A control system for a plastics processing machine with at least one central processing unit with a real-time operating system is described. The central processing unit is connected to a plurality of actuators and/or sensors via a bus system, with at least one actuator and/or sensor directed to a rapidly fluctuating variable with a high-resolution. The first central processing unit can be released of overly burdensome control and communication tasks by using a first pre-processing unit which performs signal pre-processing for several sensors and/or actuators and by using a second pre-processing unit, which relieves the central processing unit directly of the bus communication.