Win10 Crackles

[garyb]

[valis]

Just to check on this again, are we talking about ASIO or WAV drivers?

Checking MS's documentation for portcls.sys shows:

Introduction to Port Class
Most hardware drivers for PCI and DMA-based audio devices are based on the Port Class library, which is accessible through the PortCls system driver (Portcls.sys). PortCls is an audio port-class driver that Microsoft includes as part of the operating system. PortCls supplies a set of port drivers that implement most of the generic kernel streaming (KS) filter functionality. Therefore, PortCls simplifies the task of the audio driver developer. The hardware vendor only has to supply a set of miniport drivers to handle the hardware-specific functions of an audio adapter.

Since MS doesn't handle ASIO, my guess is we've been talking about WAV drivers for much of this thread (if not all). I'm adding that to the basic information thread required for technical support...

[Gabriele]

Which sequencer do you use?

[binaural]

Unfortunately, I am talking about ASIO, which is very strange... The WAV driver works actually okay ATM.

I think maybe I should make another clean WIN10 install, start all over again.

On the other hand, this appears to be driver related, because in WIN7 it all worked great (apart from the occasional dropout on the WAV driver).

[valis]

Quite a bit has changed since Win7 within WIndows. More than just drivers. However, portcls.sys is not ASIO related to my understandin (Gary can feel free to correct me on this front).

When the issue occurs, do you have anything playing through your onboard soundcard, or a web browser open like Chrome?

What are your power profile settings, and specifically what is your minimum CPU usage set to in Windows under your current power profile?

Can you post a screenshot of your DPC tests showing this driver with a high spike?

[Gabriele]

I think is your 32 bit sequencer into a 64 bit system..

[valis]

32bit software runs fine under Win64, albeit with a reduced memory pool.

Something is not releasing the CPU or system bus in time for the Scope hardware to do its job, and the process of tracking that down is a troubleshooting process. While being somewhat trial & error, this has been done enough times on other systems that most potential conflicts have been documented and processes are available to troubleshoot. So it's possible to be systematic in eliminating culprits, but as people sitting on the other side of the computer screen all we can do is provide pointers.

[binaural]

Hey Valis,

I've set a max performance power plan, with minimum CPU set to 100%.

I have no other programs running, the internal soundcard and the soundcard on the GPU are disbled through the device manager. There's no WAV driver playing at all. So I do a clean boot, open scope and live, that's it.

I've tried deleting the GPU drivers again with DDU and reinstalling them. No luck.

Hope the screenshot works...




Thanks!
Jasper

[valis]

No WAV drivers present in your Scope project at all?

Can you disable the onboard sound in your BIOS? Personally, if this proves to be not the culprit, I would re-enable it and use it later for normal windows audio...

Lastly, what is your memory usage with Live & Scope both running? 4GB is rather paltry for Win10, especailly 64bit. 8GB is better, 16GB seems ideal these days. I have an old althlon dual core I gave to my daughter that I just upgraded to 8GB of DDR2-800 (4 sticks @ 2GB each) for about $20 per 4GB kit ($40 total).

[binaural]

Hey Valis,

Yes, there are WAV drivers present in the scope project, but non outside of Scope.

I checked the resources and RAM is well below 50% while playing multiple ASIO channels from Live to Scope. CPU is well below 30%. GPU is barely noticeable. I removed the two new RAM banks (to 4 gig in total) and it's still not going above 3 gig.

Still, there's a direct link now between what's happening on the screen and the amount of crackles. With the 1030 GPU it's much worse than with the old card in general. But more so when I've got the Live window open vs with the Scope window open. When I look at the resources, it's almost the same usage.

I find it really really odd, what's happening here. It's as if something is cluttering the pipeline.

I put back an old ISO from the fresh Win10 install, but no luck there. I checked all BIOS and WIN10 settings yet again, but that is all good. I made the Nvidia max performance settings, etc. I can't imagine the new GPU is broken (already), but it is strange it's gotten so much worse...

Really appreciate the help!

Cheers,
Jasper

[djmicron]

Hi, can't talk for your specific motherboard and CPU, but it happened to me after updating the BIOS, that some previously disabled functionality switched back to on. So the system started to produce random clicks for no reason, then I checked inside the BIOS and virtualization was the culprit. After disabling it, crackles disappeared. Good luck.

[dante]

Failing virtualisation being the culprit, maybe RAM ? If you've gone 64 bit and your mobo supports more than 4GB you have a reason to replace/install more anyway. If it doesn't solve the crackles but the Scope card works in another machine you can use the RAM in your next machine (last resort).

[valis]

First off, fairly sure I said this before, but we want to do ONE thing at a time, to see if it has an effect. Then test. Test at idle, and under load.

The GPU isn't broken, the system is consuming too much time when it performs operations with the GPU. Hence "Deferring" other procedure calls. Using an older GPU meant we don't have a clue what is going on, using a supported one means we now have a set of processes that are current.

Why? There are some major changes compared to Win7 with the Win8/10 desktop. Under Win7 you could for instance disable the DWM (desktop window manager) by setting the appropriate compatibility setting to an application. This was useful for those who play fullscreen games (kills the resources that the desktop and other applications use in the background) and to us Audio users, as disabling Aero for say Ableton Live would push the desktop compositing engine back onto the CPU and 'fix' these DPC Latency issues.

In any case, let's talk about the next steps. Answer these questions first and then try the following step...

How many (LCD/LED) monitors are you using?

Do you have HPET (High Precision Event Timer) enabled in your BIOS?

Now, remove WAV drivers from your Scope project and see if ASIO performs any differently. Check results with LatencyMon as well please.

[rodian]

I am in the same situation , i tried everything with no luck . I have a dual boot with 2 HD's , one with win 8.1 32bit and works perfect and one with win 10 64bit who has crackles all the time . I did everything so far in Bios and in Windows too , all known tweaks... I have scope 7 version too.

[valis]

rodian that isn't very informative. If that's a post asking for help, please start a new thread after reading this post. Also keep in mind that there's a limited amount that we can do from this side of the internet connection.

[garyb]

dual boots are always suspicious, because Scope can be loading files from the wrong HDD.

it's very frustrating because
1. win10 is not win8 or win7 or XP. they look similar, work the same, and can run most of the same hardware, but they are quite different.
2. there is something really wrong in the installs with problems because
3. 99% of users do not have the problem.

i would love to help with this, but in have no idea what the issue might be, and it seems nobody else has a clue.

[valis]

The only person who can have a clue is the person operating the machine. As kind as Gary is, PlanetZ is not a paid support contract, and what time we give here to help is given out of what free time we may have available, just as with any forum poster.

[binaural]

How many (LCD/LED) monitors are you using?

Do you have HPET (High Precision Event Timer) enabled in your BIOS?

Now, remove WAV drivers from your Scope project and see if ASIO performs any differently. Check results with LatencyMon as well please.

Hey Valis!

I'm using 1 monitor

I re-checked the BIOS settings. Everything is as it should be. It's the latest BIOS version, but it's still very basic. The HPET setting isn't there...

I removed the WAV drivers. Did not change anything.

I've attached LatencyMonitor under Idle and while playing. In idle it's yet another driver that's maxing out (Rapid Storage).
Idle:


Playing:


Actually, I notice the graphics in Live are also very stuttering (when it scrolls through an arrangement f.e.), unlike for example Youtube which runs smoothly, but in image and in audio...

Thanks agains!
Jasper

[binaural]

The only person who can have a clue is the person operating the machine. As kind as Gary is, PlanetZ is not a paid support contract, and what time we give here to help is given out of what free time we may have available, just as with any forum poster.

This is very much felt by me. I feel a bit guilty and REALLY appreciate your effort!!

[binaural]

I thought I'd post a screenshot of the Driver page of LatMon:



This is when playing Live (ASIO).