1 Topic by marionetti (edited by marionetti 2011-04-01 09:35:34)

  • Registered: 2009-05-07
  • Posts: 17

Topic: Crackling, should i buy more powerful computer?

Hello,

My current setup is HDSP9632, UAD-2, Win XP 32bit, Cubase 5, PC Core Quad 2.83Ghz, 4Gb RAM, GeForce 8800GT with screen resolution 2596x1960. Latest drivers.

Have set the HDSP ASIO buffer size to 256, which gives me latency somewhere around 6ms.

Working in Cubase (8 midi tracks using vstis) - quiet often i hear crackles (this occurs not only when i move some windows in Cubase, but also in some other cases which i cannot describe). At the same time - CPU load is less than 40-50% (no spikes), RAM usage under 1.5Gb and HDD is not being used excessively.
Of course - if i increase the latency to the highest possible - problem disappears, however i suspect that it should work in 6ms with no problems?

So not sure what to do with it? Would buying more powerful computer solve this problem and allow me to have 6ms latency?


Thanks,
Marionetti

2 Reply by MC

  • MC
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  • Registered: 2007-04-06
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Re: Crackling, should i buy more powerful computer?

You have to optimize your computer. Search this forum for DPC Latency, to start with.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

MC's Website

  • Registered: 2009-05-07
  • Posts: 17

Re: Crackling, should i buy more powerful computer?

Alright, thanks, will dig deeper into this.

  • Registered: 2007-05-02
  • Posts: 316

Re: Crackling, should i buy more powerful computer?

Also watch for programs with automated system tasks like defraggers, virus checkers, and diagnostics. Also on the bad list are any overclocking utilities that come with some motherboards and graphic driver settings that prioritize graphics above all else. Note that not everything will show up in DPC checker.

My latest glitch grief was caused by a SMART diagnostic utility which I installed to troubleshoot a problem with my drives, and then forgot to uninstall. For months, every few minutes or so I had a mysterious CPU overload in Nuendo along with an audio glitch/gap that just wouldn't go away. It turned out the be that utility scanning the disks every 3 minutes (the regularity of it eventually tipped me off). My DPC latency was firm under 190us so this problem didn't show up there. App gone,  silence returned... FYI!

PC1 = HDSPe PCIe: DF-ADI-8 DS / HDSPe PCIe: MF2
MBP = HDSPe Expresscard: MF1

5 Reply by MC

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Re: Crackling, should i buy more powerful computer?

The name of that app?

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

MC's Website

  • Registered: 2008-01-01
  • Posts: 3,025

Re: Crackling, should i buy more powerful computer?

Same applies to applications that read out temperatures and fan speeds, control screen brightness and volume and so on. These can cause drop-outs without DPC latencies showing anything wrong (should be monitored with XPerf for reliable information though).

  • Registered: 2009-05-07
  • Posts: 17

Re: Crackling, should i buy more powerful computer?

Well, tried to disable every single device in HW manager which can be disabled (except IDE ATAPI / CPU etc). Managed to get stable (no peaks) 450us however disabling devices didn't get me lower than that. No background programs running, no power savings, no nothing.

Is my 450us okay? Or any of you have the idea what else can i do to boost it?

Thanks.

  • Registered: 2007-05-02
  • Posts: 316

Re: Crackling, should i buy more powerful computer?

MC wrote:

The name of that app?

Active@ Hard Disk Monitor

PC1 = HDSPe PCIe: DF-ADI-8 DS / HDSPe PCIe: MF2
MBP = HDSPe Expresscard: MF1
  • Registered: 2007-05-02
  • Posts: 316

Re: Crackling, should i buy more powerful computer?

I'm running a Q6600 at 3.1 GHz and my DPC sits under 190us. 450us seems high your your system, though it is within the acceptable <500us range. What's your motherboard? I know some Gigabyte mobos had some DPC issues not long ago that got fixed with BIOS updates. You might want to update your BIOS and on-board and off-board hardware drivers.

I just remembered that one thing that really helped my DPC latency is using the more efficient onboard NIC exclusively. Many mobos come with 2 NICs: usually there's a recent chip that's more efficient and an older chip that requires more attention from the CPU (cost cutters...). I dropped my DPC latency a good 200us when I chose to use only the more efficient NIC chip and disabled the other. Try disabling all your network NICs in Device Manager and see what happens.

But as has been mentioned, even if your DPC latency is ok, your still not 100% immune from system interruptions that could cause glitching.

PC1 = HDSPe PCIe: DF-ADI-8 DS / HDSPe PCIe: MF2
MBP = HDSPe Expresscard: MF1

10 Reply by marionetti (edited by marionetti 2011-04-01 22:22:54)

  • Registered: 2009-05-07
  • Posts: 17

Re: Crackling, should i buy more powerful computer?

Yep, i am on Gigabyte. All drivers and bios updated of course (it was already so before i started this thread) smile

Just got through all the possible settings in bios, disabled all kinds of virtualization, turbo boosts, etc. etc.. and now i get 190us, which as i understand - is the best one can get!?

Thanks everybody for the help who contributed here.

  • Registered: 2007-05-02
  • Posts: 316

Re: Crackling, should i buy more powerful computer?

If it's constantly less than 190us, then you can rule DPC out. So is your glitching gone? On my system I can work at 6ms with the newest drivers, but 12ms leaves me a better margin for larger projects. Have you tried posting this issue on a UAD-2 forum? Maybe something is up with that?

In the end, if you have the money, for sure a faster more powerful multi-core system would be the easy fix for lower latency and more processing. But buying a good stable machine isn't always easy, so do your homework if you go that route! Otherwise, there's other solutions like rendering and  submixing, using a second computer, more efficient processing and softsynths, etc...

PC1 = HDSPe PCIe: DF-ADI-8 DS / HDSPe PCIe: MF2
MBP = HDSPe Expresscard: MF1

12 Reply by undertone (edited by undertone 2011-04-02 14:10:17)

  • Registered: 2007-05-02
  • Posts: 316

Re: Crackling, should i buy more powerful computer?

Relevant to this discussion, I was looking for this program which I had used before and I finally found it: Resplendence Software - LatencyMon. It's a lot more detailed than DPC Latency Checker and can help you pin down specific processes, programs and drivers causing DPC Latency, high ISR routine times, as well as hard page fault resolution times. Note that the when you first run it, LatencyMon itself may create a large high page fault resolution time, so just stop and restart it to reset the count. There's also a lot of info about how all these relate to audio problems on that website. Oh: and it's free :-)

PC1 = HDSPe PCIe: DF-ADI-8 DS / HDSPe PCIe: MF2
MBP = HDSPe Expresscard: MF1

13 Reply by MC

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Re: Crackling, should i buy more powerful computer?

On my machine Latency Mon causes nearly 50% CPU load when running. I did not notice this in the first version, not sure what happened, but that flaws the results. Also LM often misses a DPC peak that is heared and displayed in DPC L from Thesycon (which you can run in parallel - and that one causes nearly zero CPU load). IMHO these guys need to put some more efforts in that tool...

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

MC's Website

  • Registered: 2007-05-02
  • Posts: 316

Re: Crackling, should i buy more powerful computer?

You're right about LatencyMon's high CPU consumption. I hadn't noticed but on my Q6600 system it uses up to 25% CPU. But too bad it failed the DPC test, because it does report much more than DPC Latency checker does. At least the LatencyMon FAQ is informative...

PC1 = HDSPe PCIe: DF-ADI-8 DS / HDSPe PCIe: MF2
MBP = HDSPe Expresscard: MF1
  • Registered: 2008-01-01
  • Posts: 3,025

Re: Crackling, should i buy more powerful computer?

The only reliable DPC monitor likely remains to be Xperf.