PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

Smiley wrote:...Bassdude, no I havent checked in the other system with the scope pro. And no I didnt do a full os re install. I did however completely remove all references to the previous Scope software (4.0) and install 4.5 with mix n master pack....

well, I just dropped into this and haven't read the full story, but since I installed a clean 4.5 under Win2K there seems to be occasional loss of sync in my system, too.

VDAT seems to have become a very sensible bitch (so to say) and whenever I add the STW Ambience the system seems to loose and regain sync.
It's definetely different than in the former Win98 installation (which I still have on another disk)

imho there's evidence that software alone may be responsible for something that almost looks entirely like a hardware issue.

cheers, Tom

Hey there Smiley. As I've mentioned I'm having pretty much exactly the same problem as you as far as I can tell.

Just so you know, my Pulsar 1 card was installed on a brand new computer ie a completely clean system install & I've had this problem from day 1.

I've tried most of the same things you've tried.

You're not alone. I hope & pray a solution is just 'round the corner.

Thanks to all those who have suggested possible solutions.

When I asked what driver you're using in Soundforge, I mean exactly what driver and settings? Saying 'wav' driver actually means many things, as the 'wav/mme' has changed several times over the years (first with win98SE & win2k, and now again with Vista) and some also refer to directsound as 'wav' although it's an entirely different application interfce (API).

Each 'wave' driver format has different options that can impact performance, and so there are ways to attempt to correct issues.

Bassdude. Rebuilding the system isnt an option for me right now, but I appreciate what you are saying. This problem occurred on a completely "new system". ie, brand new parts, MB, chip, memory, hd, vga etc. and it was a fresh install of XP pro too. Also, see Malascopes post ref clean systems.... big thanks for your interest and suggestion though.

Astroman, thanks for your post, I hope its a software thing too

Malascope, thanks for the thought dude. We'll crack it in the end, keep me updated on anything that seems to affect it, I will post here anything that I find makes a difference.

Valis, Thanks for the post, but sorry to say I am none the wiser for your description I appreciate that drivers for hardware have changed over the years...but I dont understand the way you are relating this to soundforge. On V5 the only reference to drivers I can find is the wave settings in the preferences page. (see attached jpg) is this what you mean. As I understand things, Soundforge, being software, uses the drivers of the hardware, in this case Scope, to utilise it's inputs and outputs. Ref Direct sound, to quote the Scope manual " There is no Direct Sound dest module, as this interface is defined as unidirectional. Communication is possible from a Direct Sound source to the SCOPE Fusion Platform, but not the other way." Ummh, so I don't think I am getting your point .
Particularly with XP, the system simply should not require a great deal of tweaking to get it to operate. In my experience things only get tricky when trying to use multiple cards from different manufacturers. With a clean install of OS, Scope and Soundforge it should be minimall effort to achieve a working (though not neccesarily reliable) DAW. My first card, Pulsar 1, installed like a dream on to a P3 450mhz running win98se without issues...I have followed the PC upgrade path intermittently, swapping to AMD for a while and never experienced any problems with a lone Pulsar. Can you try explaining it a different way as I could have a gap in my understanding of things.

Garyb, I am presuming you havent come across this issue with your DAW builds, is that right? I ask because everything seems to point to an issue with latest generation boards/chipsets....and you seem to be the guy on this forum with a lot of experience of current DAW builds in particular. Any further ideas would be appreciated. Can you point me to any URL's that explain the finer points of digital sync?

Thanks again to all that have posted on this thread and particularly Planet Z for providing this fine service for us all.

I went into some detail because I don't have Soundforge 5 here and couldn't see what settings were available, your screenshot helps but there are also other factors that may affect things (some examples have been mentioned through this thread).

Also the 'directsound' module that comes with Scope is to be ignored completely. This was intended to allow sound to be routed from an onboard chipset or sblive type card into Scope, and hasn't worked since Win98. When I referred to directsound I meant as an API (something programmers care about) which might be an option in SF 5. For instance in winamp you have the choice between Wav/mme and 'directsound' output modules, wav/mme will yield far better results with a scope card.

Can you also post up a routing screenshot to compare to that settings panel? Ie, 24bit wav drivers or 16bit etc.

"try to open 24bit" might be good to check, adjusting the lower 2 buffer and preload settings might really help.

Unfortunately I have the EXACT same problem with clicks and crackles (not the white noice). Its impossible for me to develop anything - its driving me crazy. I have done almost anything to get a stable performance from the wave drivers.

1 New install of Windows XP SP2 (several times with different settings)
2 Disabled almost all devices on the motherboard
3 No IRQ sharing
4 Tried 3.1c and 4.0 drivers
5 Tried Double Dawg
6 With and without RAID (bought an Areca 1231 incl 1GB cache)
7 Did every single optimization trick found on this forum
8 Tried every single combination of BIOS settings

So if anyone have a solution for this problem please come forward

Cheers

what about buffer and preload settings?

I have tried every single setting of preload. In Audition I have used the standard setting and the following :

Total Buffer Size = 2 seconds, using 16 buffers

Wave Cache Size = 32768Kbytes

Cheers

(1) try almost every other pci slot for the scope card
(2) disable onboard mainboard sound
(3) disable network card ( or onboard network ports) -> at least for testing

avoid heavy usb transfer.
like an audio usb interface running in parallel. or something similar


I don`t know if one of the things above can help.

Just wanted to mention these options.
These kind of problems suck, I know this !

To me it sounds like an interupt problem.

Hi,

The Asus P5W64 WS only have two PCI slots - And both are used for Scope/Pulsar cards. I tried changing position and number of cards, but without succes.

The onboard sound card is already disabled including USB - So nothing is connected to the USB ports.

I have disabled the PCI based onboard network and only using the PCIe based onboard network - I haven't tested without network yet - but'll do that today.

Cheers

have you checked for shared irqs?

Yes I did. No IRQ sharing.

There's no problem if I use ASIO drivers - only wave drivers.

As far as I remember, the last cw driver version exhibited such behaviour here as well (not shure if exactly this behasviour, but it was unusable). So I used the driver version before the last one. However this one always stuttered, when a stream was started (i.e. hitting play on WinAmp).
I'm back to Win98 since a longer time because of that (and the faster screen redraws on dual-monitor setups).
Maybe using a previous driver version helps ?

best
Wolfgang

For me it has seemed to be due to the wave player (not any bios/window setting will change anything). As said Wolf, sometimes ity happenned. For me it is not winamp, but was due to "my space" player a few weeks ago, or to the availability of the wave driver when starting play (for ex: closing scope while some wave is playing, and starting scope again, could cause the ill-wave-play).

Now it is ok again. In general, my wave driver works fine (xp sp2). can't really tell you why except the above (related to wave application or start/stop instructions...)

wolf wrote:As far as I remember, the last cw driver version exhibited such behaviour here as well (not shure if exactly this behasviour, but it was unusable). So I used the driver version before the last one. However this one always stuttered, when a stream was started (i.e. hitting play on WinAmp).
I'm back to Win98 since a longer time because of that (and the faster screen redraws on dual-monitor setups).
Maybe using a previous driver version helps ?

best
Wolfgang

Hi Wolfgang,

You are absolutely right.................

Its working, but as you said - every time you pause in Audition, MediaPlayer or any thing related to the wave drivers its stuttering. But there's no problem if you stop instead............................... So it IS a driver problem.

Version 1.50.0.0 [18-09-2001] - The only problem is stuttering when pausing.
Version 1.50.10.0 [07-05-2002] - Problems with recording and playing.
Version 1.50.12.0 [xx-xx-xxxx] - It is the exact same driver as 1.50.10.0 and therefore have the same problems.
Version 1.50.17.0 [30-10-2002] - The same problem as above.

Does anyone know where I can kind additional drivers - preferable between 1.50.0.0 and 1.50.10.0

Thank you Wolfgang.

Cheers

I am not exactly sure, but I compared the two drivers, the one that comes with sdk and the one that comes with scope 4.5 and the sdk driver seemed a bit newer than the official 4.5 driver.

So you could try switching between these two and maybe all your problem will get fixed.

I never use the wave drivers for recording, so its not unlikely that I haven`t seen this problem yet.

Excuse my ignorance but is the solution here to revert to Win 98 & use a Scope vsn earlier than 4.5?

i don't know. i just recorded a mix into sam from cubase with wav drivers and they were perfect. my mix used 21 dsps. i'm using xp sp2 and v4.5...

Hi Folks,

Excellent news regarding the 24bit wave dest module

When recording in to Sound Forge from the 24bit wave dest module, set sound forge recording file to 32 bit

No more crackles or pops, and as far as I know the file is fine.

Hope this is helps.

Smiley.