PCI Latency questions.

[_oswald]

Brief history:

I've been having some really weird lock-ups when using my UAD-1 in Tracktion (original post on the matter) and it was suggested that I use a program called DoubleDawg (link) to investigate and change the PCI latencies for the sound card and for the UAD-1.

Present:

I'm still toying with latency values (working out a few more issues, trying to find the 'best' value) and I don't fully understand what I'm doing.

For instance, two devices are displayed in DoubleDawg that seem to be the UAD and my Aardvark LX6. One is a '24bit processor' (or some such) set to 255 (which is listed as the 'default' value on the PCI latency page of the DoubleDawg site) and the other is totally unnamed and set to 248.

My main question is should I set the UAD to be a value 32 lower than the Aardvark because of the PCI_GMT or should I set them identically?

Any information, advice, opinions or Animal Crackers are appreciated.
-Erik

[AndrewSimon]

UAD-1 works great with Tracktion here.
I am down to 1.4ms latency on my soundcard.
Try using "Use Realtime Priority Mode" in Tracktion Settings panel.
That should solve a lot of problems but might create some new ones. (some plugs don't like it so I don't use those plugs)
Do not change any PCI latency settings with DoubleDawg that are music related, only change what's not, mainly Video card (I set it to 64)

Two more important tips:

1 Set Windows priority to background services.

2 Disable all audio and midi , inputs and outputs in Tracktion Setting page that are not in use.
(for example if your sound card has 8 outputs but you only use 2 of them disable the rest)
This helps a LOT.

There is more but I assume you already know about them.
Basicaly you do not want any programs running in the background that are not nessesary.
The big offenders are Virus protection programs, Instant messaging programs and so on.
Also setting the video to 16 bit color will release resources for sound.

[AndrewSimon]

And of course make sure you are clean of any viruses and spyware.

Don't assume , know for sure.

I use Norton from time to time to scan the entire computer and then I remove Norton completely from my system (damn thing runs in the background even if you disable it so I just remove it completely)

For Spyware I use AdAware. (no need to remove when not using)


Also learn to use "msconfig"
Go to START / RUN and type in msconfig

This will show you all the processes that run in the background.
You can disable the ones that are not needed so they won't start up next time you start windows.

You will find all kind of things there.
Just copy the name and do a Google search to learn more about them.
Once you know what they are you will know what to do with them

Do you have any unused Serial,parralel, USB or Firewire ports? Disable them in the bios.

The more you trim these thing the more resources will be available for your music making and the less headaces you will have.

There is no one simple magic bullet but all these little things add up quickly.

[videzyrah]

I looked at this: http://www.mark-knutson.com/t3
and still don't know my ass from a whole in the ground. Let alone how to post clickable links.
oh poop, that's the same link as yours. Anyhow, I'm baffled I got a new computer last year and it doesn't seem to run any faster w/ 512 ram XP compared to 64 MB win98 and trying to f**k with start up and msconfig seems way more daunting.
i'm thinking like i dont need the friggin service pack 2. i got nailed with spyware lookingh at intentional communities' sites. but any more all i lokk at is this f**ker and gainesvillebands.com
i have no friends so i dont get much questionable email attachments.

[vtx]

I'm trying the concept now only with a different app
it sees my video card latency at 248
everything else is 96 so I've set the video down to 96
see what happens with that for awhile