KVR Audio

Blue Cat Audio · Post by **Blue Cat Audio** » Tue Jun 18, 2019 3:22 pm

We have spent a lot of time trying to get rid of audio dropouts and reducing audio latency on Windows laptops lately (for our own audio applications), and we though it was worth sharing our experience on the topic, as it applies to all audio applications.

We have published a full guide to optimize your Windows laptop for low latency real time audio. There are probably many things people here are aware of, but there are hopefuly a few tricks that you will find helpful.

Enjoy!

Pictus · Post by **Pictus** » Tue Jun 18, 2019 4:27 pm

Not battery charge friendly, but good for audio...

Set Windows Power Plan to ULTIMATE
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/107 ... -10-a.html

Blue Cat Audio · Post by **Blue Cat Audio** » Tue Jun 18, 2019 4:42 pm

Interesting! We'll check this out. As long as you do not operate on batteries, it should not be a problem, and the High Performance power plan is already a battery drainer!

Pictus · Post by **Pictus** » Tue Jun 18, 2019 5:37 pm

More interesting stuff at viewtopic.php?p=7432203#p7432203

Blue Cat Audio · Post by **Blue Cat Audio** » Tue Jun 18, 2019 6:20 pm

Thanks! We'll have to test the "Ultimate Perf Plan" in details but it seems at first sight that there is no difference once you access the detailed settings anyway - sounds like a "marketing plan"

.

Regarding core parking, we haven't noticed performance gains on the laptops (or even desktops) being tested so far. Drivers are usually much worse (especially on laptops) for occasional dropouts, but maybe it's worth optimizing this too if you want to get even lower latencies. Same for C-state, and it is not really an option to disable them in the BIOS on a laptop if you ever want to use it on batteries, unless you keep rebooting all the time!

Kaine · Post by **Kaine** » Wed Jun 19, 2019 2:18 pm

Blue Cat Audio wrote: Tue Jun 18, 2019 6:20 pm Regarding core parking, we haven't noticed performance gains on the laptops (or even desktops) being tested so far.

Nor would I expect you too, core parking is to stop potential micro-stuttering and some audio glitching scenarios.

Blue Cat Audio · Post by **Blue Cat Audio** » Wed Jun 19, 2019 4:52 pm

That's actually what I meant, indeed!

Blue Cat Audio · Post by **Blue Cat Audio** » Mon Feb 27, 2023 3:52 pm

After struggling for days with NVIDIA drivers issues that cannot be solved (yet), it seems that another trick can help solve audio dropouts with faulty drivers with high DPC latency:

Solving Audio Dropouts & DPC Latency Issues With NVIDIA Drivers On Windows

It has only been tried on these NVIDIA drivers but I guess it should be applicable to most other drivers with high DPC latency.

lfm · Post by **lfm** » Tue Feb 28, 2023 10:52 am

Thanks, that was an interesting find.

Things I had in my former daw, 12 years of use
- indentifying various software that has autoupdate and go on internet in between, some even has services for that. Since not online with daw this causes pops to various degree. There are calls for software to use if internet is available, but these features cheap it out. Some I could even time within 10 minutes from login and when I found where to turn off autoupdate it stopped.
- some unknown event I never identified that came 2s after every up-hour of windows. Caused Cubase to restart audio engine, and if recording that stopped as consequence. If happend to be online it never was a problem. So something to do with some service trying to go to internet, maybe network itself or something.

Some things in my current all new daw
- uninstalled Asus AI Suite which was said to maintain performance and other things with fans. But it circumvented windows performance modes, so found that my high performance was set to balanced. Uninstall fixed that.
- there a couple of times a day a micro pop, not dpc related I think having LatencyMonitor going, but nothing on recorded material if going on at the time. It's more like an electronics pop and usually in one ear only. This is a usb interface so will talk to RME eventually if it can become all perfect. They have some v0.9808 driver which tells me it might be beta version not being v1.x something. Could be a single sample disappearing or something. So a minor problem but just a bit annoying.

Blue Cat Audio · Post by **Blue Cat Audio** » Tue Feb 28, 2023 11:04 am

Thanks for sharing your experience. Any process that can interfere with low latency processing is indeed not welcome on an audio machine!

maanga · Post by **maanga** » Tue Feb 28, 2023 1:32 pm

Here is a YouTube video on how to de-bloat windows 11.
May be useful to some.
Regards.

2DaT · Post by **2DaT** » Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:42 pm

Blue Cat Audio wrote: Mon Feb 27, 2023 3:52 pm After struggling for days with NVIDIA drivers issues that cannot be solved (yet), it seems that another trick can help solve audio dropouts with faulty drivers with high DPC latency:

Solving Audio Dropouts & DPC Latency Issues With NVIDIA Drivers On Windows

It has only been tried on these NVIDIA drivers but I guess it should be applicable to most other drivers with high DPC latency.

Try setting "Prefer maximum performance" under Power management mode in NVIDIA control panel, and rebooting afterwards.

It does help, but the disadvantage is that you get increased power consumption. Expect to consume 50W instead of 10-15W. I think setting the separate NVIDIA profile for DAW works and you don't get increased power consumption when not using one, which is a reasonable compromise.

They (NVIDIA) have acknowledged the problem, but nobody knows when the drivers will be fixed. So far this is the only workaround that we have. Burning unnecessary electricity to avoid having audio pops and glitches.

Songwriter101 · Post by **Songwriter101** » Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:49 pm

2DaT wrote: Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:42 pm
Blue Cat Audio wrote: Mon Feb 27, 2023 3:52 pm After struggling for days with NVIDIA drivers issues that cannot be solved (yet), it seems that another trick can help solve audio dropouts with faulty drivers with high DPC latency:

Solving Audio Dropouts & DPC Latency Issues With NVIDIA Drivers On Windows

It has only been tried on these NVIDIA drivers but I guess it should be applicable to most other drivers with high DPC latency.
Try setting "Prefer maximum performance" under Power management mode in NVIDIA control panel, and rebooting afterwards.

It does help, but the disadvantage is that you get increased power consumption. Expect to consume 50W instead of 10-15W. I think setting the separate NVIDIA profile for DAW works and you don't get increased power consumption when not using one, which is a reasonable compromise.

They (NVIDIA) have acknowledged the problem, but nobody knows when the drivers will be fixed. So far this is the only workaround that we have. Burning unnecessary electricity to avoid having audio pops and glitches.

Great idea, I will try this out today

Blue Cat Audio · Post by **Blue Cat Audio** » Mon Mar 06, 2023 11:16 am

2DaT wrote: Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:42 pm Try setting "Prefer maximum performance" under Power management mode in NVIDIA control panel, and rebooting afterwards.

It does help, but the disadvantage is that you get increased power consumption. Expect to consume 50W instead of 10-15W. I think setting the separate NVIDIA profile for DAW works and you don't get increased power consumption when not using one, which is a reasonable compromise.

They (NVIDIA) have acknowledged the problem, but nobody knows when the drivers will be fixed. So far this is the only workaround that we have. Burning unnecessary electricity to avoid having audio pops and glitches.

Thanks for sharing! I have tried pretty much every type of options available in the NVIDIA control panel, but nothing made a difference regarding audio dropouts. The only way to fix it was to force the interrupts to happen on a different CPU core. And now it is working very well, the system can achieve very low latencies without a single dropout!

The problem with these issues is that they are very dependent on the system and its drivers, so it is pretty hard to find solutions that will work for everybody.

Pictus · Post by **Pictus** » Fri Mar 10, 2023 11:22 pm

Blue Cat Audio wrote: Mon Mar 06, 2023 11:16 am Thanks for sharing! I have tried pretty much every type of options available in the NVIDIA control panel, but nothing made a difference regarding audio dropouts. The only way to fix it was to force the interrupts to happen on a different CPU core. And now it is working very well, the system can achieve very low latencies without a single dropout!

Good to know!
I guess you used the Microsoft Interrupt Affinity Tool, I learned from here.

BTW, for anyone interested, the tool is also in the tweaks...
viewtopic.php?p=7624448#p7624448

Optimizing Windows Laptops for Low-latency Real Time Audio