Intro

I have occasionally been asked what I set on my system for recording / low DPC latencies. Since I had to reset my system, here are the system settings and LatencyMon results. You don't actually have to tweak that much if you have a good system with good drivers.

Looking back, I’ve been very satisfied with both Windows 7 and 10. In my opinion, the backup software Macrium Reflect Home (**) has significantly contributed to this long-term stability. I’ve never relied on uninstallation programs or system restore points. Instead, I’ve always restored a Macrium disk image from the last functional state to prevent too much clutter from building up in the Windows Registry—or elsewhere—over time.

(**) Hurry up, maybe you can get somewhere a license for v8.1 to avoid a subscription with the new version "X".
https://www.macrium.com/products/home

Rationale for new installation

Still, after many years, I eventually had to reinstall my system because there were some strange effects that inevitably crept in after years of software upgrades and installing more and more tools.

That said, I’m all the more pleased that after the reinstallation, that things improved (any issue fixed), including the DPC latency results from LatencyMon. Here’s a snapshot from a 5-minute period—striking a balance between not taking too much time for measurement, but still capturing occasional spikes.

LatencyMon

You can find detailed information about DPC latency on the LatencyMon website: https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon.

In short, LatencyMon can help identify problematic BIOS or Windows settings, as well as drivers that occupy CPU cores for too long and disrupt audio-related tasks. Systems with DPC latency spikes exceeding 1000 microseconds (1 ms) are generally deemed unsuitable for audio tasks requiring Near-Realtime performance.

That said, staying shortly below 1000 microseconds isn’t ideal—much lower values in the range between 10-~200 microseconds provide more headroom and allow you to use smaller buffer sizes without risking audio dropouts. Of course, there are limits: large, complex, CPU-intensive workloads may still require higher buffer sizes, if only as a precaution.

With a well-optimized system and high-quality drivers (ensuring low DPC latency), even artificial performance test projects can be played back without audio dropouts on an RME UFX III (which offers 192 channels), even at the lowest ASIO buffer size (32 samples @44.1 kHz), see this blog article: https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/Ent … cks-de-en/

It’s also possible—despite many doubting USB’s capability compared to Thunderbolt—to max out the CPU to 100% using the CPU-Z load test while playing music via a player like MusicBee at the lowest ASIO buffer size without any dropouts. See also this forum posting with some details about this: https://forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.ph … 92#p210092

The performance of a system for audio processing heavily depends on BIOS and system settings, as well as on the quality of the drivers and hardware used.

More screenshots / information in the blog article

A complete set of screenshots is available in my blog post, which admittedly is in dire need of an update but has nonetheless been a helpful reference over the years. It documents the hardware upgrades to my system over 10 years of operation. For you, it might offer an overview of the hardware (and associated drivers) that make it possible to build an excellent silent system with low DPC latencies—one that’s also fully gaming-capable, thanks to an RTX 4070.

As a teaser and a reference for what an "older yet capable" system can achieve in terms of low DPC latency, here are the LatencyMon results. The full details, along with additional images, can be found in the blog post:
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ent … 5-1680-v4/

At some point—in a perfect world—I might get around to revising that article. But as the saying goes, "slow and steady wins the race" or "all in good time." No need to rush it (and there are certainly more enjoyable things to do in life).

LatencyMon measuring results

The LatencyMon report in text form: https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/attachme … stall-txt/

LatencyMon settings: default settings with the more challenging "interrupt to user process latency" measuring.

System Information

Hardware

- Intel Xeon E5-1680 v4 (8c/16t); years ago ~€1750, got it used from eBay for ~€160
- Supermicro X10SRi-F Server mainboard (with IPMI management)
- ECC RAM upgrade to 64 GB
- MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ventus 3X E 12G OC, 12 GB GDDR6X (occupies only 2 PCIe slots, got one free for Intel X720 card
- Intel X720-DA2 (10 Gbit LAN, 2x SFP+)
- QNAP QXP-10G2U3A, 2x USB-A 3.1 (ASMedia ASM3142, PCIe 2.0 x2); to isolate UFX III, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE behind it
- added "pre-deployed" TPM chip to the system (as long as it is still available for this system; if needed)
- Storage: all Samsung SATA Disks

Backup:
- 1x internal 3x 870 QVO as RAID-0 (fast internal buffer storage instead of costly NAS, RAID-0 for speed)
- 2x external USB3 drives with Seagate Exos X X24 20TB, 24/7, 512e/4Kn, 7200 U/min (redundancy, outside system)

BIOS Settings

Disable energy saving in the BIOS to reduce DPC latency, here a few settings for my BIOS for Intel CPU
This is very CPU / mainboard dependent, here just as an example:
- Energy performance tuning : Enable
- EIST (P-States) : Enable (speed step, controlled by Windows)
- Turbo Mode : Enable (gives me +200 MHz more to CPU base-clock)
- P-state Coordination : HW_ALL
- Package C State Limit : C0/C1 state
- CPU C3 Report : Disable
- CPU C6 Report : Disable
- Enhanced Halt State (C1E) : Disable
- ACPI T-States : Disable
- Spread-Spectrum: Disable
- Not needed Hardware disabled: COM1, COM2
- Legacy Boot enabled (note: limits you to 2GB boot partition): no UEFI, Secure Boot disabled
  Personal preference: I dislike the additional complexity of UEFI and Secure Boot

Windows 10 Settings

- Disable Windows Fast Start (it is better that all drivers are initialized completely fresh)
- Optimize process scheduler to prioritize background services to get fix and longer time quantum for process scheduler
- Changed all energy profiles enhanced settings using Bitsums "Park Control" (free version)
   - Diashow: stopped
   - Selective USB-Energy saving: deactivated
   - PCIe energy management: off
- Energy Profile:
   - High Performance: disable CPU core parking by enabling all cores, maximum cpu clock
   - Balanced: 50% CPU core parking, CPU clock: so that cores run at a little lower speed instead of 3.6 -> 3.2 GHz
                      Note: if you have Hyperthreading, then only the hyperthread cores become deactivated
                      Note: if system load is high, all cores will be enabled finally, but needs some ramp-up time
   - Energy Saving: max amount of CPU core parking, the lowest CPU clock

Windows 10 / mainboard

Only install the needed drivers, deactivate devices in the BIOS that you do not need:
- Intel Chipset
- Intel Ethernet Driver package for i350 (on-board) and X720-DA2
- Intel VROC driver for BIOS (not Windows) RAID and Management Software (mainboard and storage specific)
- nVidia Studio Driver 566.36
- RME MADIface driver for UFX III (or what you need for your card …)

Windows 10 Enhancements

- 8GadgetPack v37 (use this slightly older version, the analog clock in v38 looks crappy)
- Add some of these very nice, not overloaded gadgets from https://orbmu2k.de/
  - Intel Core Series
  - GPU Observer
  - Network Traffic
  - Power Status
  - Indexer Status
  - MyPhoneExplorer (will be installed by MyPhoneExplorer v2.2, but you need to add this gadget manually the usual way)
- StartIsBack++ (currently v2.9.20, much better start-menu; for Win11 use StartAllBack++)
- O&O ShutUp10++ (there you can tame the system, also stop the apps running in the background etc)
- Check, that VBS is disabled (which sucks a lot of performance, esp. for older CPUs, why Microsoft blocks installation of Win11 on CPUs which are older than ~6 years)

Optional, Bitsum Process Lasso Pro

- Install Bitsums Process Lasso Pro as a service, getting control over all processes
- Check a few options, like:
     - SmartTrimIsEnabled=true
     - AutomaticGamingModeProcessPaths=reflectbin.exe,cubase14.exe
     - StartWithPowerPlan=Ausbalanciert
     - PowerSaver_IdleTime=15
     - EnergySaverEnabled=true
     - PowerSaver_TargetGUID=Energiesparmodus
- Achievements by this:
  - The system will start in "Balanced" mode
  - Energy profile is automatically changed depending on IDLE state and what applications you start
    - Energy saving: after 15s idle time (mouse + keyboard)
    - Bitsum Highest Performance for Games and applications (DAW, ...) which need performance mode
- Can also be used to pin applications to P-cores on big/little CPU designs

Recommended for Windows Update (Bad Patch avoidance)

- See what O&O Win10 Shutup offers and additionally
- Use Group Policy to delay quality updates by 30 days to not get bad patches by Microsoft.
  In 30 days everything should be fixed.
  As I have only the german version of Win10:
  Computerkonfiguration -> Windows-Einstellungen -> Administrative Vorlagen -> Windows-Komponenten -> Windows Update -> Windows Update für Unternehmen -> Beim Empfang von Qualitätsupdates auswählen:
     - activate and
     - set to 30 days

For Win 11

- Use StartAllBack (instead of StartIsBack++)
- Disable VBS
 
Backup Software

Only very brief description:
Prerequisite of my backup / recovery method is to have OS with Programs and user data on different SSDs.
By this I can restore a disk image at any time and only use a few information in user profile.
In fact I only backup/restore Firefox bookmarks before/after a restore.
User data are otherwise fully separated on the separate SSD.

- Macrium Reflect v8.1 for compressed disk images of the Operating System SSD
  Very fast backup and restore time
  Reduces the wear on SSD by restoring only changed blocks (Rapid Delta Restore Feature)
  Good backup profiles like combination of Full, Differential and incremental backup

- FreeFileSync v13.9 for mirroring of user data in "native" format
  Speed and very useful features like history of older versions with time stamp in a parallel path

Both can be automated to run automatically / unattended every day at 6am or at any time if you start the system later.

Additions

1. Possibly related to the use of nVidia Studio driver

1a) After the Windows 10 new installation, it was not necessary anymore to use the "powermizer" tool from a Russian developer to disable energy saving on nVidia GPUs. Powermizer resolved some problems with spontaneous occurring audio glitches every 10–20 minutes, which are not related to DPC spikes according to LatencyMon measuring.

1b) Currently, I am evaluating whether the nVidia Studio driver needs the setting to use "maximum power" or the default value "normal" can be used.

Evaluation result at 01/30/25: no powermizer needed.

Additions II

- Process Lasso Pro Pro Balance and Smart trim can help to prevent audio drops when other processes start using too many resources (Firefox browsing, network activity). I exclude the DAW process from Pro Balance.

- To reduce unnecessary checks (CPU cycles) it helps to disable Windows Automatic Playback (Bluetooth and other devices -> Automatic Playback -> Disable Switch). It was not really needed for me, but I decided to use this setting again, which I am using for years.

Some ideas for backup / recovery, data organization

https://forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.php?id=41026