XITE-1 ASIO pops and dropouts in Win 7 64bit via Expresscard

[t_tangent]

I have been trying to sort out some serious ASIO popping and crackling on my Windows 7 64bit setup, and after several reinstalls and virtually every possible tweak it is still not entirely crackle free.

My setup is as follows:

Running latest version OS

SONIC_CORE_SCOPE_XITE-1_v5.1.2708-RC2_EN

Connected via ExpressCard for SCOPE XITE-1

to

Dell Precision M6500 Covet Laptop Workstation

Intel® Core™ i7-820QM Processor
Intel PM55 chipset
4GB 1333MHz DDR3 RAM
2 x 250GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drives
Texas Instruments Firewire and Cardbus
1GB nVIDIA Quadro FX 3800M Graphics Card

Set to AHCI mode and running a dual boot of

Windows 7 Pro 32bit and Windows 7 Pro 64bit

To start at the beginning, when I first got this laptop and XITE-1 at the beginning of the year, the Scope 64bit drivers were not yet released, so I set up a dual boot on the M6500 and installed Windows 7 Pro 32bit on one partition and Win 7 64bit on the other partition, ready for when SC released the 64bit drivers.

Running Scope 5 in Win 7 32bit works flawlessly. No pops, no crackling, no dropouts whatsoever. It has worked fine since I first set it up and even though I have tweaked Windows to try and free up space and recources where possible, running Scope 5 has worked perfectly well both before and after.

So when SC released the 64bit drivers, I went ahead and installed Scope on that second partition. Unfortunately the same cannot be said. Terrible audio pops and dropouts, BUT ONLY when using the ASIO drivers. If I use just the Scope Wave modules then there are no pops or crackles.

Here's what I have tried so far;

Reinstalled Win 7 64 bit in RAID Mode to see if it made and difference

Disabled every function in the BIOS including Hyperthreading, SpeedStep, USB, Firewire, eSATA, Virtualisation, Cardbus, Flashmedia, Wireless and Cable Network, Bluetooth, etc

Tried a variety of tools such as ThrottleStop 2.80 but that didnt really have much effect and still some audio popping

In Win7 64bit device manager have disabled everything unneccessary that cannot be disabled in the BIOS, including onboard IDT audio drivers, built in Webcam, etc

Tried several versions of nVidia GFX drivers and the best I could get was to then disable Physx and set 3D to performance mode. Have disabled all the nvidia helper services, and even tried diabling powermizer

Have applied every recommended tweak for Win 7 and also followed BlackVipers Safe Services tweak list.

Tried disabling Core Parking and although that made a slight improvement, still too many pops and dropouts to be really useable.

I have also tried out several versions of the Scope 5 for XITE release candidates to see if they improved the sound. Of course I did this after doing a partition backup so that I could replace Win7 again so no registry or other changes, in order to maintain the best possible setup. Am now using the latest RC2 as mentioned above

Although I usually use Cubase 5, the same pops and crackling happens when running Reason 5 via the Scope XITE ASIO drivers. Also I have tried both the 64bit and 32bit version of Reaper but no difference.

Finally I read up on CPU affinity and it seems that several forums mention this as a means of resolving pops and dropouts. After looking into this I was able to figure out that when I open taskmanager and set Scope.exe to use only CPU thread 0,1,2,3, and if I do the same for the sequencer .exe process, then the pops and

dropouts fall dramatically.

======================================

For those that may find it useful, there is a way to set this automatically for any program that needs it, in this case for Scope.exe. At least it works for me in Win7

1. Open text editor and add the following lines,

start /affinity F /high Scope.exe

2. Save the file and rename it to Scope.bat then move it into the same folder where Scope.exe is located.

3. Make a shortcut to the Scope.bat file and run that when you start Scope instead of the usual Scope.exe shortcut.

To explain those commands

/affinity instructs the program to use the CPU threads based on a Hexadecimal value

An i7 processor has 8 threads and in the task manager Process tab these are labelled 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Therefore the range of values possible to enable these threads is between 1 and 255 which in Hex is 1 to FF
So for example to have all threads enabled the 255 which in Hex is FF (which is the same as just running the file without the affinity command, so pretty pointless)
If you just wanted to enable CPU Affinity thread 0 you would use the Hex value 1
Again for example to enable thread 1 5 & 7 you would use the value 162 which in Hex is A2
In my example above I just wanted to enable Processor Affinity thread 1 2 3 & 4 which is equal to the Hex value F
I hope that makes sense, but if not let me know and I will try to explain again more clearly

/high just instructs the program to run in High Priority mode instead of Normal mode. Other commands are /abovenormal /belownormal /low but /high is the one I use that seems to improve the audio dropouts a little.

========================================


However even after all this, while being the only thing that has made a big difference, I do still get one or 2 pops every minute or so which is still very irritating and would mean having to edit most recordings.

Basically at my wits end with this, as after having literally sat here week after week sometimes for what seems like days at a time just tweaking and trying out different configurations without a real solution other than the CPU Affinity tweak. The most annoying thing is that if I enable and use the onboard IDT soundcard then there are no pops at all, but the moment I try to use Scope via ASIO the pops are back.

After having read up on various forums it seems that many others have similar issues with audio pops in Win7 64bit but each solution that may work for some does not for others. I think the last thing I can do is to contact dell and see if I can replace the nVidia video card to see if that will make any difference.

It could possibly be to do with IRQ sharing, but since this is a laptop there is no way for me to move cards over and other than disabling what I can in the BIOS and the OS that is all I can do I guess.

But, if anyone here has any other ideas that I could possibly try, I would really be very grateful and would love to hear more.

Thanks again for any help and advice

Cheers

Tim

[at0m]

One little but most relevant detail I find missing: what latency are you using? Tried increasing ULLI to 13 or even 23ms?
For the rest, I have no direct experience with Xite and Win7...

[dawman]

I pulled my hair out when I went 64bit W7 too.
I am running @ 3.5GHz and using 12GB's of DDR3-1600 ran @ 1240MHz.
It's the sweetspot for overclocking the i7 930.

But I thought this had an effect on the cracks and pops since its really fast, but it ended up being just the Intel gunk that comes with the BIOS.

Here's what has given me a perfect audio experience.

Intel EIST
Intel C State
C1E Support
Overspeed Protection
Hyperthreading
Execute Bit Support
Set Limit CPUID MaxVal to 3
Intel Virtual Tech
Intel VT-d Tech

These are what I have disabled, and although each one seems to affect the other, I finally got rid of the last little pops that were random and sparse as you have mentioned.
Intel C State and C1E Support were the very last 2 I disabled before I noticed my Virtual Grand Pianos could play endless polyphony w/ zero glitching.
But at the end of the day, I really believe that its a combination of all of these that does the trick.

I try and remind myself that very few people use Macs and PC's the way that we do.
Gamers drive the market. Hence the tons of extra gunk we will never use.

Good Luck and let me know if I am correct about the C1E State and Intel C State being key to an ASIO pop free rig....

[cortone]

Hey T-tangent,

I have seen this on my laptop as well, and changing ULLI didn't have much impact. I only had mixed results, usually temporary, with the Priority settings, but didn't work with the Affinity. I am using Reaper in this case.

One thing I learned is that 99% of the noise was on playback only. Have you tried recording a track and comparing the playback through WMP or something non-S|C? Also, how are you monitoring? I still have my XP workstation in the studio, and it occurred to me that the playback problems may only be through the headphones. I haven't tried the laptop/Win7-64bit through monitors.

I have an HP dv8t.

Cheers,
Cory

[t_tangent]

Hi chaps,

Thanks for the replies so far. To address each reply in order

atom, yes I forgot to put the ULLI settings that I have tried. I generally have the Samplerate set to 48KHz, so have been attempting this at 4ms and then raised that to 12ms. I have also tried setting the Samplerate to 44Khz and adjusting the latency up to 13ms, but not to 23ms as I figured that if it runs perfectly ok on Win7 32bit at 4ms then it surely would be possible on Win7 64bit. But I will try it out and see what happens.

Jimmy, yes I saw your post a couple of weeks back on what you had to set to achieve stability. I did try some of what you listed such as disabling Hyperthreading & EIST, and I have also tried both Virtualisation and Execute Bit Support enabled and disabled but no dice. Still the same. Unfortunately the other settings are not available in the M6500 BIOS, so I will be droppimg an email to Dell support to see if they can do something about this. I did do quite a bit of reading on several forums and sites and in particular noticed several well regarded folks in the DAW business suggesting that Intel Turbo, EIST, and C states be turned off. In particular some very useful advice on gearslutz forum about this by people such as Scott from ADK, and also from our own Valis who pointed on in one thread that this could possibly even be a known issue that Intel are aware of although it could also be to do with the nVidia card hogging the PCI express bus.

Re the intel C State and C1E support, as I couldnt disable them in the BIOS I tried using Throttlestop which I thought could do that but it didnt seem to have much effect apart from when Turbo was disabled my laptop became unable to play any more CPU hungry VST plugins. But I will try to find out more info on the C states and will try to get some feedback from Dell tech support.

Cory, I did try recording via the wave drivers and the wave files were totally crackle free, but sadly ASIO isnt the same. And unfortunately yes I have tried listening to XITE via the headphones and via Analog outs, and when in the studio via ADAT hooked up to Scope PCI card. All of them result in the same type of crackling. Again I will look into what you suggest to see if there is something I have overlooked.

As mentioned earlier though, so far the only thing that has made any significant difference is setting CPU affinity to use only the first 4 processor threads although I havent tried every combination, and on UAD forums some users reported solving pops and dropout when disabling and renabling CPU thread 0 after starting their program

But on the Z forum thread http://forums.planetz.com/viewtopic.php ... 6&start=40 Z
soylent.green and PaulSh discuss which actuall threads are the physical CPU core threads and which ones are the virtual threads, and so far I have not found a clear confirmation of that, so again, anyone who can advise on that I would appreciate it.

Anyway cheers lads and I will also report back if I find any relevent info. So thanks again