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Post by svart on Oct 13, 2020 15:39:01 GMT -6
I'm very interested in this topic of PC latency. Is there some short way to say or some resource about how to get the best system latency? I've heard a lot of people talk about it but not too much "real" information. That tip about turning the CPU to 99% is a good example, at the moment I don't know how to do that. I have a few of the utilities to measure this stuff, I just don't know a lot of the techniques to improve the performance. Seems like there's a lot of possible reasons and it completely depends on the machine and software. It's one of the reasons I don't use my recording machines for anything but recording and I remove any hardware or software that I'm not using. Anyway, I bought an unused Lenovo m920q with i7-8700t 6 core/24gb ram/256gb ssd for 500$ I can post the link if anyone wants. Looks like they have a bunch of them.
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Post by plinker on Oct 13, 2020 16:38:40 GMT -6
That's a great price! Loves me some Lenovo -- typing on a Lenovo Hackintarsh right now Monkeyxx -- MS Windows IS THE PROBLEM with DPC latency. DPC Latency is a relic of old design where peripherals are competing for attention. It doesn't have to be that way, and isn't in a proper UNIX-like OS (although to be clear, MacOS is the closest thing to real commercial UNIX these days.)
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Post by svart on Oct 13, 2020 17:59:23 GMT -6
I'm seeing that most dpc latency issues are with the acpi drivers that control the cpu power consumption. Programs tend to have an affinity for the same cpu core that acpi runs on and it causes issues. You can lasso your programs to other cores with controller softwares and it'll fix the issue but it's a hassle. That's why setting the cpu to 99% seems to trick the driver into some state that works right. I turn all that trash off on bios anyway so I don't think I've ever run into latency issues at all.
Anyway, I ordered a 2.5" wd black spinny drive as my storage drive for this rig.
And not a moment too soon, I get into the studio today and the computer just beeps at me. I had to pull power and reboot before it would start. Currently doing another backup of the OS drive and the data drive just in case.
I might be buying into the motu stuff sooner than I had hoped.
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Post by BenjaminAshlin on Oct 14, 2020 22:58:41 GMT -6
DPC stands for Deferred Procedure Call. You can test it with this software here www.resplendence.com/latencymon. What windows does is prioritize processes/drivers for execution. A manufacturer may write drivers that call for priority regularly in which case your audio interface and DAW will be competing for execution priority with other devices that may not need it. This issue becomes less solvable with all in one computers such as laptops and small form factor machines because you are at the mercy of the manufacurer. With a desktop you can swap out components or try different drivers. DPC is still an issue but it is getting less and less so. I recommend staying away from last generation Dell XPS laptops as they are know to have this issue. It is also worth noting that occasionally Windows update breaks something and results in High DPC. All this to say the higher your DPC the more pops and crackles you will experience. svart congrats on the new machine. Lenovo makes quality gear.
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Post by Guitar on Oct 15, 2020 12:59:45 GMT -6
Thanks Benjamin, for the detail. I noticed my NVidia drivers sometimes impact DPC latency, the issue there is I sometimes do video editing. Maybe there is some better GPU I could use that would cooperate more with DAW performance. The card works with generic drivers but I'm not sure if it works in the same way with Premiere or not. This computer isn't that great at video anyway. It's a very good performer in Cubase, though.
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Post by BenjaminAshlin on Oct 17, 2020 20:08:58 GMT -6
Thanks Benjamin, for the detail. I noticed my NVidia drivers sometimes impact DPC latency, the issue there is I sometimes do video editing. Maybe there is some better GPU I could use that would cooperate more with DAW performance. The card works with generic drivers but I'm not sure if it works in the same way with Premiere or not. This computer isn't that great at video anyway. It's a very good performer in Cubase, though. NVidia drivers do have this issue. I would try a different version of the driver. This can also come down to the hardware/motherboard its self. Sometimes the PCIe/USB/onboard-audio can share an IRQ which would could cause interrupt issues.
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