be disabled in Device Manager. . . .

Depending on the internal configuration of the GPU's ie are they in series or series/parallel, In theory if you disable the GPU diilvering what you see on the screen will not be available, in practice the GPU driving the screen should not be able to be disabled.

If the GPU doing graphics work for any CUDA based operations, video decoding, processing and encoding is disabled the laptop will effectively be 'crippled' and the CPU should taker over the work with the consequent slowdown.

John EB

@johnebaker @gjonny,

Sorry for the confusion guys. I updated my signature; the computer is a Lenovo Legion Slim 7 laptop. John good to see you have a similar computer and that Music Maker runs fine on it. I'm actually impressed that it runs smoothly on my old laptop! Anyway, I can think of two scenarios at this stage:

First, the actual hardware in my computer is broken. This might be a possibility but I have a number of video and audio editors on this computer and they all have a timeline and scrubber. Scrubbing through all the timelines are smooth in all editors except Music Maker.

Second, the hardware is so new that the developers have yet to tweak the software to make it run smoothly. One of the reasons why software gets updated is because of new hardware and this might be the case. It might be a tweak to the software itself or engagement with intel and/or Nvidia to produce a new driver. These get updated all the time. So in this case I just might have to wait for the update. Hopefully support will get back to me and provide some direction.

John here are my answers to your specific questions;

...Open Windows Task manager, Perfomance tab and monitor the CPU, Disk and GPU's acivities - are any of them being overloaded when Music maker is running and you try playing?...

No not really, which is a bit strange because you would think the GPU is running hot with the fans kicking in. In fact the Nvidia GPU doesn't even run unless I force Music Maker to use it in the Window's settings.

...These are the Audio settings I use on my laptop, and the fans rarely ramp up to be heard when playing back compositions...

Mine are basically the same. The only difference was Multitrack size and Preview size. I changed mine to match yours but no change in performance.

...Are the drivers up to date -...

Yes

@Can-Dive

Hi

. . . . password manager "Sticky Password" was the culprit . . . .

Thanks for the feedback, that Password Manager affecting MMM is a new one!

@Eleyan

Hi

Please do not hijack another users' topic which has nothing to do with the issue you are having. Your comment has been hidden.

Please create a new topic and give more details, including the recordings settings being used and your computer specification, Windows version and program version, see this topic for what is required, and please quote processor and graphics card make/model in full.

I would suggest you put this information in your profile signature so we do not have to keep asking for it.

John EB
Forum Moderator

@Can-Dive
Thanks for the update.  And thanks for the details of how you got to the workaround.  

>> I didn't need to even log into Sticky Password; just running in the background would cause the lagginess 
This begs the question:  what part does your password manager play in this conflict? If you haven't already, it would be good to let the Sticky Password devs know what you've found.

@gjonny I'm pretty sure it's all a problem with the text cursor. The password manager automatically may use the cursor to fill the text field for the account password. Same with clipboard managers (copy and paste text) or screen readers (reads texts). These types of programs were already known to slow Music Maker to a crawl. But I'm pretty sure it's not a problem caused by other apps but has probably something to do with software privileges in accessing the text cursor. That's why Music Maker often runs fine with admin privileges. I believe other programs can then no longer interfere with it because it runs on a higher security level.

@SP.

>> But I'm pretty sure it's not a problem caused by other apps 
The other apps make use of the problem Windows component (the Cursor in this case).  This issue may not show up for many/most users, but even so, I - as the developer - would want to know about it.  If nothing else, I could put a note in the Help file about known conflicts with other apps.

>> can then no longer interfere with it because it runs on a higher security level.
Yes, that makes sense.

Who would have thought that one little component could be so crippling for such a big app as Music Maker.    :-) 

John
 

This begs the question:  what part does your password manager play in this conflict?

@gjonny

This is a valid question, so let me provide some additional observations. Sticky Password does not cause any problems with any other program installed on my new laptop. I previously mentioned that on an old laptop running Win 10, Music Maker ran smoothly. This old laptop also had Sticky Password running in the background without any issue. Now if I enable the text curser ease of access setting on this old machine, Music Maker definitely becomes laggy. So this is a well established known issue as highlighted by @SP.

As for my brand new laptop running Win 11, and all ease of access disabled, it still may be related and/or its the same symptom to another problem. Regardless, I agree with @SP. there seems to be some "privilege/sharing conflict" on the Win 11 machine that is resolved by running Music Maker as Administrator. Not optimal, but an acceptable workaround until the developers can implement a permanent fix. Then again if my specific issue is related to Win 11 (because Music Maker and Sticky Password do co-exist on Win 10) a future Window's update may resolve the issue.

I will certainly continue to monitor this issue and let you know when its resolved on my computer. At this stage I am going to tag this as "solved" because there are workarounds suggested which will allow the efficient use of the software without any lagginess or crashes.

Thanks @johnebaker, @gjonny, @SP. for all your help and suggestions.

@gjonny, @Can-Dive

Hi

. . . . a note in the Help file about known conflicts with other apps . . . .

Apparently this is a known issue - i found this advice in Sticky passwords FAQ's.

John EB

@johnebaker

Hi John, early on in my investigation I too found the Sticky Password advice and added all executables related to Magix Music Maker to the ignore list but unfortunately it didn't help. I obviously forgot to mention it in my previous post. Here is the list of all the executables on the Sticky Password ignore list: