The above thread confirms my own suspicions about Vista, I mean apart from all the evidence pointing to Vista being problematic for music, it seems Vista on the same machine as an XP partition will have much higher interruptions on the DPC latency....

I had the chance to try out a new Dell XPS this week and the Vista partition has a terrible constant but random DPC spike that doesn't go away not matter which hardware you disable.

It's almost as though there's some kind of emulated hardware layer. Wonder if it has anything to do with the security technologies like Trusted Platform, Windows Defender or DRM.....

I ran the DPC checker on my older 3ghz P4P800E-deluxe and while the figure was 90us, it was absolutely rock solid consistent at that figure, no activities in the OS seemed to change the readout.

On my Core2duo 2.66 P5B Deluxe Wifi/AP the figures are more like an average of 90us with peaks up to 140us.

----------

I think that the Nvidia card can be the culprit for sudden interruptions, I've always experienced issues where the DAW is playing fine but a closing of a window or tabbing to another application suddenly throws the system and after analyzing the readout of the DPC checker while doing those things I'm sure it's the Nvidia driver doing this.

I've also read that AHCI can be a problem. RME explicitly recommend against it on their forum saying that it will interrupt audio at least once an hour, enough to crash playback or record. I'm going to test this myself since my current system is in AHCI mode.

It's dissapointing to see that the new system doesn't have as good figures as my older box, but these readings totally reflect my experience with it, the Core2 has a lot of juice for applications like Reaper, but my 3ghz performs absolutely flawlessly, never interrupting audio or glitching. I can't run the Fireface800 on the Core2 machine since it falls over a lot under the lightest load.

The thot plickens.....

It seems that vista in general is very prone to audio playback problems. I have a niggley little pop on / pop off audio artifact on my XPS 1530 laptop and I have been trolling forums for insights. I have learned nothing concrete as of yet, but what I have read on the MSDN site suggests that the new audio api in vista replaces "DirectSound" and the pain and suffering appears to me to be in this direction. Audio is now implemented mostly in software and this is where the problems seem to be. Perhaps Martin knows more and could supply a more qualified and technical explanation? I haven't really gotten too scientific about it yet (I use XPP for pro audio) and I know from experience... this could be one of many blind alleys.

--------------------
David

It's amazing to think that in one fell swoop Microsoft can render thousands if not hundreds of thousands of perfectly functional audio production machines utterly useless!

I guess this is what's to be expected when their idea of getting the professionals on board is to talk to a couple of guys and a dog at Cakewalk then ignore what they said anyway.

The big question I'm gonna ask now is:

Will the audio community manage to hold onto XP for music production against the odds, or will the hardware manufacturers force a shift to Vista, regardless of how broken it is, via new hardware and drivers being restricted to Vista only? I mean you might wanna keep your existing machines running fine with XP but sooner or later they die, often before you planned to replace them and when you go looking for the replacement machine, will it be a rock and a hard place?

Quote Jadoube:

---

Alright then... I tested my 'music only' system and learned something interesting.

The System is:

• Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 running 2GB of low latency RAM at 1066MHz front side bus on an Intel DP35DP mother board.
• nVidia GeForce 8600 GT with passive cooling driving dual Viewsonic 22" LCDs.
• On board Intel Gigabit NIC.
• 3 UAD PCI cards and I use the on board TI Firewire to run a MOTU Traveller.
• I use Windows XPP and Reaper 2. I have Cubase SX3, but I haven't fired it up since Reaper 2 came out.
  

No anti-virus, no internet crap... a very minimalist machine to do a specific job. It works very well.

So... when I first ran the Latency tool I was seeing an average of around 500 micro seconds with peaks to 750ish. Pretty high... Hmmm... thats way too high for what's on this machine. What gives? I opened the Device Manager and disable good ol' Sigmatel HD audio...and WTF!!! latency jumped off the scale! Turned that back on in a hurry.... but it got me thinking. So I rebooted and disabled on board audio in BIOS.

Now I see an average of 15-20 microseconds. Peaks at 105. YEAH BABY YEAH!

Conclusion: Sigmatel HD audio = BAD.

---

Hiya Jadoube, very nice DPC figures (after disabling the HD!).

Slightly off-topic. What (audio) latencies can you run the Traveller down to on your system, before pops/clicks? And how many channels do you use?

I'm about to purchase a similar quad core system and have the Traveller myself, so would be great to learn what people are getting, given the DPC figures.

Thanks a lot,

Timo

--------------------
http://Infekted.org ~ Access Virus news & community

I have tried everything I can think of, but it stays at a steady 1000 microseconds, even after having gone through some of the tips in this thread. Nothing makes a difference! I'll disable the processor and hard drive next.

This is on a Dell E520 desktop running Vista

CPU: Pentium D 916 2.8 GHz dual core

1 Gig ram



Thing is, I have dropouts in Adobe Audition 3 and I am running out of options...

Quote Tímo:

---

Slightly off-topic. What (audio) latencies can you run the Traveller down to on your system, before pops/clicks? And how many channels do you use?

---

Hey Timo... Sorry mate, I am afraid I don't ever use the Traveller to record! (How weird is that?) One day perhaps... but for me currently it is strictly a playback mixing device. The only time I have recorded with it, I used the old ADAT serial interface to get 4 ADATs to sync up and dump to the hard drive.... the main reason I bought a MOTU unit. So the latency is irrelevant to me.

--------------------
David

Quote Muied Lumens:

---

Thing is, I have dropouts in Adobe Audition 3 and I am running out of options...

---

I am guessing this Dell is running the Sigmatel HD audio? Can you disable it in the bios? If not, you definitely want to go and download the latest Dell drivers

--------------------
David

Yup, it is disabled, in the BIOS.

I checked my friend's dell, an old Dimension 2400 - and his latency is around 13-15 microseconds on average! Running XP home... Go figure. In fact, I might swap mine with his... Or buy a new PC.

Hmmm I have a suspicion the problem is vista. Can anybody get ultra low DPC Latency running Vista?

--------------------
David

Not me, I'm getting a steady 1000us with occasional spikes to 35000us, that's pretty abysmal, considering that everything (all USB, network, serial, parallel, audio, DVD…) is disabled, only hard disk on SATA and Gfx connected.!

This with Vista SP1 32-bit Premium on ASUS P5LD2, E6400, Gigabyte 7900GT.

This looks exactly like the kind of symptom to make musicians swear off Vista for the next 5 years, well done MS eco-system...

I did my new and old DAW's

Old: ASUS P4P800 deluxe Northwood P4 2.8Ghz 1 Ghz
Lowest 9
Highest 137

New: ASUS Commando, Q6600, Poco Mk2, UAD1, 4GB Kingston RAM, RME hDP
Lowest 20
Highest 96

Quote Jadoube:

---

Hey Timo... Sorry mate, I am afraid I don't ever use the Traveller to record! (How weird is that?) One day perhaps... but for me currently it is strictly a playback mixing device.

---

No worries, when the new mobo (DS4) and stuff arrives I have 7-days to test it, due to long-distance/internet sales laws.

Anyway, here was my initial results on my current 1.8GHz Athlon 3000+, RX480 Neo2 V1.1 mobo, with 512MB Kingston PC3200 RAM (lol!), Asus 128MB ATI Radeon x300 (passive), running XP + SP2. It has Lucent onboard firewire, and the Motu Traveller is hooked up (bus-powered) and switched on. The internet (USB ADSL modem) is enabled and connected, with Windows XP SP2's firewall and Avast antivirus enabled:-



Average: 100-400µs
Absolute max: 550µs

Disabling the onboard Realtek RTL8169/8110 Gigabit ethernet via device manager totally got rid of the regular spikes:-



Average: 30-130µs
Absolute max: 226µs

^ Also, the above was me wildly moving the mouse as, oddly, stopping moving the mouse reduced DPC latencies significantly:-



Average: 15-25µs
Absolute max: 100µs

I think this may be because it's a wireless mouse attached to a (secondary) USB hub? I guess a hard-wired mouse (connected directly to a primary USB or PS/2 socket) may fair better.



Think I have a spare mouse lying around somewhere, if so I'll test it.

--------------------
http://Infekted.org ~ Access Virus news & community

Quote Jadoube:

---

Hmmm I have a suspicion the problem is vista. Can anybody get ultra low DPC Latency running Vista?

---

Well, I have now switched to XP after a year of trying to fine-tune Vista. I now have a fresh install, no tweaks, nothing switched off - on the exact same desktop:

1 Gb RAM, no wireless (but ethernet), Pentium D 915 dual core (2,8 GHz), TI FW pci card with Echo Audiofire 4, nVidia Geforce 7300 graphics card, standard USB mouse/keyboard...

XP:



Average 12-15, never peaks over 100 - sometimes goes as low as 5.

Compare this with Vista...



I waited for Vista SP1 to see if that would make any difference, but didn't notice any at all - not just on this test, but on general performance and functionality. Not that I bothered to read what MS had to say about their new pack... But hey, I'm happy now. I won't look back, er, forward... whatever.

Edited by Muied Lumens (27/03/08 01:38 AM)

That's pretty much the exact same experience I had with the Dell XPS M1330... Vista gave a fairly constant 1000 reading, even when everything in device manager was disabled.

When I installed XP, the latency dropped to about 9, with occasional peaks to about 100.

Based on this evidence, I have some idea where the blame lies...

--------------------
Podcomplex Music Technology

Hi,

Quick update regarding the P35-DS4 motherboard and DPC spikes relating to BIOS versions >F5. I had a reply from Gigabyte who say that I should stick with the F5 BIOS and that they aren't planning on fixing DPC spikes in later BIOS releases because they are now just adhering to Intel's specifications!

If this were really so then surely many other boards would suffer the same issues? Also unless this is a specific hardware design issue (quite possible) then what does this say about the suitability of Gigabyte P35 motherboards for DAW use? Here are the responses from Gigabyte:

"We discovered this status is caused by south bridge settings and those settings are followed by Intel ICH9R specification to modify. It means that BIOS before F5 version had not been added Intel’s spec and we just followed Intel. Stay with F5 BIOS is the best solution."

Q: Are you likely to "fix" the issue in a later BIOS release?

"Sorry but we will not to modify a special version BIOS for this issue since we had followed Intel’s specification already."

I have asked them if they are going to raise the issue further with Intel....

Regards,
Hugo.

Edited by HL (29/03/08 11:48 AM)

Another one:

Dell Latittude D800 Laptop (old!) Pentium M 1.73ghz
1Gb Ram, XP Pro
Echo Indigo DJ PCMCIA souncard Card
TI chipset for FW & PCMCIA

Average value (running Ableton)
500-700 us

Peak @950

So not brilliant then.

Then I noticed this : The graphics card ( Nvidia GeForce FX go 5200) shares IRQ 11 with quite a few other devices Ethernet card, PCMCIA, USB controllers etc.. pretty common with Dell laptop apparently. Disabling the Ethernet made a very small improvement. Wireless was already disabled.

I also noticed that when I minimised Ableton, the DPC value went to a more reasonable 65 - 80 !




I thought it must therefore be graphics related. So I tried disabling some of the graphics options in the Nvidia control panel.

No joy.

Then I tried using the windows graphics option to remove harware acceleration (Display>Options>advanced>Troubleshoot)
I moved the slider to midway so that it disables all acceleration of DirectDraw and Direct3D applications.

And blow me if it didn't work.

I now have DPC values of 65-80 with an occasional peak of 100.The graphics performance is still fine in the DAW.

So it seems like a possible solution if your graphics card is sharing an IRQ with a soundcard. Anyone else had something similar ?

Oh, and many thanks again to Martin for bringing our attention to this excellent program !

Edited by Shifty (29/03/08 07:25 PM)

Well I'm pleased DPC Latency Checker is proving such a useful tool for us all!

However, that's yet another intriguing post Shifty. I wouldn't normally recommend reducing graphic hardware acceleration, since this means your PC is doing the grunt work instead of the graphics hardware. I also wouldn't expect IRQ sharing to be a problem on any modern PC. Nevertheless you've measured the improvement.

I'd suggest checking whether or not you have the latest graphic drivers installed, since every time you move graphic hardware acceleration back a notch, you're telling Windows to handle another group of video tasks itself rather than turning them over to the video driver. Your results suggest that Windows is currently doing a better job by hand than the graphic drivers are doing with hardware acceleration


Martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

I know what you mean, it's almost the opposite of what should happen !
I did read on another forum that someone who was having massive trouble with a firewire soundcard (Dell laptop, same IRQ as graphics) was able to solve there problems by disbling certain features of the NVidia graphics card.

I'll do some further testing this weekend with the D800 - I need to do another full backup first, just in case it all goes horribly wrong..

I might try removing the useless Nvidia control panel app and just install the latest video card drivers on there own.

The bottom line is that if it works well in the current config, I might just leave it - it's a minimal music only machine (for Dj-ing) so graphics slickness is of very low importance.

Well I'm no expert at this at all..

I have a Dell running Vista, DualCore Intel Pentium 2.8 Ghz Processors 3 Gb DDR2 ram. Using a MIA Midi with vista drivers Not sure about all the other info you need and where to find it...


Anyways basically it seems to average around 125 however when I have nothing running it spikes inconsistently to 1000 every 0 - 15 seconds sometimes with 4 seconds in a row of 1000....When I load up say a fairly complex Reason session and listen to it it spiked up to 1000 pretty much consistently only every 20 seconds again other than that its @ 125....However with a complex Sonar session the results are more similar to when nothing is running. :-S

Also at first it had said I had a bad driver so I disabled one thing, it never resulted in changed results however it does not say anything is bad anymore...Does this mean issue resolved or should I keep digging until it does not spike?? I just don't want to start messing around with stuff that I am not sure what it does and whether or not it should be disabled.

I don't get huge dropouts but when recording at high sample rates or listening with a decent amount of real time fx the latency and drop outs can be pretty brutal. For the most part my ASIO buffer settings are at 1024 but have to go to 2048 once it gets a little more complex..Since going back to 48 khz it seems a lot better.

It hasn't been a huge issue other than inconsistent latency issues while recording and having to nudge everything into time after the fact....

If you want more info let me know and Ill try and help as best as I can...

Your results suggest that Reason suffers from spikes but Sonar doesn't, which is unusual. Are they both using the same ASIO drivers?

If you have occasional spikes of over 1000 then something is definitely taking more than its fair share of the interrupt time, and it would be worth trying to track down the culprit. I suspect you might be able to run with a smaller buffer size or at higher sample rates with complex songs if those spikes were eradicated.

However, if you don't want to 'mess around with stuff' then leave well alone - this doesn't seem to be causing you many practical problems at the moment.


Martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

Quote Martin Walker:

---

However, if you don't want to 'mess around with stuff' then leave well alone - this doesn't seem to be causing you many practical problems at the moment.

---

i think that would be an important point to stress in your article, Martin - that pops and clicks are not always going to be linked to DPC latency, nor does having high DPC readings *necessarily* make your machine unusable for audio. although it's not going to help...

--------------------
hourglass | random thoughts | doubledotdash!? collective

Quote:

---

Are they both using the same ASIO drivers?

---

Yes I have disabled every sound driver other than my Echo and usually try and keep it to one app running at a time....There is something weird going on as I did some recording yesterday about 2 hours and upon finishing that the DCP was spiked to 16000 steady At which exact point it did that I am unsure, the recording of course was in Sonar but did not have any issues whilst recording...I just rebooted and it was back to normal, if there is such a thing for Vista.

I say there are no issues but there are and I have already previously disabled some services that I probably shouldn't have as some sketchy things happen from time to time. Such as inability to type into wordpad or even select Winamp to change songs. A simple ctrl/alt/delete to open task manager and everything is back to normal but it kinda scares me...

I would really like to be able to run with a lower buffer size....Is there any Drivers that cannot or should not be disabled?? I would like to try and give it a shot I just can't afford to be without my studio comp right now....Thanks

You know what.....It spikes and holds at 16000 every time I close down an audio app, Sonar, Reason, Winamp etc. It holds there until I get another one going....

Hello,

I am using for quite some time now an Acer aspire 3610 notebook.

Windows XP (with inspirat skin)
1 gig ram
integrated intel grafics (shared)
Intel celeron mobile 1.5 CPU (that's more or less a centrino banias rebadged and with a little less cache)

Used it succesfully with Cubase SX 3
Sonar 7
Line6 Toneport UX2

DPC latency results (no apps running), wifi disabled (wifi causes HUGE spikes)

Lowest: 5 to 6 us, some jumps to about 20 / 30. Thats nice
but, whatever I disable I get every 40 seconds or so a spike up to about 1550.

Running the gearbox software gets the avarage to between 60 and 90, but that's no big deal.



This didn't prevent the laptop to be "usable" for audio, but still...

Anyway I am shopping for a new one. Quite interested in the Dell xps range, so if anyone can elaborate on them.

Hugo

Edited by pego.be (01/04/08 07:57 PM)

Vista Update: I posted earlier on about my DPC latency being around 750ms. After weeks of going through all the devices, trimming all the services, slimming processes etc., I found out that although my Alesis IO14 Firewire interface was disabled (for testing purposes), the actual Firewire interface (TI chipset) wasn't.

Once I disabled it, the latency dropped to around 100ms. However there are lots of spikes. Using ProcessMon to check what's going on behind the scene, it looks like Vista security (and I suspect DRM stuff) is going on more or less all the time.

So it looks like the prime source of my high DPC latency is.. the firewire interface and Vista's DRM, which for someone using a firewire interface to create his own audio is a bit of a stinker and very ironic

I'm considering downgrading to XP, but there might be problems with finding drivers for all my built-in devices..

Rudi

PS Disabling the NVidia drivers, Aero, tranparency etc., made no difference.

Our new test system

Tempest i5400XT (S5396)
2x Intel Xeon E5420 2.5GHz
16GB 677MHz Corsair ECC RAM
2 x ATI 2400PROs
Lynx2

Just pulled it up quickly, with a bit of tweaking in XP PRO a steady 35 with a peak of 75.

To come soon, Results with 2 bios revisions, XP64, Vista 64 and a couple of audio interfaces. It is a really useful little application.

--------------------
www.directresolution.com
home of the DARC audio computer

I've posted to another thread in the Mac section here:

http://www.soundonsound.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=599954&page=0&v iew=collapsed&sb=5&o=365&vc=1#Post599954

Interesting information regarding Boot Camp/XP running on a Macbook Pro. Clearly with the right settings the machine is capable of being a great XP laptop for audio.

I have a Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4 and I'm experiencing spikes, even after disabling everything that is not necessary. I've tried all three BIOS for this motherboard, and the problem persists. Here is what I am referring to:

Does anyone else have this problem, or suggestions on how to fix it?
Thanks,
Dan

Hi,

That pattern looks very familiar.... exactly what I was getting on the Gigabyte p35-ds4 with BIOS versions > F5. Unfortunately their reaction as I've already mentioned in this thread was if F5 fixes it we don't care as we are following Intel's recommendations. If this is a wider problem with Gigabyte P35 motherboards then we need to get this more publicity. If it's a new motherboard and you're within the 7 day distance selling obligation then I'd consider sending it back to be honest rather than risk it. Otherwise I guess all you can do is raise it with Gigabyte - at least they are very good at responding to mails.

From their previous email to me it sounds like they could be configuring certain registers on the chipset in a particular way. If that's the case then maybe we could find a way to reconfigure them.... Actually I have noticed I still get pretty bad DPC spikes when CPU-Z is running, but only then - don't know if that is because it is polling or if it sets something a particular way. Anyone know of any utilities in this area?

Regards,
Hugo.

Hi Hugo,

This is a new motherboard, and unfortunately, I am past the date that I can return it. There are 3 BIOS versions for this model, and the spikes remain with any of them. I sent an email to Gigabyte and I'm awaiting their response. I did download the F4 and F5 BIOS for the GA-P35-DS4 rev. 1, but I haven't tried to install it. I don't want to chance ruining my BIOS since it wasn't designed for this model.

In practical terms, I can still get very low latency. I'm using two Delta PCI cards and a Q6600 CPU. And I'm not noticing any performance problems in Sonar 6. But I'm certain the spikes are keeping the system from performing up to it's full potential.

I even reinstalled a clean version of Windows XP with no chipset, audio or video drivers to see if the spikes remained, and unforntunately, they do.

At this point it's up to Gigabyte to release a BIOS that is current and solves the problem. If they get enough demand for it, I'm hoping they will.

Hi,

Yeah I went through all of that - clean installs with no drivers at all. Disabled every single device etc etc. It sounds like you're having better luck with your Deltas and Sonar then I did with a firewire sound card and Cubase 4 - but I've often thought that Cubase is much fussier than other DAWs. Maybe if enough people raise this with Gigabyte they'll do something about it.

Regards,
Hugo.

HL - the big difference with your Gigabyte P35-DS4 rev 1.1 problem is that you had major timing problems with Cubase 4 and pop/clicks when accessing HD and playing back, whereas aspenleaf (welcome to the SOS Forums to you by the way!) can still achieve 'very low latency' and is not noticing any performance problems in Sonar 6.

By all means try to track down their cause of your DPC spikes if you're interested aspenleaf, but personally I wouldn't worry unduly about then unless they tie in with audio interruptions.


Martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

Hi Martin,

True, but the timing was also really off playing back MIDI through a USB connected Virus TI when not accessing the HD. Totally agree with you though it sounds like he's not having the same problems as me and the real-world effect of DPC latency is going to very dependent on individual setups.

Regards, Hugo.

Quote Martin Walker:

---

(welcome to the SOS Forums to you by the way!) can still achieve 'very low latency' and is not noticing any performance problems in Sonar 6.

By all means try to track down their cause of your DPC spikes if you're interested aspenleaf, but personally I wouldn't worry unduly about then unless they tie in with audio interruptions.


Martin

---

Thank you for the welcome, Martin.
By very low latency, I mean I am getting 1ms with 128 samples in the Delta buffer with 24 bit/48K audio recording, and 2ms with 256 samples in the Delta buffer with 24 bit/96K audio recording. But my CPU useage is very low, less than 12% on the highest used core of my Q6600. So I think I could get down to 64 samples for 24 bit/48K, and 128 samples for 24 bit/96K if I could eliminate the DPC latency spikes.

For my audio hard drive I am using a Seagate 7200.11 500GB SATA II drive, running AHCI drivers, and there doesn't seem to be any problem with hard drive throughput even with many audio tracks.

Dan
AspenLeaf Studio - Allenspark, Colorado

wow this thread is amazing! I can see that everyone is getting much better results with wi-fi off, which makes sense given my current rig has a wi-fi card and it seems like a likely culprit. Anyway, I ill try this program out tonight and post my results, and hopefully, I'll be able to get somewhere! Thanks for this, it might just save my life!

--------------------
Fostex 812 Mixer -> MOTU 828 mk3 -> MacBook: C2D, 2.4Ghz, 4G RAM, OSX 10.6 || i7 920, 2.66Ghz, 6G RAM, Win 7 Pro -> Reaper v3.6

Edited by thescientist (08/04/08 03:19 PM)

aspenleaf - that sounds pretty good performance to me Dan!

Let us know if you track ever manage to cure those spikes though, especially if it's the result of a new Gigabyte BIOS update.

thescientist - Wi-fi is indeed a common cause of large spikes. Most network adaptors seem to result in regular spikes, but wireless ones tend to be significantly more problematic!


Martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

this thread and in the info in it saved my life! Apparently the problem I was suffering form was because of PCI Wi-Fi card.

thanks for all the help guys!

--------------------
Fostex 812 Mixer -> MOTU 828 mk3 -> MacBook: C2D, 2.4Ghz, 4G RAM, OSX 10.6 || i7 920, 2.66Ghz, 6G RAM, Win 7 Pro -> Reaper v3.6

Hello people.

This is my first post here. Someone in the Reaper forum asked me to post my Vista DPC latency findings here. We've been having a few similar threads over there and a few people were surprised at my results.

First thing first, I do music as a hobby now (after playing in original bands and pursuing my dream for over 20 years). I play, write music and record for my own pleasure now. So my Vista machine is not an optimized audio workstation. I use it more for graphic and Web design and development.

So here it is:



These measurements were taken after a fresh boot. A similar test 2 days ago showed numbers that typically oscillated between 45ms and 95ms with "spikes" every 45 seconds (yes, forty-five seconds) to either 500, 700 or 900ms. The highest spike I have seen was 950ms in several minutes of testing in 3 sessions, two after fresh boots and one after the machine had been up and running for several days without a boot up and with other apps open (Outlook, Opera).

The image above was taken this morning and this was about 45 seconds to 1 minute into the test (you can see the highest number it had reported in that time was 302ms.

System specs:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ Dual Core
ASUS Crosshair mobo (800 MHz system bus)
4 GB 800 MHz Dual channel DDR2 Ram
SoundBlaster X-Fi Elite Pro
NVidia 8800GTS 640 MB DDR3 onboard Ram
Vista 64 Ultimate SP1

Other probably relevant details about my setup. I run no firewall as I am behind a router. Windows Defender is on. Windows Firewall is off. UAC is off. My antivirus is Eset's NOD32 and it is always on.

FWIW, in terms of "real world usage", I never get audio dropouts or pops or crackles in Reaper and I run my ASIO driver at 7ms (conservative for some but works great for me). Typical projects run 10 to 25 tracks (audio and MIDI) with DR-008 for drums, at least acouple instances of Wusikstation and other synths and plenty of VST plugins.

--------------------
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ Dual Core, ASUS Crosshair mobo, 4 GB 800 MGHz DDR2 Ram, SoundBlaster X-Fi Elite Pro, NVidia 8800GTS 640 MB DDR3, Vista Ultimate 64, Reaper 2.2

Welcome to the SOS Forums theniozzbox!

Thanks for your results, which to my eyes look good for a Vista 64 desktop PC, especially one that's not been optimised for audio in any way. I'm not surprised you get no audio dropouts with such results.

Why are other people surprised at these results? Is it that they are comparatively good when plenty of other people posting here have extremely poor results for a variety of Vista-based PCs? I suspect that the main Vista problems are due to specific drivers (possibly graphic ones) that cause mammoth spikes, and that whatever devices you have in your Athlon 64 X2 PC have better-behaved drivers.


Martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

Quote Martin Walker:

---

Welcome to the SOS Forums theniozzbox!Why are other people surprised at these results? Is it that they are comparatively good when plenty of other people posting here have extremely poor results for a variety of Vista-based PCs?

---

That would be my guess. I've seen plenty of much worse numbers here as well as on the Reaper forum.

Quote Martin Walker:

---

I suspect that the main Vista problems are due to specific drivers (possibly graphic ones) that cause mammoth spikes, and that whatever devices you have in your Athlon 64 X2 PC have better-behaved drivers.

---

I'm really not sure. With every computer I'Ve owned before this one, I used to optimize everything that ran on it, turn off non-essential services and I would keep up to date with every driver update directly from my hardware manufacturer. But on this machine I've taken a different approach and, so far, I've only installed signed drivers released through Windows Update. The only exception being my sound card for which I installed Creatve's latest releases. That driver is also the only one that has given me problems and caused my machine to blue screen twice (both times in the first week I've had this computer). Turned out that I had installed a beta version or something. I uninstalled and re-installed the latest stable release and my machine has not blue screened or crached since. Yes, you read that right. I have had no system crashes on this machine since late July 2007 and it runs 24/7. That's a marked stability improvement over any XP box I've owned or worked on...

My new philosophy is that I really have better things to do with my time than worry over objectively measuring minute (or not so minute) performance differences between XP and Vista. For one thing, this machine is generally so fast that it "waits" for me more than I wait for it. That is an amazing change for me. Secondly, that a new OS requires more powerful hardware to run than the previous one is par for the course. XP may run faster than Vista but both Win 2K and Win 98SE ran faster than XP on the same hardware when I upgraded computers to XP in 2001 and 2002 (on top of my own machines, I am the unoficial "tech guy" at work so I handle these kinds of stuff for about 7 windows workstations of varying age). I'm sure Windows 3.1 would scream on my current hardware if it supported it

But the thing is, in relative terms, this machine is the fastest performing computer I've used yet and in the end, isn't that all that matters? It lets me work with resource intensive graphic apps without slowing me down and runs my audio software flawlessly. Whatever anyone may say... I'm happy with Vista

Btw, thanks for the welcome!

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AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ Dual Core, ASUS Crosshair mobo, 4 GB 800 MGHz DDR2 Ram, SoundBlaster X-Fi Elite Pro, NVidia 8800GTS 640 MB DDR3, Vista Ultimate 64, Reaper 2.2

Edited by thenoizzbox (09/04/08 02:52 PM)