scope wave modules

[ARCADIOS]

hi,

i have noticed that 24bit wave source module gives me a more punchy and sharp sound over the simple wave source. i test with a small fostex pair of nearfields and with the 1032A genelecs.

i am a little confused about which is better? perhaps depends on the source file saplerate as well.
well i play lots of audio files of different formats...wavs mp3s.....etc...

same audio results for wmp, winamp(which i prefer as an audio player) and itunes...

At first i tryied the 24bit wave source in order to avoid random clicks and pops i was hearing with the wave source. the random pops happen as well with the 24bitwave.

Anyway my question is about the wave modules sound quality and clarity.
about the second i haven't made conclusions yet because my pc has internet and perhaps the random pops might occure from antivirus or ather activities.
also i have read about the C1E turn off.... but i am not sure if that will help eliminating the random clicks and pops.

anyway....
lets make a discussion here my friends

[garyb]

yes, disabling C1 and EIST should make a big difference. right now, when audio passes, the cpu is not fully awake. as the load increases, the cpu wakes more and more. this is bad for realtime audio which requires immediate attention and cannot wait for the cpu to ramp up. with the power stepping disabled, the cpu is fully awake at all times...

sure, the 24bit wave modules should sound better, since they communicate with the software with much more headroom.

[ARCADIOS]

well, thanks...

after trying some other ully settings i also noticed that higher values give less pops.... almost eliminated....
is there a way to change the wave source latency only? not the whole scope projects.

Also, if C1E and EIST are disabled, i have noticed that cpu clock changes again sometimes to lower multiplier(in my case i have a core duo conroe2.4ghz with 6-9 multiplier on gigabytex48 mobo)... To make i guess.. cpu stays alive does not mean only high multiplier...is that right?

And what about the onboard realtek wave device? why pops and crackles do not occur? Is the answer "high latency by default??"

[garyb]

yes, the multiplier probably changes in order to avoid heat. you may be able to manually raise it, but since the cpu is fully on at all times, you may not need to. i generally don't overclock, because i prefer stability.

yes, the onboard sound is very high latency. no, there's no way to raise latency for the wave drivers alone, but you should be able to fiddle with the buffer settings in the host app, to improve performance.

[ARCADIOS]

actually i want to make a setting that will include all applications... including iexplorer or mozilla which make also playback random pops and glitches of the flash player nomatter ully setting.

perhaps i should give it a try with bios latency settings? it gives me 32 by default and i leave as it is. as far as know scope cards are set to 96 by default.....

Well.....

[garyb]

if you have pops and clicks in internet explorer, the pc is not set up properly.

this is the current list of things that can be disabled, power-wise, in the bios(not all of these will be available in every bios):
Intel EIST
Intel C State
C1E Support
Overspeed Protection
Hyperthreading
Execute Bit Support
Set Limit CPUID MaxVal to 3 (maybe not so important)
Intel Virtual Tech
Intel VT-d Tech

also, have you checked for irq sharing?

[ARCADIOS]

well, unfortunatelly....irqs are been shared....
i have been working a lot with this mobo gigabyteX48dq6 with conroeE6600, so far no problems with asio(not perfect though....occasional pops but controlable when ully was set higher. But now that i use the wave modules i see that the random pops are very disturbing. They happen nomatter ully setting.

This is the situation of my PC.
If you take a look you might see that it seems that there are some "suspects" that may be the problem


I/O Port 0x00000000-0x00000CF7 PCI bus
I/O Port 0x00000000-0x00000CF7 Direct memory access controller

I/O Port 0x000003C0-0x000003DF Intel(R) X38/X48 Express Chipset PCI Express Root Port - 29E1
I/O Port 0x000003C0-0x000003DF NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260

IRQ 23 Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB2 Enhanced Host Controller - 293A
IRQ 23 Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2934

Memory Address 0xE9D00000-0xE9DFFFFF Intel(R) ICH9 Family PCI Express Root Port 4 - 2946
Memory Address 0xE9D00000-0xE9DFFFFF Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller

I/O Port 0x0000B000-0x0000BFFF Intel(R) X38/X48 Express Chipset PCI Express Root Port - 29E1
I/O Port 0x0000B000-0x0000BFFF NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260

IRQ 16 Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller
IRQ 16 Intel(R) X38/X48 Express Chipset PCI Express Root Port - 29E1
IRQ 16 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260
IRQ 16 Intel(R) X38/X48 Express Chipset PCI Express Root Port - 29E9
IRQ 16 Intel(R) ICH9 Family PCI Express Root Port 1 - 2940

Memory Address 0xD0000000-0xDFFFFFFF Intel(R) X38/X48 Express Chipset PCI Express Root Port - 29E1
Memory Address 0xD0000000-0xDFFFFFFF NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260

Memory Address 0xE4000000-0xE7FFFFFF Intel(R) X38/X48 Express Chipset PCI Express Root Port - 29E1
Memory Address 0xE4000000-0xE7FFFFFF NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260

IRQ 17 Intel(R) ICH9 Family PCI Express Root Port 6 - 294A
IRQ 17 Realtek RTL8168C(P)/8111C(P) Family PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC (NDIS 6.20)

Memory Address 0xE9C00000-0xE9CFFFFF Intel(R) ICH9 Family PCI Express Root Port 6 - 294A
Memory Address 0xE9C00000-0xE9CFFFFF Realtek RTL8168C(P)/8111C(P) Family PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC (NDIS 6.20)

Memory Address 0xE9000000-0xE9BFFFFF Intel(R) 82801 PCI Bridge - 244E
Memory Address 0xE9000000-0xE9BFFFFF Sonic Core Scope

IRQ 18 Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2936
IRQ 18 Texas Instruments 1394 OHCI Compliant Host Controller
IRQ 18 Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2939
IRQ 18 Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB2 Enhanced Host Controller - 293C

Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF PCI bus
Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF Intel(R) X38/X48 Express Chipset PCI Express Root Port - 29E1
Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260

IRQ 19 Intel(R) ICH9 Family PCI Express Root Port 4 - 2946
IRQ 19 Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller
IRQ 19 Sonic Core Pulsar2
IRQ 19 Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller

I/O Port 0x000003B0-0x000003BB Intel(R) X38/X48 Express Chipset PCI Express Root Port - 29E1
I/O Port 0x000003B0-0x000003BB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260

I/O Port 0x00000290-0x0000029F Motherboard resources
I/O Port 0x00000290-0x0000029F Motherboard resources

I/O Port 0x0000C000-0x0000CFFF Intel(R) ICH9 Family PCI Express Root Port 4 - 2946
I/O Port 0x0000C000-0x0000CFFF Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller

I/O Port 0x0000D000-0x0000DFFF Intel(R) ICH9 Family PCI Express Root Port 6 - 294A
I/O Port 0x0000D000-0x0000DFFF Realtek RTL8168C(P)/8111C(P) Family PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC (NDIS 6.20)

[garyb]

you need to move the card to another slot and then check again. after you check, let me know what the card is sharing with.

[ARCADIOS]

i have 2 cards. 1 scope pro14dsp which is seen as the 1st(according to dsp meter) and pulsar2-6dsp which is the 2nd and the one that shares always with ahci controler.

to be honest i have managed to make wave modules work(but randomly i will hear a pop when playing back some videos), but only 44.1 25ms ully. which makes it impossible for asio and instrument playing for me(2high latency), or for vocal recerding( i almost hear a delay with 25ms ully)
anyway.

I am curious though if there is anyone that has scope wave modules working crystal clear in lower latencies.

A good clever solution would be to be able to raise latency only for the wave source module, independently from the project ully.......

[garyb]

sure, wave modules work fine here.
why would you use them instead of asio modules for recording in the sequencer?

[ARCADIOS]

asio is what i use for recording.
wave modules are for video or audio players i occasionally use.

if you play a video file with a player..lets say wmp. and ully is set to 7,4 or 3ms at 44.1, and you do some FF or REW or even PLAY from start, are you sure that there is ABSOLUTELY not even a small glitch coming from wave source, after some seconds or minute the latest?? (randomly for me)..

[garyb]

yes.

your problem is most likely all the irqs shared with your Scope card. bad motherboard choice for two cards...

did you disable all the cpu power stepping?

[ARCADIOS]

yes i did, but it did not help. still i get these random glitches.
the only way to avoid them is to set ully at 24ms. But even this way i will hear 1 small glitch every 3,4 minutes.

Now i hear them also through asio, and are audible in Synthogy Ivory 2. These must have to do with the midi activity, but sound alike.

I guess you are right. Wrong mobo for 2 cards. I have an older Gigabyte ds3(3pci slot) mobo and i am sure that this one has 2 of the 3 pcis free of sharing.
Should be a good idea to install it back. Unfortunatelly it has no raid/ahci controler but....may be i good step to go back IDE.
Anyway.
The only thing that drives me crazy is that the solution might be hidden somewere in a configuration i haven't done yet and the X48 is just fine.

you think that even if the pulsar2 is not the host board, if it shares irq, this might be bad?

ps. these glitches appear more on ie ...(you tube/flashplayer)
may be graphic card? GTX260 nvidia.


"Standard pc" could be another solution...but this mobo would give a bluehawaiiscreen i think......
Also, conroeE6600 has no hyperthreading to disable. it is 2core.

[garyb]

hyperthreading has nothing to do with the core count, though...

the video card might be making things worse, but the irqs shared with the Scope cards are the reason that you must raise the latency. if the audio is to approach real time, cpu cycles MUST be available every time, in time, as required. the card must have it's turn when it comes up. as the latency increases, the chance of error from a sample not being available exactly when needed decreases.

there ARE 3 pci slot motherboards that will work with your processor. i just installed a brand new intel DP43TF just the other day. the motherboard was less than $100. yes, it works properly.

[Burnin3styleFingaz]

if you have pops and clicks in internet explorer, the pc is not set up properly.

this is the current list of things that can be disabled, power-wise, in the bios(not all of these will be available in every bios):
Intel EIST
Intel C State
C1E Support
Overspeed Protection
Hyperthreading
Execute Bit Support
Set Limit CPUID MaxVal to 3 (maybe not so important)
Intel Virtual Tech
Intel VT-d Tech

also, have you checked for irq sharing?

Thank you for this Great Infos garyb
But I have 3 Questions

1.
About Disabling Execute Bit Support
Its irritating me because I have only this one called -Execute Disable Bit-
Should I Disable this "..Disable bit?"

2.
I have CPU Spread Spectrum & PCIe Spread Spectrum in the Bios.
Should I disable this two too?

3.
I dont know if its Discussed this here earlier..but is it a Cubase Isssue about the Multicore-Support Problems or a Driver Issue.
I mean..If I Disable & Enable again "one" Core of 8 (CPU I7 950-Win 7 64bit -Scope 5 64bit-Cubase 5.1 32bit) in the Taskmanager affinity..all things seems to be ok. Until I Start Cubase again.
I must do this Procedure Every Time I start Cubase.
Or If i turn Off MultiProcessor Support on Cubase..all things seems to be ok too, but I want MultiPower what an I950 generally should do.

[jksuperstar]

"Execute Disable" is the name of the feature, and disabling it is indeed disabling the feature...yeah, sounds like a double negative. It is a hardware security feature and if you keep your music machine protected & off a network as much as possible, you don't need this enabled.

CPU and PCIe spread spectrum puts an LFO on the system clocks. They do this to reduce electromagnetic radiation peaks. If you disable it and don't see a problem, you will see better performance. (The LFO is setup so the MAX frequency hit is the normally advertised freq, so a 2.0GHz processor with Spread Spectrum might oscillate between 1.9GHz and 2.0 GHz, while if it's disabled it will be 2.0 GHz always)

If you see 8 cores, then you have hyper threading enabled, this should be disabled as a debug procedure. It might help your Cubase issue. Also, there have been complaints that XTC mode and multi-core processor support in the DAW don't play well together (I experience this in Ableton).

[garyb]

this.

there's no real reason to use hyperthreading. there's very little real-world advantage, even if the theoretical advantage is high. how can a virtual core and a real core really do much more work than the real core alone? imaginary processors need a real processor to actually do work. there's no such thing as something for nothing...especially if it's a real time process...

[Burnin3styleFingaz]

Thank you for the Great detailed answers jksuperstar & garyb

Now I disabled Hyperthreading too. But its the same result. Cpu isnt High in Cubase
but Flickering&Crackling when I load & play a Cpu-Intensive VSTi.
Until I disable & Enable one CPU again in the Taskmanager/Cubase.exe/set Affinity setting.
I have tested this in "Scope" Non-Xtc mode.
Its strange ...The same VSTi runs smooth on Sonar X1.
I think its maybe a Cubase 5 Steinbug issue...
I have installed the newest whql certified gfx Drivers too & Updated the newest for Win 7 (Service Pack1 etc)..

anyway..
I made two Batch Files to disable & enable again one CPU everytime I start Cubase.
Its a Folder with a "Process.exe" which I downloaded earlier & done this below to a txt File & renamed to a .bat File

BatchFile 1 to Disable one CPU:

@echo off

Process.exe -a Cubase5.exe 1110


BatchFile 2 to enable it again:

@echo off

Process.exe -a Cubase5.exe 1111


Its Uncomfortable to Click everytime this BatchFiles but its the only way for now for me.
Another way is to switch "Audiopriority" in Cubase/Settings/Vst-AudioSystem from Normal to Boost & again back to Normal everytime.

I hope there are other better ways..but I think its Cubase or Driver Update Related..

[garyb]

you have no irq sharing?

are you using the wave drivers in Cubase?

[Burnin3styleFingaz]

you have no irq sharing?

Yea, no Irq Sharing:
IRQ 16 is my Soundcard

The same IRQ 16 was shared before with my "Intel(R) ICH10-Family universal USB-Host Controller 3037"
But I Disabled this one long Time ago.

are you using the wave drivers in Cubase?

No its "Asio Scope PCI"
And Ulli-Settings are in the Middle. 7ms


EDIT:
I am more & more sure, that its a Cubase issue, because the UAD2 People from this Thread have the same Problem with a similar
alternative way, like I wrote above (with the Batch Files) :
http://www.studionu.com/uadforums/viewt ... 468baf3d4a

So..anyway.. Some DAWS running smoothly & some not (Hardware & Software Combinations related thing)
But it feels good that Iam not alone with this (Software related) known Problem & Solving is in Process in the net

Again Thank you for the Great FineTuning Infos & trying to Help me Bros