mmorgan
My understanding on the NI stuff is it is not capable of running on anything other than the first core.
 
Regards,

Officially this is not entirely true, since Kontakt gives you the option of how many cores to use. However, I've never seen any difference in changing this setting, so......

sharke, it seems to be an open debate. I've seen threads on NIs site that say NI doesn't but one has to consider the context also (i.e. Machine, Kontakt, Reaktor etc). I honestly don't know but I keep coming across the problem. I like the drum series in Kontakt but have similar issues to what you've been experiencing.
 
Regards,

gswitz
Does anyone overclock? Does it help?
 
I have made no adjustments for Sonar's priority in Windows. When mixing, I often have a web browser open for browsing while I bounce tracks. Otherwise, there isn't much competing with Sonar.

I will be overclocking. The parts are currently on order, but I'll post an update after I've benchmarked my build. i7-4770K, 32GB RAM, Win 8-64.

For the benchmark's sake, I want to see how high it will go, but for daily use I'll probably cap it around 4.2-4.3 GHz for longevity. Maybe ramp it back up for kicks & giggles if/when the need arises.

mmorgan
My understanding on the NI stuff is it is not capable of running on anything other than the first core.

NI added support for multiple cores/CPUs in Kontakt 3, IIRC. However, they've always recommend running it on one core, as the multithreading introduces its own overhead so even though each core's working less individually, in total they're working harder. It also interferes with the host's ability to do its own load balancing. None of this applies when running Kontakt in standalone mode, though.
 

bitflipper

mmorgan
My understanding on the NI stuff is it is not capable of running on anything other than the first core.

NI added support for multiple cores/CPUs in Kontakt 3, IIRC. However, they've always recommend running it on one core, as the multithreading introduces its own overhead so even though each core's working less individually, in total they're working harder. It also interferes with the host's ability to do its own load balancing. None of this applies when running Kontakt in standalone mode, though.
 

Trouble with this is, I don't notice a blind bit of difference in running Kontakt on one core or all six. I've changed the setting and restarted the host like it asks, but whether it's set to one core or six I still see the first core spiking into the red by the same amount. I wouldn't mind if the overall load was more when spread across 6 cores, because I have a hell of a lot of headroom left on the other cores (which never seem to exceed 20-30% even on my heaviest projects). I'd happily see them all work a little harder if it meant an end to the pops and clicks which result from one core spiking. 

Are you sure that one core's usage is due entirely to Kontakt? Try it in standalone mode, to eliminate SONAR's use of the first core from the picture.

bitflipper
Are you sure that one core's usage is due entirely to Kontakt? Try it in standalone mode, to eliminate SONAR's use of the first core from the picture.

I guess I'm not being specific enough, because I totally neglected to mention that I don't have a problem with Kontakt in general - specifically, it's NI's Drummer series of Kontakt libraries. Using the onboard effects spikes that first core through the roof. If I turn all the effects off, I get no spiking. The mixer uses effects that I also have as separate fx either in the form of VST's or within Guitar Rig, and if I route the drums to separate audio and put those exact same effects on every track, I don't get spiking. So something about using those effects within Kontakt makes the first core spike. It's a well documented problem on the NI forums. 

Xeon 2.9 8C; 36GB Ram; Projects using 8-20 tracks. First core runs mostly around 5% with sometimes a 15-20% peak, the other cores around half of that. The exception is when I use certain samples in Alchemy that push the first core to 30-35% peaks.