PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

HI!

i buyed a new computer and installed my pulsar1 and SRB-1 -card and everything and i´ve got problems!

-when i use bigger projects with masterverb-classic, playing or recording wav files is not possible. it crackles like hell.

-even if i remove masterverb still a clean recording (in sounforge) is not possible, ESPECIALLY not when cubase sx is running in background.

-when i switch to pulsar windows and move some devices, cubase crackles.

very bad! i´m used to work like this. having soundforge open in background, working with sequencer in foreground and testing/recording and editing sounds in soundforge while sequencer is playing...

the specs:
Asus p4p800-E deluxe
intel 2,8 GHZ fsb400 CPU
512MB DDR400 corsiar valueselect RAM
s-Ata 120 Gig Drive
benq DW 822A DVD RW

pulsar1 card in pci-socket5
pulsar SRB in pci-socket4

Winxp
cubasesx and others

also very funny (ermmm, annoying!): when i play a soundfile in soundforge while cubase is stopped, the system-monitor shows a 60 (60!)% usage of the cpu!!! what the hell??? before this was the easiest task my older comp could do!!

what is this? the drivers? the irq´s? how to change them in win-XP. how to avoid irq-sharing?
the srb-card shares irq 20 with ieee 1394 bus hostcontroller. now i´ve disabled it but does not help.
the pulsar card uses irq 21 alone.

puuh, hope someone can help me!!

thanks

Dan

This sounds like the ACPI + PCI Latency problem. It has been discussed a lot on this forum. Search for PCI Latency.

ok i´ve read them. doesnt help to set the pci latency to 128..
i dont think that this is the problem. i´m not using so big environments. just 2 reverbs a mixer, asio16 in/outs a wave source/dest some delays. this worked fine before with a much weaker machine!
i suppose more an irq/winxp/pulsar driver problem or acpi?? or maybe because its a pulsar 1?

but i´m not to familiar with winxp...

There are some settings in Cubase that you could tweak (maybe ppl running Cubase can help you, there is dual CPU support in Cubase and you could enable it if you have ACPI and HyperThreading enabled).


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: BingoTheClowno on 2004-07-23 15:40 ]</font>

On the Pulsar 1 + SRB......

http://www.planetz.com/forums/viewtopic ... &forum=3&6

I find PCI latency at 32 best (P IV + Cubase SX).
Also Win XP in Standard PC mode (Absolutely vital in my set-up, but I have a different mobo [Intel D865PERL])....others will disagree.
Some find setting Scope to low priority in task manager helps.

Make sure your graphics card doesn't share irq with anything, and I set my 'AGP Aperture' to a high level in BIOS (256MB I think, but I've got 1GB RAM - certainly try raising it a bit if it's small)
Getting your Creamware cards on separate IRQs from other gear will help......you'll just have to swap the boards to different slots until you find the right combination....or find a post here from someone with the same mobo.
I disable any unwanted services in XP too,
and do various other tweaks....graphics is a big one - make sure you're not using any windows fx, use the classic theme rather than any fancy new XP ones....
Check pcaudiolabs.com for a load of info (don't do the 'disable short name creation' registry tweak tho')
Good luck.

Bingo AFAIK, the dual processor support thing just comes on automatically in Cubase when it detects the capabilty, rather than being an option so to speak.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Plato on 2004-07-23 17:04 ]</font>

Hi, i had similar problems when i tried to import wavs into cubase. When i pre-listened to them i had terrible crackles. I could solve the problem by decreasing latency in the ULLI settings. Don't know if it's a solution and you may allready have tried this...
Simon

Yes, definitely lowering the ULLI could solve the problem.
Run "msinfo32" from the Run box and check the IRQ sharing (if you have ACPI that won't help much though). What I used to do is, used a bootable CD to freeze the first boot screen that lists the PCI devices as seen by the BIOS. Also, the motherboard manual should state which PCI slot is shared with which or what ( )
prokaion, if you're new to WinXP though, there are a bunch of optimizations that you could do if you're a brave soul

There's so many things that could cause audio crackling and with that motherboard, PCI latency and ACPI are the least likely.
Make sure the CW cards are not sharing IRQ with anything (except each other). This usually requires finding the right PCI slots, or disabling the offending device in BIOS and/or Windows device manager.

512 MB ram is a minimum for your system - there's a possibility you're using up your ram and causing the Windows paging file to come into play. This will cause havoc with audio playback. You can run Windows Performance Monitor to see if this is happening. Also, if your DDR Ram isn't matched properly to your motherboard it may create problems.

You say you're not familiar with XP - have you "tweaked" the system? There are dozens of adjustments to make XP work properly in a DAW setup.

For a start:
http://tweakxp.com/default.aspx
http://www.blackviper.com/
http://www.musicxp.net/
http://www.synsongs.de/tweaks.htm
http://www.opusaudioprojects.net/WinXp.htm

Good luck,

/dave

Before trying a ton of tweaks, try the following setting adjustment:

Go into your control panel, open "Sounds and Audio Devices".

Go to the Hardware page, and find the entry for "Creamware Pulsar" under the list of "Devices", click on it to highlight it and click the "Properties" button (or double click the "Creamware Pulsar" entry) to open the properties window.

Once "Creamware Pulsar Properties" window is open, go to the Settings page and look under the "Wave Setup" section. The Output Preload setting is what you want to adjust, try moving the slider towards Big and seeing if performance improves.

Also I suggest using 24bit wave drivers if you are working with 24bit ASIO drivers. Sometimes under xp a 16bit wav driver will crackle and a 24bit one won't.

cw sharing irq with the video card?
is dma enabled?(it should be automatically)

Hi!

first, thank you all for the lots of answers!! now it will take time till i tested all the possible tweaks!

now the cards share no irqs anymore. (this is what the device manager tells me..) pulsarSRB is irq 20, pulsar 21. i disabled the 1394 ieee hostcontroller in bios.

now i have 1 gig ram (identical corsiar dimms)

yes, i did some of the tweaks. (not all yet) classic windows, no windows fx, cd auto off, the services in background tweak etc...
the problem is, some of the tweaks are more than two years or so old, are they still actual??



the thing with ulli settings: i understand it so, that lower settings are not possible for pulsar 1 ?! doesnt it cost more performance to lower them??
ok i lowered them, but the only thing is the crackles sound different now, he he!

and it has to do something with the masterverb classic, if i use comparable big environments without reverbs it crackles only when i record...

the mutiprocessor thing in cubase, should i disable or enable it??

thanks a lot so far

Dan