Diva on Ryzen

[diaper@ky]

Old drivers.
While the DSP Rack/soundcard runs on any OS or chipset, their ASIO Drivers have not kept up with the various, and too often new chipsets and OS's that haven't really improved much for the last 8 years.
Quite relieved the AMD Chipsets haven't strayed too far from specs of the Z97.
I don't need 20/30 PCI Express lanes.
But even B150 and H170 chips had the x64 Portaudio and error messages.
My soundcard is my live mixer/effects and custom MIDI Devices.

I'd use RME or UAD but their MIDI Automation is incomplete for their mixers and still don't route hardware FX/Hardware synths or Tube pres in real time.
Hopefully in a few years they'll break down and add Automation.

[davidka]

Sorry to bring an old thread alive... I use a Ryzen 3 2400G, mostly for Diva and some NI Instruments (man they're hungry).

I'd like to get more CPU headroom for effecting Diva, and the tech guys reccommended the Ryzen 5 3600. Does anyone have experience - or advice in this topic?
I've heard there was (or is) a latency limit due to architecture - does that also apply in your experience?

[cron]

Sorry to bring an old thread alive... I use a Ryzen 3 2400G, mostly for Diva and some NI Instruments (man they're hungry).

I'd like to get more CPU headroom for effecting Diva, and the tech guys reccommended the Ryzen 5 3600. Does anyone have experience - or advice in this topic?
I've heard there was (or is) a latency limit due to architecture - does that also apply in your experience?

Zen 2 (i.e. the Ryzen 3xx0 series) has pretty much closed the gap when it comes to low latency audio if it's paired with fast RAM that's locked to the Infinity Fabric speed. The Infinity Fabric is the part of the Ryzen architecure that lets cores talk to each other. You can get a 1:1 lock all the way up to 3733 MHz RAM, but I use 3600 as the gains beyond that seem marginal for the price difference.

You'll need to find out if your motherboard supports faster RAM, and you'll need to update your motherboard's BIOS to enable support for Zen 2. After that, a brief trip into the BIOS to enable the XMP profile for your RAM so it runs at its rated speed (it's basically a yes/no switch), then back into Windows to take a quick look inside AMD's own Ryzen Master software to check the RAM speed is looking good and the Infinity Fabric has locked to it.

I appreciate it probably sounds quite daunting if you're not a component nerd, but each individual step is pretty straightforward and probably easier than it sounds. At least you don't need a whole new motherboard!

It's a shame Ryzen needs this kind of careful tuning to get the best from it. While the 3xx0 series is much less sensitive to this stuff than 1xx0 and 2xx0, it's still well worth doing. Bear in mind that your motherboard will probably be compatible with the next generation of Ryzen launching this year (assuming no coronavirus based delay,) so you might like to wait and see what that brings.

edit: Just clocked you're using a Ryzen processor with integrated graphics (i.e. an APU). The 3600 you were recommended doesn't have this, so you'd need a graphics card to go with it. Funnily enough though, AMD announced a barrage of new Ryzen APUs just a few hours ago! I'm not sure if these perform identically to the 'pure' CPU offerings, but if you REALLY don't want to buy a low cost graphics card or can't add one to your system for whatever reason, you'll have more choice once these APUs start filtering into the market - Ryzen 5 and 7 chips with integrated graphics for the first time (they previously topped out at Ryzen 3) among other things. The current APU offering, 3400G, isn't that much faster than what you already have.

[davidka]

You'll need to find out if your motherboard supports faster RAM, and you'll need to update your motherboard's BIOS to enable support for Zen 2. After that, a brief trip into the BIOS to enable the XMP profile for your RAM so it runs at its rated speed (it's basically a yes/no switch), then back into Windows to take a quick look inside AMD's own Ryzen Master software to check the RAM speed is looking good and the Infinity Fabric has locked to it.

My motherboard is: https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/B450M-PRO-M2/
My RAM is 2 x Corsair DDR4 3000 8GB Vengeance LPX CL16

Integrated APU cpus are OK, but I would get a good GTX 1650 card for the new Ryzen cpu.

As I have seen the B450M Pro M2 does not mention specific support for 3rd gen, while the B450M Pro M2 V2 does. I start to feel like I'd also need a new motherboard for this generation switch, even a new RAM clocked at 3600?

I'd like to work with what I currently have if possible. All is to let Diva run wild.

EDIT: Oh hell, I completely forgot about this one,
https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/A ... 3958vs4040

Ryzen 7 2700x (2nd gen) would definitely be compatible with my current board. While there's no fancy RAM OC like with the new ones, I believe the predecessor of this CPU was tested by Urs in the first place. What do you guys think?

[EvilDragon]

Zen 2 (i.e. the Ryzen 3xx0 series) has pretty much closed the gap when it comes to low latency audio if it's paired with fast RAM that's locked to the Infinity Fabric speed.

Yes, if your buffer is at 256 samples or more. No, if your buffer is 128 samples or less.

[SWAN808]

if I was to build (or get someone to build) a machine as a heavy Diva user...would the Ryzen 3600X or 3700XT be the CPU to go for bang for buck? I want to try to hit $1kish...

[EvilDragon]

Go with higher clocked one.

[Scotty]

Zen 2 (i.e. the Ryzen 3xx0 series) has pretty much closed the gap when it comes to low latency audio if it's paired with fast RAM that's locked to the Infinity Fabric speed.

Yes, if your buffer is at 256 samples or more. No, if your buffer is 128 samples or less.

Wasn't the testing showing performance at par at 256 buffers or more for non optimized Ram / Infinity fabric speed? My reading of the posts was that tuning the ram made the gap all but disappear even at lower than 256 samples. I am not arguing ... just questioning my own interpretation of the pictus and ScanAudio posts that I have read.

If you have a different take and you can recall where you read it or what you have personally tested can you add some detail? With thanks. - Scotty

[tehlord]

I recently built a system based around a 3900X

Not a scientific test by any means, but using the init patch, multicore on, 5 note chord looped around one bar, great accuracy.

Around 20 instances before crackling starts inside Cubase 10.5, RME UFX @ 256 samples.

[EvilDragon]

Wasn't the testing showing performance at par at 256 buffers or more for non optimized Ram / Infinity fabric speed? My reading of the posts was that tuning the ram made the gap all but disappear even at lower than 256 samples. I am not arguing ... just questioning my own interpretation of the pictus and ScanAudio posts that I have read.

If you have a different take and you can recall where you read it or what you have personally tested can you add some detail? With thanks. - Scotty

http://www.scanproaudio.info/2019/07/30 ... an-impact/

Scroll down a bit, you can see that CPU is still not 100% utilized at 64 and 128 samples buffer sizes, even with faster RAM (it drops out or glitches sooner than hitting 100% CPU usage).