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Answered: Z Brush Causing Audio Crackles Through Sound Card

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Z Brush is the only application I use that does this.

When I am working in Z with my Wacom tablet, moving a mesh around and performing other tasks will cause a loud crackle to distort whatever music I am listening to. It only happens momentarily, usually while tumbling a mesh.

I have a Tascam Fireone sound-card that is connected via firewire. And I use a Wacom connected via USB. Not sure how this is all connected, but it is getting really annoying. Music is a must have when I am creating, but having to listen to this crackle every few seconds is winding down on my nerves.

Anyone else having this problem? Anyone have a solution?

I am running Z4 on the latest version of OSX (it has happened on previous of Z as well)

#2

What it sounds like is when you ask ZBrush to do something particularly CPU intensive your processor can’t keep up with the demands of doing what ZBrush is asking for and playing music (another CPU intensive task) at the same time.

You may be able to resolve this by changing the CPU priority for your music app to be higher than ZBrush. This should instruct your computer so that when the CPU struggles, it will put more focus on keeping your music sounding good. (Which of course means that it will be ZBrush that stutters instead.)

While I can’t provide support for your OS I can point you to an article that explains how this is done: http://osxdaily.com/2011/02/21/adjust-a-mac-apps-cpu-priority-with-process-renicer/ Unfortunately, it’s a lot more complicated (as you can see!) on Mac than Windows.

Hope that helps!

#3

hmmmm. i’m on an 8 core mac pro with 24gigs of ram and a good video card. that’s unfortunate I can’t play music correctly and use zbrush at the same time.
I wonder why intense programs like photoshop and after effects do not cause the same problem to occur.