• Registered: 2013-01-04
  • Posts: 34

Topic: USB vs PCI (latency)

My ESI Juli@ have considerable less latency than my RME Babyface no matter what interface i run, be it Ableton or Cubase. Why is that?

It feels like i threw my money away for the Babyface. It's alot newer but feels alot slower than my PCI-card.

All this graphical advanced interface doesn't do a dime for me and i throught RME was renown for their quality.

2 Reply by MC

  • MC
  • MC
  • Administrator
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  • From: Germany/Thailand
  • Registered: 2007-04-06
  • Posts: 24,913

Re: USB vs PCI (latency)

You can not compare PCI with USB. And from your other post it is clear that your computer has a problem with USB audio. BTW, are you sure you used a USB 2 port? Some users saw issues when plugged into a USB 3 port.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

MC's Website

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

Re: USB vs PCI (latency)

Considering the lack of information in your post we have to assume that you do not know how to properly set up everything. What audio buffer sizes are you using? What computer system are you using (especially USB chipset)? What Windows power-profile are you using? Did you check DPC latencies yet?

And last, but not least: Yes, a PCI card may offer lower latencies than an USB interface. Nothing special about that. You should choose your interface based on what features you need, not on a single number. If you don't need the features of the Babyface vs. the ESI Juli then it's better to stick with the Juli and save the money for other things.

  • From: Germany
  • Registered: 2007-04-10
  • Posts: 9,565

Re: USB vs PCI (latency)

I think the most important question is what latency setting have you applied for zhe BF. Latency is not a fixed figure like a car's HP or so. Only if you find that at similar latency settings for both devices, you will get crackling/dropouts earlier with the BF running, then you should look at potential performance issues on the system. Else, what Timur said... :-)

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

RME Support's Website

5 Reply by christianh (edited by christianh 2013-01-06 14:21:33)

  • Registered: 2013-01-04
  • Posts: 34

Re: USB vs PCI (latency)

RME Support wrote:

I think the most important question is what latency setting have you applied for zhe BF. Latency is not a fixed figure like a car's HP or so. Only if you find that at similar latency settings for both devices, you will get crackling/dropouts earlier with the BF running, then you should look at potential performance issues on the system. Else, what Timur said... :-)

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Hello!

Currently i have 48. I think the default was 1024. But just for playback i am using 48. I am also using 48 for my pci-card just for comparison. But true just because they are the same buffer size doesn't mean they have the same latency. However having 2048 on the bF doesn't do any difference, not playback wise. It's not cracklings or dropouts of any kind, there's a few ms delay everytime i start the track or resume it's position in any part of the track when pressing play. And it doesn't matter what type of encoding of the track it is, whether it be mp3 or 24-bits 192 kHz. DPC-checker show im usually well below 150us, ranging from 60 to 150us at most.

In Ableton it seems to be workign okay using ASIO. There's no difference between the ESI card and the BF but as i described above using ASIO in foobar2000 for playback isn't particular well with the BF. Using Directsound with the BF is no problem though, no latency problems there.

Thanks!