Freezing

Scott Majestik · Post by **Scott Majestik** » Thu Jun 03, 2004 12:38 pm

On 2004-06-03 04:15, Plato wrote:
hmm, strange.....what's your system, Scott ?

Asus P4C800E - Deluxe
P4 2.8Ghz CPU
1 Gig 400Mhz DDR Ram
Matrox P650 Graphics
Pulsar II
Scope SRB
Windows XP Home
Cubase SX 2
Scope 4.0
The system has been tweaked for audio

One thing I have noticed is when Scope and Cubase are running and I move inbetween the programs I can check the cPU usage with the little icon in Cubase, the little red light keeps flashing alot (as though it's clipping)but the meter never moves up.

When I open up task manager and I move my mouse cursor about when I have Scope in the foreground the cpu level jumps all over the place.

With how I have set it up now when I open up the mixer in Scope it works fine, if I move the mixer around then the sound cuts outs but once I leave it alone the sound plays fine.

At least the sound doesn't jump everywhere and glitch once I go back into Cubase and I can actually write some music. i just dread it when I get lots going in Scope cos I fear my system is just not gonna be able to cope.

fidox · Post by **fidox** » Thu Jun 03, 2004 12:47 pm

but i have problems when using Modular III or Modular II, i get blue screen sometimes and i remember that also in version 3.1 and with my old comp.setup, Flexor works much better, didn't have problems loadind modules so far,
but also i'm little confused with my Cubase - sequencer sometimes,
yesterday i was doing one track and everything goes fine, but then today i was working on another track and when playing midi i hear lost notes, like there's no notes playing (bass line - just one note at one channel)like something has taking away my notes, but i see there notes,
also i have USB midi controller, which sucks...should get one old keyboard with midi in + out, because when i play on midi controller and record in Cubase notes, there's quite big delay between when i play and when i see recorded notes, so this is uselless, when i play live there's no delay between i press the keyboard and hear the sound, i'm 100% that USB do this....
ok, i hope i was understandable....
i'm angry about Cubase today, so that's why i write so lots of nonsense....

have all nice time ! btw

matej

Plato · Post by **Plato** » Thu Jun 03, 2004 12:59 pm

Hey, Scott, except for the mobo & graphics card, you've got EXACTLY the same set-up as me....
A few things I have done off the top of my head:
BIOS -
set AGP aperture to 256MB;
disable USB 2/Onboard sound/Network etc;
set PCI Latency to 64.
GRAPHICS PROPERTIES -
Disable all hardware acceleration, themes & effects;
SERVICES -
Disabled anything I know I don't need;
REGISTRY -
Give IRQ 8 priority etc.....see pcaudiolabs.com for some good tweaks (don't do 'disable short name creation' though.)
SCOPE -
use 13ms latency.

My system is smooth as a baby's nether region. There are other things I've done but can't remember right now.
Have you done all these?.....I think the graphics-related stuff is V important to stop the behaviour you describe.

[ This Message was edited by: Plato on 2004-06-03 14:00 ]

Scott Majestik · Post by **Scott Majestik** » Thu Jun 03, 2004 2:17 pm

On 2004-06-03 13:59, Plato wrote:
Hey, Scott, except for the mobo & graphics card, you've got EXACTLY the same set-up as me....
A few things I have done off the top of my head:
BIOS -
set AGP aperture to 256MB;
disable USB 2/Onboard sound/Network etc;
set PCI Latency to 64.
GRAPHICS PROPERTIES -
Disable all hardware acceleration, themes & effects;
SERVICES -
Disabled anything I know I don't need;
REGISTRY -
Give IRQ 8 priority etc.....see pcaudiolabs.com for some good tweaks (don't do 'disable short name creation' though.)
SCOPE -
use 13ms latency.

My system is smooth as a baby's nether region. There are other things I've done but can't remember right now.
Have you done all these?.....I think the graphics-related stuff is V important to stop the behaviour you describe.

[ This Message was edited by: Plato on 2004-06-03 14:00 ]

Thanks Plato.

I had already done all the tweaks you mentioned apart from the AGP aperture size.

Are you overclocking at all ???

dbmac · Post by **dbmac** » Thu Jun 03, 2004 2:32 pm

Disabling HW acceleration on an AGP card is a bad idea, but turning off all other Matrox options is good.
BTW, this is being discussed on the SX forum:
http://forum.cubase.net/forum/Forum2/HTML/066118.html

Try setting SX to High priority and Scope to low. You do this in task manager, right click the process you want to adjust.
If your project has a heavy CPU load, you'll always get playback glitches if you drag windows around in the Scope display - the screen redraws are using the CPU. SX=high priority and Scope=low might relieve this, but it will slow down the graphic updates in Scope.

/dave

[ This Message was edited by: dbmac on 2004-06-03 16:20 ]

Plato · Post by **Plato** » Thu Jun 03, 2004 3:23 pm

Well I know the theory is that hardware acc takes load off the CPU, but in practice I'm sure it doesn't help with Scope - maybe it actually adds to PCI data flow ???...believe me I've tried every combination: all I know is with it disabled I can do as much on-screen stuff as I like without a single crackle.....even if I grab a module and fling it round the screen at high speed whilst recording to SX!

dbmac · Post by **dbmac** » Thu Jun 03, 2004 4:12 pm

Interesting, it's the opposite with my system and Matrox G400 dual AGP video.
What video card do you use?

/d

Plato · Post by **Plato** » Fri Jun 04, 2004 2:55 am

ATI Radeon 7000

Sean_Middleton · Post by **Sean_Middleton** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 1:45 am

One other thing that may be worth noting is that when I set ACPI to ‘standard – non multiprocessor’ SFP works fine but at anything more than 3 stereo ASIO channels (using the new ASIO 1 -32 in 24 bit mode with Logoc 5.5.1) I get very regular ASIO overloads. If, however I set the SFP application to a priority of ‘lower than normal’ then SFP works like a dream. I can run 12 stereo 24 bit ASIO Sources and 12 24 bit ASIO Dests through logic without any ASIO overloads at all. This is on a 3 GHz HT P4 with 2 GB RAM. Works like a dream.

Use Task Manager and right click on the SFP.exe programme and select lower than normal priority. You can set the SFP application to start-up automatically in low priority by adding the appropriate switch code after the programme name in Start-Up (cant remember what the switch code is - anybody help ?)
I notice that there is some clash between my display (Matrox Parahelia with 2 screens) and SFP. What happens is that whilst hammering away with all those 24 x 24 bit ASIO channels going in and out of Logic if I use the mouse to franticly reposition the SFP mixer window around the screen then momentarily Logic halts screen updating although the audio still gets sent properly over ASIO (unless I go real crazy moving the mixer window and then ASIO overload will sometimes appear).

Obviously the AGP cards need to refresh the display can interfere with the PCI bus allocation to the Pulsar II and ASIO gets momentarily stalled. If you experiment with the ‘AGP aperture’ allowance in your BIOS you can almost eliminate this problem. Not that it’s not a major issue just don’t mess around too much moving windows like crazy when recording. In my case the AGP aperture is best set to 64MB. ASIO performance is also much affected by the ‘Delayed Transaction’ setting in the BIOS. This is the amount of time that any particular PCI card is allowed to exclusively hold on to the PCI bus. In my set up at present I have only the Pulsar so I set this to 128 (ms) so the Pulsar gets to hog the PCI bus. When I add in my Terratec MT88 (great card never fails – ever !) and some other PCI cards maybe I will need to play with this setting but for now I’m just running the Pulsar.

I have over clocked the PCI bus to 38Mhz without any problems at all, I would try higher than this but my PCI clock speed is linked to the AGP clock and I don’t want to overdrive the Matrox. I am using a Gigabyte 8KNXP MB – excellent MB with flexible BIOS.

Don’t forget that a lot of BIOS’s don’t show their advanced features unless you type Cntrl F1 at the initial BIOS screen (perhaps other codes for different BIOS’s check you manual carefully). For example unless you do Cntrl F1 you don’t get to see ‘AGP aperture’ etc etc.
Sean

Plato · Post by **Plato** » Tue Jun 08, 2004 4:16 am

What exactly is over-clocking ? (excuse my ignorance)

Micha · Post by **Micha** » Tue Jun 08, 2004 6:34 am

whatever device you run faster as specified. Most common with processors. Started with these old boards that had jumpers to configure the clock speed. So you tried: if this one runs with 33 I try to set the jumpers to 40 (MHz) (= over clock) and see what happens. Sometimes overheat occurred (60->75), processor died, a lesson to be learned. And sometimes you've won "the fastest board under the sun". Well, for a few days...

Plato · Post by **Plato** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 2:05 pm

Ah, I thought as much.
Is there any point running that risk now, given that modern processors are so fast anyway ?

Sean_Middleton · Post by **Sean_Middleton** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 9:41 pm

Maybe not, given that CPU's are pretty fast these days, but you can squeeze an extra 10% without any risk so why not ? Extreme over clocking is very likely to result in crashes or damage (say >25%) so I don’t go there but I can run my machine as hard as I like at 15% over clocked speed without error or damage. Most modern BIOS’s have CPU temperature measurement built in and you can view CPU temperature from one of the BIOS screens. You can also configure the BIOS to shutdown the machine automatically if the CPU temperature exceeds a preset value. Utilities like Sis Soft Sandra enable you to constantly see CPU temp whilst in Windows if you think that’s necessary. I don’t bother with anything fancy I just set clocks to +10 to 15% and no problems at all. In fact Creamware, in their Pulsar manual, make reference to over clocking and tentatively suggest that their boards will run happily at PCI bus speeds of 38Mhz (+15%), though they make no guarantees of course. My view is that if the machine works reliably and keeps its cool at +10 or +15% then why not !

On 2004-06-09 15:05, Plato wrote:
Ah, I thought as much.
Is there any point running that risk now, given that modern processors are so fast anyway ?

Plato · Post by **Plato** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 3:11 am

OK, so how do you actually do it ?

Sean_Middleton · Post by **Sean_Middleton** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 10:34 pm

Plato
Just enter your machines BIOS at boot up (press 'Del' during boot typically)and then navigate to the "Timings" or "advanced Chipset features" page. Different BIOS manufacturers use different page names but its the page where clock frequencies will be listed. There should be an entry for 'Auto" or "Manual" somewhere on the page near the top. The title of the option will be related to 'clocks or 'frequency' or something like that. Set it to manual and the optional fields will then no longer be greyed out and will become highlighted. Now you can change them. I suggest that you increase your CPU clock but just 5% initially and later do 10% or 15% if all is OK. The normal base clock frequency for a 3Ghz P4 is 133 Mhz and you should see this (less if you have less than a 3Ghx P4 obviously) on the page initially. Change it to 145Mhz.

Your MB may also have the option to change PCI clock (normally 33 Mhz) so up this to say 37 Mhz initially also.

Exit the BIOS (saving the changes !) and machine should reboot and run about 10% faster. I am assuming in all of this that you have a MB which has these options and that you have a good quality cooling fan on your CPU and in your machine.

Run the machine for a week or two and if there are problems drop the speed back a bit if no problem you may want to increase it a little. I find 15% over clock works fine and I don’t push it beyond that.

In a modern BIOS you should have a page which will show you the running temperature of your CPU. 50 deg C is pretty normal and higher than 60 is not so good. Higher than 72 and you will have a reduced life CPU, possibly very reduced ! Mine runs at 50/51 with 15% over clocking and that’s fine.

Symposium over - good luck. Theres stacks of web pages out there on this subject

On 2004-06-10 04:11, Plato wrote:
OK, so how do you actually do it ?