building a new home for my Pulsar II

[Stevil]

had some booting issues this week. lots of overclocking options in the BIOS with this mobo & the apparently the OS doesn't like them. (or at least the ones i'm meddling with) i kicked it back to dummy settings & all is well again. I chipped in for my NI Komplete 9 update, looking forward to trying out some of the software that ground my old system to a halt.

i also had some signal routing epiphanies & will be throwing some scope mixers in between ADAT sources & ASIO destinations. so the STM 48 S above will be the monitoring mixer & smaller sub mixers will be dedicated to each outboard or software instrument subgroup (guit, bass, synth, drums, ect) on their way to ASIO & Reaper.

[Stevil]

got Komplete 9 up & running. it brought lots of snap crackle & pop to the table. everything was running really smooth on low latency. now i've got it bumped up to 25ms which reduces the glitching but doesn't make it go away. ugh.

[garyb]

that's just your cpu crying.

you're going to need to freeze parts or record them to audio.

[Stevil]

CPU quad cores don't look too taxed in the task manager.

i'm plowing thru the NI Win 7 tips. tried disabling network, dvdrom, usb, ect.
http://www.native-instruments.com/knowl ... Processing

DPC latency checker is all green.
LatencyMon shows NVIDIA & DirectX as the biggest DPC & ISR offenders.



guess i'll check the BIOS for a CPU throttling setting.

[Stevil]

hmm, looks like the C: drive is getting spanked as well.

[garyb]

cpu throttling should already be off!

a vsti like that one is going to be a pig in any case.

you can't trust a cpu meter. a click is a missing chunk of data. in any case, the system is not fast enough to process all the required data in the time allowed. you can shut off unnecessary processes, but you shouldn't need to resort to anything drastic. if you do need to really root around in order to make it work, it'd be better to just accept the system's limitations.

are your samples on a their own harddrive? putting them on their own ssd might help a lot.

is it the fx that are really eating resources?

*edit* i see the comment about the c drive. you can't run heavy sample libraries off the c drive, really. you should have a seperate drive for samples and another for recording audio to.

[Stevil]

CPU throttle probably is off but i've tweaked so many settings over the last few weeks i cant recall which way is up anymore.

i keep separate "OS/Program" & "Data" drives. NI "sample libraries" are on the Data drive.

So is that new 5ghz AMD the only thing that will run NI?

I'm not big on their FX, i usually use outboard or scope. I use their Komplete 4 soft synths & hammond emulator on my old 1.9 ghz duo core laptop & it runs fine.
This system is significantly more powerful so i figured it could handle a Glass Harmonica emulator & maybe a piano if i was lucky, though i know the pianos are multi-sampled resource hogs.

SYSTEM INFORMATION
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
OS version: Windows 7 Service Pack 1, 6.1, build: 7601 (x64)
Hardware: UD3R-SLI, Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
CPU: GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 920 @ 2.67GHz
Logical processors: 8
Processor groups: 1
RAM: 12286 MB total
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU SPEED
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Reported CPU speed: 2664.0 MHz
Measured CPU speed: 3117.0 MHz (approx.)

[Stevil]

you should have a seperate drive for samples and another for recording audio to.

i have a third drive i've been using for my "jukebox" mp3 library i jam along to, looks like there's enough space there to house the sample library. maybe migrating NI samples there will help.

[Stevil]

Apparently there is a latency control bar on mac that is not available on windoze.
i think this would fix the problem as it appears NI software likes a 512 buffer. which is where my Laptop - Novation Xstation is set.

http://brainwashaudio.com/images/Kontak ... atency.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5YdBnRuGuY

[Stevil]

i just rendered a relatively glitch free file from Reaper with the NI VST's running piano & glass harmonica. i set resample mode to "best" & sample rate to 'full speed offline". gonna try loading Kontakt on my soft synth laptop & see i it plays real time glitch free from there.

it looks like Scopes ULLI settings being really low (which is a good thing) works against NI's mandatory buffer minimums. they should really build the latency controls they have on the mac into their pc software.

[garyb]

the latency bar on the Mac is the same as the ULLI setting in Scope.

yes, i would think that your machine should be able to handle that load.

the most important bios changes are in tips and tricks...

[Stevil]

the difference being the mac NI latency control is NI specific & has greater latency "bandwith" options.
ULLI is global & i like it where it's at for all other non NI purposes.

I'l go back & revisit the tips & tricks. I had them all set but could have missed something when i reset changes after last weeks boot failures.

I'm currently trying to skirt around the issue by routing NI to the onboard soundcard & then send it's SPDIF out to Scope. I'm getting 448sample latency which still crackles & there appears to be no latency control thru WASAPI driver. ASIO4all shows latency control for the on board audio device but crashes NI. I'm guessing Scope ASIO & ASIO4All conflict.

Also tried the laptop but current NI software is incompatible with XP.

the beatings will continue until morale improves.

[Stevil]

found a couple BIOS switches i missed & switched em off.
C1E
Virtualization Tech

S|C recommends disabling "Execute Bit Support". mine says "No-Execute Bit Support" so by deactivating the double negative, am i activating?
http://forums.planetz.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&p=272883

the glitches seem more frequent now.

[garyb]

no, the Mac latency control isn't more inclusive or offer more bandwidth control. latency is latency. there's no magic in the NI latency control.

the difference is that a standard soundcard can be controlled in the software app and a Scope card can't. the end result is the same.

you live fairly close to me. i'm happy to look at your computer if you wanna arrange it.

[Stevil]

moved my Novation Xstation from the laptop to the PC & set the buffer length to 512 samples. no glitches from NI.
looks like i can run it in tandem with Reaper/Scope.

[Stevil]

no, the Mac latency control isn't more inclusive or offer more bandwidth control. latency is latency. there's no magic in the NI latency control.

the difference is that a standard soundcard can be controlled in the software app and a Scope card can't. the end result is the same.

looks like it. dropped Xstation latency to 1ms & still no glitches.

[garyb]

then it's something else eating resources....

it could even be related to the problems you had with the video driver...

[Stevil]

spent all day disabling services & futzing about with settings in the OS, Scope & Reaper. still getting glitches in my recordings. Reaper seems to be the most sensitive. most everything else runs fine @ low latency live. IRQ16 & 17 are looking a little crowded. tried moving the vid card & it had no effect. no IRQ controls in he BIOS. UGH.



i dont get why windoze dogpiles everything when there's so many vacancies in 2-12

[Stevil]

the real pisser is everything sounds great live. the glitches only happen when i try to record. so i'm currently looking at Reaper Buffer & ASIO settings.

[garyb]

have you tried freezing the vstis? if you are using the fx in the NI programs, that could be a source of trouble, too. many NI native fx are extreme resource hogs.

is there one other PCI socket to swap the card sharing with the video card? moving the video card is probably a bad idea, but reinstalling the driver might be a good idea. often when a video card goes bad, it still will work, it just won't give you any graphics accelleration, so the cpu will take over those duties....