Latency - Noob - and Instability

[mixedmindz]

Ok, so I have latency issues when working in Ableton.
I just want to overdub! And I'm pretty sure something must be wrong.

(Scope 5.1, Windows7 x32, pulsar2, 6DSP, ASIO2 x64, Ableton 9.1)

I'm seeing ~25ms in and out for a roundtrip of ~50ms.

People have recommended changing my buffer in ableton (grayed out at 256 in Ableton Audio Settings Page)

I've also read about changing ULLI (not sure how to do this.

Is there some .ini file I need to edit for this stuff?

I found this recommendation @ sonic-core:
"or an audio PC (with little ASIO latency) you have to do some adjustments, because Core i7, i5, i3 PCs can have ASIO clicks even with little CPU usage and 25ms latency. At least you should deactivate the following settings in you PC BIOS :
• Intel EIST
• Intel C State
• C1E Support
• Overspeed Protection
• Hyperthreading
• Execute Bit Support
• Set Limit CPUID MaxVal to 3 (maybe not important)
• Intel Virtual Tech
• Intel VT-d Tech
In addition the energy save settings of your operating system should be set to maximum.
"
(so turn off every Intel feature? is AMD better for a PC built around Scope? [kills me to disable HyperTheading])

Stability Issue:
I think this may be RAM related, basically, sometimes when I switch back from another App and click in Scope, it goes not responding, I have to kill it, relaunch and reconnect Ableton to the Driver.
I only have 3GB of RAM and am running Ableton.
Does anyone else see problems like this?

Many thanks for any advise!

-MM-

[Immanuel]

You need to change the ULLI settings. I highly recommend the manual. You will save a lot of time, by spending some time with that document

[garyb]

wow, from the beginning...

ASIO latency cannot be changed in the control panel as with a windows soundcard. it's controlled in Scope in the ULLI dialog. set\settings\ULLI

turning off those Intel "features" in no way disables your processor. in fact, those features are mainly power saving. most of them involve the Processor being mostly powered down at idle and then when an app needs the cpu to do something, power is ramped up. this is great for power saving, but fatal to a realtime system like Scope. the card cannot wait for windows to decide to power up the cpu.

the other type of "feature" being disabled is hyperthreading and turbo. these use virtual cpu cores to improve performance. unfortunately, this does nothing for realtime audio. a virtual core must be calculated by a real core. for internet and typewriter and video games, these things may improve performance. they are useless for your audio, however.

you cannot switch to a different Scope project, change the ASIO or midi driver type or number of channels with your sequencer or other host app open. this is because when these apps open, they profile the hardware available. if you change this, the host app cannot recognize the changes because the process is not dynamic. just close the host app first and you shouldn't have any more problems with hangs.

lots of good info here:
http://www.hitfoundry.com/archives/
the articles for other sequencers will help since all of them are similar.

[mixedmindz]

Thanks for the quick replies!
I will try this evening.

[mixedmindz]

Thank you thank you thank you!
that ULLI setting was it.

I haven't done any of the other steps.
round trip latency went from 50+ms to 5.6ms!

btw, I looked for a manual, but found only a pretty simple 4.5 manual online.

should I be looking somewhere other than sonic-core?

Anyways, now back to the fun part. (making music)

-MM-

[garyb]

it's under the question mark "?".