Topic: Live 9 not playing well when changing RME soundcard buffer size

Does anybody has this problem as well?

Ableton live 9 crashes and loses the ASIO driver everytime I change the size of the buffer samples of the soundcard, requiring a program restart.
Didn't happen with Live 8 w/ <3.32 drivers

2 (edited by Timur Born 2013-04-09 15:35:54)

Re: Live 9 not playing well when changing RME soundcard buffer size

I am on to this already with the Firewire based driver where the new (3.073) driver seems to fix it. Are you using Windows 8 or Windows 7? Because I could only reproduce this on Windows 8 yet.

Live does not seem to crash, but seems to just wait a very looooong time until it decides to go on. You may be able to turn off Live's audio engine (click the CPU meter) to make it react again, but it likely will not solve the problem once it occurs.

Will test with the HDSP(e) and report back.

Re: Live 9 not playing well when changing RME soundcard buffer size

i'm using windows 8 with AIO

Re: Live 9 not playing well when changing RME soundcard buffer size

The new HDSP Driver v3.35 is rumored to resolve this (released 04/08/13).  I also noticed this with Nuendo and HDSP driver 3.34...

cool

MADIface-XT+ARC / 3x HDSP MADI / ADI648
2x SSL Alphalink MADI AX
2x Multiface / 2x Digiface /2x ADI8

Re: Live 9 not playing well when changing RME soundcard buffer size

same behaviour with my system...

Re: Live 9 not playing well when changing RME soundcard buffer size

I can only reproduce issues with the combination of Windows 8 + Live 9 + Fireface driver v3.071 (solved in 3.073). Both the HDSPe Madiface and HDSPe Multiface don't show issues with driver version 3.35 (did not try older yet as this is a new Windows installation).

Some things for you to check:

- Make sure to use the "High Performance" Windows power-profile, not the default "Balanced" one.
- Try turning "Optimize Multi-client Mixing" on or off (HDSPe Settings -> About).
- Try turning Live's audio engine off (click on CPU load field) before switching buffer size.
- Make sure that no Fireface drivers are present in the system and you really updated to HDSPe driver v3.35 (HDSPe Settings -> About). Also make sure you updated to the latest firmware version.

Re: Live 9 not playing well when changing RME soundcard buffer size

Yes I confirm everything..except for the part that we shouldn't be needed to first turn live's audio engine off. I'll try that when I home later today

Re: Live 9 not playing well when changing RME soundcard buffer size

Ok, even just even turning the audio engine off and on again, causes an error message to appear: Failed to open the audio device "ASIO Hammerfall DSP" in my HDSPe AIO
only an Live restart grabs the ASIO driver again..

Re: Live 9 not playing well when changing RME soundcard buffer size

manasseh wrote:

Ok, even just even turning the audio engine off and on again, causes an error message to appear: Failed to open the audio device "ASIO Hammerfall DSP" in my HDSPe AIO
only an Live restart grabs the ASIO driver again..

And you have updated to HDSP v3.35 drivers that were released on 04/08 (two short days ago)?

cool

MADIface-XT+ARC / 3x HDSP MADI / ADI648
2x SSL Alphalink MADI AX
2x Multiface / 2x Digiface /2x ADI8

Re: Live 9 not playing well when changing RME soundcard buffer size

yes sir, right after they got out ;-)

Re: Live 9 not playing well when changing RME soundcard buffer size

Just to make sure, please check the Settings -> About tab to make sure the 3.35 were installed properly. Happened to me two days ago that I thought I had updated the Firewire drivers just to find out I did not (must have clicked something wrong at some point).

What's strange about your issues is that normally the RME drivers load even when no interface is connected and allow the interface to be turned off/on even while a DAW is loaded. Please try the following two things:

Delete/Rename Live's Preferences.cfg as it can get corrupted:

https://www.ableton.com/de/articles/corrupt-prefs/

When the error happens keep Live running, go to Windows' Device-Manager and try to disable the AIO. Does it ask you to restart or does it disable right away? Does Live recognize it when you re-enable it?

Do you use the AIO for Windows system sounds?

Re: Live 9 not playing well when changing RME soundcard buffer size

Hey, Yes it is 3.35 driver indeed.
So I did that procedure and windows asked to do a restart, it did not disable right away. So only by restarting live the issue is solved.
Yes I use AIO for system sounds and the onboard soundcard is disabled.
I would just like to have to old behaviour, never had a problem changing buffer size in realtime while music was playing....

Re: Live 9 not playing well when changing RME soundcard buffer size

Next thing I would try is to uninstall all RME drivers, including old versions. But if you know that the old driver worked and just want to go back, you can download them here:

https://archiv.rme-audio.de/download/hdsp_wdm_331.zip
https://archiv.rme-audio.de/download/hdsp_wdm_332.zip

14 (edited by manasseh 2013-04-13 14:11:37)

Re: Live 9 not playing well when changing RME soundcard buffer size

I tried that... I think its either Live9 ou windows 8
Thanks anyway!

Re: Live 9 not playing well when changing RME soundcard buffer size

Either way I'm not going back to those old drivers because the DSP mixer didn't retain some settings on windows 8 before 3.34 test driver (link faders were deselected everytime windows restarted)

Re: Live 9 not playing well when changing RME soundcard buffer size

Then try a full deinstallation. For that you need to:

1) Uninstall the RME driver via Windows' Programs and Feature. This will uninstall the current driver.
2) Restart. This will make Windows redetect the HDSPe and use an older version driver.
3) Open Windows' Device-Manager, right-click on the HDSPe and choose "Uninstall". When asked whether to remove the drivers from the system, choose "Yes". This will remove all old instances of drivers.
4) Restart.
5) Now the HDSPe will not be identified by Windows anymore, but listed as Multimedia interface in Device-Manager. Right-click and choose to update/install the drivers and point it directly to v3.35 drivers.

Your AIO uses the very same drivers as my HDSPe Multiface and HDSPe Madiface. Both of mine run without issues on (bootcamped) Windows 8 64 bit + Live 9 32 bit + RME driver v3.35 on a freshly installed Windows. Do you use the 32 or 64 bit version of Live?

Re: Live 9 not playing well when changing RME soundcard buffer size

will try that, Im using 32-bit version as well

Re: Live 9 not playing well when changing RME soundcard buffer size

Same behaviour ("failed to load ASIO Hamerfall device") after unistalling all the previous stored drivers, and reinstalling a fresh 3.35.
Update: This error only occurs with heavy projects, Live9 doesn't lose the driver in lighter CPU sets....

Re: Live 9 not playing well when changing RME soundcard buffer size

Could you make a demonstration project available, preferably only using Live's internal effects?!

One change of Live 9 vs. 8 is that you cannot manually control the plugin buffer size anymore, so any audio buffer change also makes the plugin buffers change, which may or may not contribute to the issue.

Did you try to delete/rename Live's Preferences.cfg yet?

Re: Live 9 not playing well when changing RME soundcard buffer size

they removed and adjusted it it so that it equals the buffer size to raise compatibility and avoid crackles in some audio plugs i guess.
My projects uses far too many non - native vst's unfortunetly... Yes Preferences.cfg has been erased.
One more thing I noticed, just by turning live's audio engine off, after having stop the project, makes ableton lose the audio driver

Re: Live 9 not playing well when changing RME soundcard buffer size

Solved it. It has to do with high memory usage of the project, if I use the 64-bit version or disable some RAM hugry vsti of the 32-bit it doesn't lose the driver anymore

Re: Live 9 not playing well when changing RME soundcard buffer size

Curious.

By the way, in older version plugins also used the same size as the audio buffer, but you could manually change it (and it had its definitive uses).

Re: Live 9 not playing well when changing RME soundcard buffer size

the 32-bit version usually crashes @ 3.3Gb of ram usage but it seems that with 2.7gb, just turning audio engine off and on or modifying the buffer size in rme window causes live to immediatly lose the asio driver. I think you can still change the plugin buffer size through editing options.txt, from what I remember in beta testing of live 9.

Re: Live 9 not playing well when changing RME soundcard buffer size

With the 64bit version it can go past 5gb usage and either changing those two (buffer size or audio engine) works perfectly