1 Topic by orbiterred (edited by orbiterred 2018-12-24 02:14:03)

  • Registered: 2016-10-13
  • Posts: 12

Topic: BF Pro Crackles and Pops

REAPER DAW

23 instances of CONOLE 1 VST3

Superior Drummer

10 NadIR impulse response plugins (tracking guitar and bass)

2 Soundtoys Echo Boys (Sends)

1 Little Plate (Send)

128ms Buffer Size 24/48k

BF Pro crackling away.

I was under the impression that my computer was the bottle neck so I upgraded to a new i7... it's not breaking a sweat... about 20% CPU usage on play back and 40% ram usage.

Am I just hitting the limit of the BF Pro at 128ms buffer size? I really was thinking it would handle quite a few more plugs.

  • Registered: 2016-10-13
  • Posts: 12

Re: BF Pro Crackles and Pops

no thoughts on this?

it doesn't seem like an outlandish plugin count to me?

I guess another question would be... upgrading to a bigger RME interface, would it run more plugs at 128ms than the BF Pro?

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

Re: BF Pro Crackles and Pops

Likely still your PC being the culprit.

- Try LatencyMon to get a better picture: https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

- - Try to create *more* CPU load, then try to disable C7-C10 C-states in BIOS, maybe even C3.

- Try disabling LAN/WIFI devices via Windows' device-manager.

- Make sure to use a native Intel USB port, not one running via a hub (even internal), aka try all USB ports on the PC.

- Make sure to use the "High Performance" power profile.

  • Registered: 2018-11-28
  • Posts: 40

Re: BF Pro Crackles and Pops

for serious audio work in windows you really need to be in high performance mode, balanced modes will downclock your cpu to save energy and as you know high clock speeds are a must in audio applications.

  • ramses
  • DAW Mastermind
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  • Registered: 2012-10-14
  • Posts: 13,179

Re: BF Pro Crackles and Pops

orbiterred wrote:

I guess another question would be... upgrading to a bigger RME interface, would it run more plugs at 128ms than the BF Pro?

The plugins run on your PC's CPU. Your PC is currently not capable to transport audio in time.
Changing the interface does not solve the root cause.

Now you have a BBFP with only 12 I/O. If your PC with it's current settings is unable to transport 12 audio channels, then it won't become any better, if you would take i.e. an UFX II with 30 i/o channels.

You could eventually have a little bit more luck with an PCIe based interface because PCIe has a little bit less CPU overhead. But I do not think that there will be much difference. It's more likely that also with PCIe you will have issues, because something with your PC is wrong. There is not enough headroom for your CPU to be able to deal with audio in time.

The forum colleagues already gave you some good tips into the right direction.

BIOS energy saving settings can cause a severe lag which brings audio to fail. These are the 250-500 us which are missing to process audio packets in time.

Another thing is that Windows has CPU core parking enabled. This also generates some form of delay.
Additionally I recommend you to disable CPU core parking if you have a Desktop PC.
On a laptop I am nor sure whether it's a good idea because I fear the Laptop could get thermal issues.

Another thing to look for is whether you have thermal issues and the CPU starts to enter lower clock.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14
  • Registered: 2008-01-01
  • Posts: 3,025

Re: BF Pro Crackles and Pops

Frankly, the last version where I saw Core Parking enabled by default was Windows 7, and that always parked hyperthreaded cores when those where available.

What it generally does it do schedule work away from some CPU cores in order to allow them going to sleep (C3 and deeper). It does not send cores to sleep on its own, but just shifts load around. This helps to achieve higher CPU clocks on the remaining cores (because modern CPUs clock higher when less cores are active), but since those higher clocked cores do more work it usually doesn't improve performance.

For thermals it can even be detrimental, because on Windows 10 it always seems to park the higher core numbers first while keeping the lower cores busy. This leads to thermal peaks in the always active cores, because load is not shifted around to cooler cores. On my desktop PC (i9 9900k) this results in more fan noise, because the package temp calculated is higher due to higher single core temps. All rather complex...

  • ramses
  • DAW Mastermind
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  • Registered: 2012-10-14
  • Posts: 13,179

Re: BF Pro Crackles and Pops

Timur Born wrote:

Frankly, the last version where I saw Core Parking enabled by default was Windows 7, and that always parked hyperthreaded cores when those where available.

OS version was not mentioned.

Win7 is still reality for me and from my test system it was not so clear to me that in Win10 it is disabled.

In regards to the distribution of load across the cores .. yes I noticed this already as well and really wondered,
why they did it. IMHO it would be a bigger advantage to load 1st the main thread of each CPU and then the hyperthreads.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14
  • apc83
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  • Registered: 2018-10-25
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Re: BF Pro Crackles and Pops

je suis su Windows 10 1809 et intel i7 8700k .une seule instance de plug in  vst .pop craquement audio .ralentissement audio avec ableton live 10.0.5