1 Topic by jacdejardin (edited by jacdejardin 2026-01-30 20:40:45)

  • Registered: 2026-01-30
  • Posts: 6

Topic: All the meters in every DAW works choppy with mounted RME

Hello,

I bought a few months ago my first (used) RME. It's HDSP 9632 PCI. Installation was very easy and card works OK but there's a big (weird) problem.
In every DAW the meters (peak/rms) works choppy - not fluently. As if some frames was lost/dropped. I tried to change the latency (buffer size) but it not helped. VST meters and visualizers also behave as if there were some frame drops.
The strangest thing is what happens when changing the device to another one. In Samplitude or WaveLab e.g. choosing a on board sound card makes no difference - still choppy.
The same in Foobar - no matter which sound device is chosen the VST visualisation is not working properly - still no smoothness.
Deactivating the on board sound card in BIOS makes no difference.

So I uninstalled the card and pulled it away from the PCI slot. With no RME PCI card inside, every meter and every VST moves smooth as it should. Movement is beautifully fluid with no drops/chops.

Before buying RME I used Juli@ card and all the audio editors were working great with NO issues as described above.

So what the hell is going on - did I bought a broken card?

-----------
Latest Windows 11.
Radeon RX 580 - three displays connected
RME driver - driver_hdsp_win_461

  • From: Germany
  • Registered: 2007-04-10
  • Posts: 10,961

Re: All the meters in every DAW works choppy with mounted RME

More details about the setup, please, what kind of PC is this?

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

RME Support's Website

  • Registered: 2026-01-30
  • Posts: 6

Re: All the meters in every DAW works choppy with mounted RME

RME Support wrote:

More details about the setup, please, what kind of PC is this?

Windows 11 Pro / 25H2 / 64 bit - all updates.
Radeon RX 580 - latest official drivers
Direct 3D - 12.0

  • From: Germany
  • Registered: 2007-04-10
  • Posts: 10,961

Re: All the meters in every DAW works choppy with mounted RME

Is there only one PCI slot? What kind of board is this?

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

RME Support's Website

5 Reply by jacdejardin (edited by jacdejardin 2026-01-30 20:55:54)

  • Registered: 2026-01-30
  • Posts: 6

Re: All the meters in every DAW works choppy with mounted RME

RME Support wrote:

Is there only one PCI slot? What kind of board is this?

There are two PCI slots but my GPU card is quite big so I can only use one slot. I installed the GPU card in a different slot (slower one) and change RME to another PCI slot - no change, still choppy.

Mainboard is quite old but works perfectly - Gigabyte GA-B150M-D3H DDR3 - 24 GB Ram

  • Registered: 2026-01-30
  • Posts: 6

Re: All the meters in every DAW works choppy with mounted RME

I must admit that I also installed DigiCheck NG and that meter works perfectly smooth

  • From: Germany
  • Registered: 2007-04-10
  • Posts: 10,961

Re: All the meters in every DAW works choppy with mounted RME

No issues with playback or recording using the 9632?

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

RME Support's Website

  • Registered: 2026-01-30
  • Posts: 6

Re: All the meters in every DAW works choppy with mounted RME

RME Support wrote:

No issues with playback or recording using the 9632?

Playback seems to be fine - no dropout or stuttering. I don't record anything. I use it only as a playback device and all the sound is always running via ASIO - digital out to my external converters.
Transmission is bit perfect - AC3 or DTS signals are correctly recognized by external decoders.
Even though the signal is bit perfect, it is different than when using the Juli@ card - it seems more saturated.

9 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2026-01-31 02:10:25)

  • ramses
  • ramses
  • DAW Mastermind
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  • Registered: 2012-10-14
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Re: All the meters in every DAW works choppy with mounted RME

I only want to mention, that there are some differences between the mentioned ESI card and the 9632:
The ESI Juli@ card is an 8-channel card (4 in, 4 out), the 9632 is a 32-channel card.

The setup is nonstandard; the mainboard is from 2015 and is thus not Windows 11 compatible.
You didn't mention which CPU you are using, but the same most likely applies to the CPU.
Therefore, the Windows 11 installation must have been performed with a tweaking tool like Rufus.
Windows 11 got many changes and had and still has many issues.

Is perhaps VBS (virtualization-based security) still enabled? This could have a massive impact on performance, as such an older CPU (which one do you have?) won't have support for virtualization, and this costs a lot of performance if VBS is active. The key reason why Microsoft blocked the Windows 11 installation for older CPUs.

Do you have a 2nd disk to be able to make a Windows 10 22H2 parallel installation to check whether it works there? You could also make a disk image with, e.g., Macrium Reflect Home and perform a Windows 10 test installation to exclude Win11 issues and later restore the Win11 installation.

BR Ramses - HDSPe MADI FX, M-1620 Pro D, 12Mic, UFX III, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, Nuendo 15, Win10 IoT Ent

10 Reply by vinark (edited by vinark 2026-01-31 10:58:28)

  • vinark
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Re: All the meters in every DAW works choppy with mounted RME

This board is 6\7th gen cpu. I am running 2nd gen, but on win10 indeed. To me it sounds more like a graphics card issue, since audio is working fine. Are AMD Radeon drivers installed or Microsoft ones? There is no harm in going to AMD drivers and installing the latest driver for your 580.

Vincent, Amsterdam
https://soundcloud.com/thesecretworld
BFpro fs, 2X HDSP9652 ADI-8AE, 2X HDSP9632
  • Registered: 2026-01-30
  • Posts: 6

Re: All the meters in every DAW works choppy with mounted RME

Thank you for all the advice and interest in the topic.
I spent the whole day trying to solve the problem and finally looked at the manual. There is mentioned about a blue jumper on a PCI card. Unfortunately on my card there was no jumper. I found one in my spare computer parts and mounted it on a card.
After driver installation everything works great now.
So the problem is solved - all the meters in every audio editor move smooth, just like it should be.

  • ramses
  • ramses
  • DAW Mastermind
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Re: All the meters in every DAW works choppy with mounted RME

jacdejardin wrote:

Thank you for all the advice and interest in the topic.
I spent the whole day trying to solve the problem and finally looked at the manual. There is mentioned about a blue jumper on a PCI card. Unfortunately on my card there was no jumper. I found one in my spare computer parts and mounted it on a card.
After driver installation everything works great now.
So the problem is solved - all the meters in every audio editor move smooth, just like it should be.

From manual:
Blue Jumper
This is no internal input or output. The blue jumper allows to change the card's power-on delay when booting the computer.
Factory default is jumper in place. The FPGA of the HDSP 9632 will then be booted about 0.5 seconds after switching on the computer. This provides an effective way to get rid of problems caused by unstable power supplies in the moment of power-on.
In case this delay will become a problem some day (very unlikely, and no system known so far), the jumper can be pulled.
The delay is then reduced to 30 ms.

BR Ramses - HDSPe MADI FX, M-1620 Pro D, 12Mic, UFX III, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, Nuendo 15, Win10 IoT Ent
  • vinark
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Re: All the meters in every DAW works choppy with mounted RME

Well done!

Vincent, Amsterdam
https://soundcloud.com/thesecretworld
BFpro fs, 2X HDSP9652 ADI-8AE, 2X HDSP9632