Graphics Cards

I just recently updated to an Asus GT730 2Gb fanless. Cubase 8 requires Aero to be turned on. If you try to disable it - as I used to - it won’t run. Whereas we used to disable it to improve overall performance, it is now required. A better video card will now take some work away from the CPU.

Any Direct X9 onwards video card will offload the GUI processing from the main CPU - as long as AERO is activated.

I’ve had the exact same issues. I thought it was going to be down to the graphics cards, but started to read reports of people upgrading and still having problems.

Since the latest update, I’m putting it down to Cubase. I can have Ableton open for an epic 24 hour Max/MSP session, where I"m actually rinsing the computer. No issues. Fire up the latest version of 8 with a single midi track and it doesn’t even stay open for 24 seconds without crashing. In the very rare instances where it does stay open the performance is woeful and won’t play back most of my projects. Open the same project in 7.5 (regardless of which version it was made on), and the performance is back to normal. I had no crashes in over 2 years on my machine (it’s offline and has about 4 bits of software on there), since I upgraded to 8 it’s been a nightmare. Unless Aero mode is inherently buggy, the only thing that’s changed is Cubase 8.

I use the card you mentioned dman2014 (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti) and it works perfectly driving two monitors. It has a pair of fans for the gamers but I’m not sure they fire up when running Cubase, I never hear them. This card will drive four monitors according to the spec.

What graphics cards have to do with Cubase ?!

We’re not talking about video editing or 3D program here.

Any decent video card powerful enough to display properly your resolutions, with the number of outputs you need for your monitors, and preferably quiet, will do the job.

If you encounter problems with a graphics card, it cannot be only with Cubase, but with the whole OS and/or the rest of your hardware.

I currently use a GeForce 520. It is rubbish. The blank Win 8.1 desktop has moving pixels and when listening to audio, there are Mechanical noises that can be heard when moving the mouse etc. It’s rubbish because it cost me £20, 3 yrs ago! :wink:

I asked a very similar question a little while ago and about the same card as you’re asking about…

I have decided to just spend a little bit more and get a GTX960. I think the price difference at the minute (in the UK) between the GTX 750 Ti and GTX960 is about £50 - £60.

I decided on this because it allows 4 x Monitors at 4k of which although I am not interested in getting 4 x 4k Monitors at the moment, perhaps I will in the future. And if I don’t, I am definitely planning on using Slave PCs for Sample Libraries and VIs so the card will not be wasted. I certainly am going to have 3 x 2.5k Monitors (and a 50 inch TV for Video).

Oh, another thing about the GTX960. The fan only turns on when you put the card under stress which means the fan is irrelevant whilst using Cubase. It shouldn’t ever turn on. Guess it depends how much money you want to spend? I tend to find that you get what you pay for with things like this.

Just to weigh in on the side that you don’t need to have the latest and greatest graphics card to use Cubase8:
I’m using an ATI Radeon 3800 series graphics adapter with 2 DVI-D ports going to 2 Samsung 21" LCD monitors at 1680x1050 res. The card has to be a good 5-6 years old and giving me no problems w/Cubase 8 on Windows7 Pro 64-bit.

Why am I having so many problems with Cubase?

I’ve installed the Asus GTX750TI graphics card and it works perfectly with Cubase 8 Pro. It has 2 DVI outputs, 1 analog output and HDMI so can support up to 4 monitors although I’m only using one at the moment. I previously had an ATI Radeon 5770 card and was getting some blue screen crashes but the new card has solved that problem.

I also had an issue with Windows Update KB2670838 which prevented Aero from working and then Cubase 8 would not start up, but having uninstalled the update, everything now works fine.

6450 here and worked from 6 up. Before that I had the 4c Radeon series. It worked too.

My computer has not had any updates since the day i built it . 2 years ago . Im running 3 x 22" monitors on a Radion HD7790 and i have no issues . Im an old believer that if your system is running correctly then DO NOT install the windows updates .
And by this method i have not had any issues :wink:

I’m using the GTX 750 on my new DAW I built (using Cubase 8 Pro as well).

No problems at all until I had to work with video, which then caused enormous hanging. I eventually got it all ironed out but not without a whole bunch of pain. I guess that’s to be expected when you build your own PC. Is it Win7 64-bit issues? Driver issues? That’s what I focused the first few days of troubleshooting on.

I finally focused on memory, which was the issue. I thought 8 gigs of 1600 would be enough but when you start trying to shuttle through HD video…it just wasn’t. I took my old 1333 sticks and added them to a total 14 gigs and then it started running fine.

So basically your need for GPU bandwidth is miniscule if you’re not working with video. I found the GTX 750 with 14 gigs of RAM to be the minimum spec for working with HD files.

I chose the 750 for bang-for-buck factor. For the money you simply get the best card. At least that was the case 45 days ago. Things change fast though:)

Assuming you’re a Windows user, have you got Aero enabled? If not system resources are used for video buffering, by enabling aero the graphics card will have direct memory access without interrupting windows or the CPU.

While I agree you don’t need a hugely powerful graphics card to run a DAW like Cubase it is not necessarily the best idea to use an underperforming chip.

Certain plugins like Waves use graphical APIs like OpenGL to render their GUIs and have sometimes performed poorly on some graphics chips. I think the main consideration is how compatible the drivers are.

There are some cards that are a nice compromise, have a reasonable amount of rendering power and are still fan less so silent.

So dman2014 did you find a good graphic card ? I got NVidia Geforce 210. And the NVidia driver and the directx driver is creating crackles in Cubase 8 so I´m interessted in a silent (no fan) and problem free graphic card.

I think it is wise to see what directX level needs to be supported by your GPU, from what I know it is at DX level 12 already.

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/dx12/supported-gpus

If I recall it right DX 8 and below are software handeld and from DX11 I know it is supposed to be supported by hardware instead of software, so in these cases there is real offloading to hardware otherwise it’s handled by software which interrupts the system more.

I’ve the GeForce GTX 750 ti as the passive cooled variante (http://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/2048MB-Palit-GeForce-GTX-750-Ti-KalmX-Passiv-PCIe-3-0-x16--Retail-_969692.html) and it works perfect with my two 24" Full HD Monitors, connected via HDMI

I bought the GTX960 for my Audio PC. It has big fans. The fans only turn on when under stress. Since installing the 960 the fans have NEVER turned on. It’s a silent card when only using it for audio production. A great card. Although perhaps overkill, it allows for 4 x 4k displays so it’s very future proof.

I suggest you to go with Geforce GTX 1050 Ti as it is a pretty powerful graphics cards and is quite affordable too. You can check all the best models of GTX 1050 Ti at Best GTX 1050 Ti Graphics Card for 1080p Gaming

back in the windows XP days I found that I had much much faster GUI performance when I used a GFX card with a 256bit memory bus instead of a 128bit or a dreadful 64bit, something else that made a big change: automatic down-clocking, I had to disable it for my GPU processor, then it went smooth. basically you still need to do this today with the CPU, not sure about GPU.

I moved to macs since and kind of regret it, I have no chance to tune the system to optimal performance and have sloppy GUI with many apps. but it is more stable overall and less dropouts…

so I think if you get a gamer card and do watercooling, you are on the safe side, also make sure the card does not down-clock (to save power), or you might get hiccups of some sorts. I would go for a card with a 512bit memory interface.

why I know all this? I suffered a lot and hemorrhaged lots money for my tests back then.