Topic: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

Hello!

I have just purchased UFX+ and need a help configuring it.

The problem is that I have quite bad dropouts with my existent 96/24 project in Sonar. If I increase the Buffer to 1024 then the dropouts disappear. Unfortunately, the latency becomes visible.

Furthermore, I own an old TC Konnekt 8, which is able to run that project without dropouts on my current configuration, even under substantial PC load: multiple VMs, each VM has 30+ tab browser, messengers, dev environment, etc. And Konnekt 8 handles buffer size = 512 just fine. But Konnekt 8 is Firewire though.

Since my UFX+ is not anywhere near then I probably do something terribly wrong. I even closed all VMs and apps except for TotalMix and Sonar but that did not help at all.

Here is my machine:
- Windows 7, with the latest updates
- Latest RME drivers and firmware
- i7-4790K, m/b Asus Z97A, GTX760, 32GB RAM, 1TB Samsung Pro SSD + HDD, wired 100Mb ethernet, no WiFi.
- USB devices: keyboard, mouse, and UFX+
- No peripherals.

This is what I tried:
- use USB 3 (built-in Intel controller), all other USB devices unplugged from this controller
- use USB 2 (built-in Intel controller), all other USB devices unplugged from this controller

The result wass identical.

- I ran LatencyMon for about a minute, it tells me that everything is OK (green)


Before rushing buying a PCI USB3 controller I would like to identify the issue.
Could you please tell me how I diagnose that? Are there any diagnostics tools, tests, and specific settings to use?

Thank you!!

2 (edited by ramses 2017-11-02 10:38:50)

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

Do the dropouts only happen occasionally ? Or constantly ?

Do you have the same issues with the same project, but with 44.1 sample frequency ?

In regards to LatencyMon measuring:

I wrote it already many times in similar threads. You can find some other threads where this has been described as well. Here again:

For Windows 7 I would take LatencyMon v4.02, which still measures kernel latency timer.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/imcbu6lcac5vg … 2.exe?dl=1
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9h6uoqgcaqqvd … e.md5?dl=1

LatencyMon needs to be run on an IDLE machine, where no application is running! Even avoid mouse movements, which generates additional interrupts for the CPU.

LatencyMon needs to run more than one minute if you want to catch problems maybe caused by automatically started jobs from Microsoft taskmanager, background jobs that wake up for some activity and alike, which all can also happen during a longer recording session. For a 1st good start I would let it run for 10 Minutes and once you got it fine tuned for better values, then for validation maybe 30-90 minutes.

Before measuring, freshly reboot / login and wait for approx 3 minutes, until all startup/background jobs have run.

YOU> I ran LatencyMon for about a minute, it tells me that everything is OK (green)

Which doesnt mean anything. LatencyMon shows green with kernel timer latencies up to 1000 microseconds
if I remember right. Such high values would not be good even if the tool shows green.
And as you record in 96kHz sample frequency your system is even more under stress, as the CPU has to process the double amount of data compared to 44.1/48 and you generate more i/o to/from disk.

While the tool is running I recommend that you make some notes on a paper about the shown values of kernel timer latencies in microseconds. Because the tool shows you only in the 2nd bar the maximum value. But this maximum value is so to say the highest (worst) peak of kernel timer latency. But also interesting is to know
- what was the lowest value your system was able to reach ? On my system 1,75 microseconds
- in what range are often recurring low values ... on my system 5..11 microseconds
- in what range are often recurring peaks values .. in my system there are no often recurring peaks, sometimes 40
- my highest measured kernel timer latency is 123 microseconds

Then please post a screenshot of the measurement in this thread and report the values which I suggested to observe while the tool was running. Yes its boaring to watch 10 min a screen but its required. Sadly the tool doesnt present a graph for these values which would be extremely useful.

Please post also a screenshot of the TAB "Drivers" in LatencyMon.
Sort the values 1st by Highest Execution in ms and make the colum size a little bit narrower so that all is better visiable.

And post the content of the TAB "Stats".

Thanks

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

3 (edited by ramses 2017-11-02 08:33:16)

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

Also pls post a screenshot of your BIOS in regards to energy saving settings usually under INTEL known as
- C-Statess / P-States / T-States
and also
- EIST
- TURBO

You can also look here for my system for comparison (sorry in german, maybe the tabulars and pictures are of use)
http://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/inde … o-X10SRi-F

Other questions:

Do you run your system in High Energy Profile ?

Did you disable CPU core parking ?

As you are using a SSD .. do you record to it ?
If yes, please let AS SSD Benchmark run and post screenshot of results.
One of the objective is to see there also, which driver is being used for SSD and whether the filesystem is properly aligned to the 4k blocks of SSD, otherwise you address 2 cells with 8k on every read/write operation, which is not good for the performance and also doubles the "wear" on SSD cells.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

Did you try already all USB3 ports on the system for the UFX+ ?
Were they all from chipset or do some come from an add-on chip, pls check mainboard description / manual for that.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

Install CPU-Z, on an IDLE system look whether / how the multiplier for CPU clock changes and between which multipliers/GHz it changes.

In one of the TABs of CPU-Z there is a button to create CPU load. Observe again multiplier for CPU clock and GHz of CPU. Which values, does it change ?

I want so see whether your system does change of clock speed and between what values even if you are in High Performance energy profile. This would also indicate that we eventually should perform some changes in BIOS.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

> Since my UFX+ is not anywhere near then I probably do something terribly wrong.
> I even closed all VMs and apps except for TotalMix and Sonar but that did not help at all.

VMs ? Virtual machines ? Do you use the system for virtualization ? If yes which vendor/solution: VMWare, .. ?

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

Thank you Ramses very much! Let me follow your suggestions. I will be adding the results in my next posts.

8 (edited by ramses 2017-11-02 12:00:04)

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

Just to confirm that the UFX+ is capable of handling a severe audio load... Driver Version 0.9612 ...

So it must be something on your system, therefore the many questions, where I hope you answer them completely.

As some of you know I made already a performance test with 400 audio tracks with 44.1kHz,
each track having 2 VST inserts loaded. Even with ASIO buffersize of 32 samples no dropouts.
http://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/inde … cks-de-en/

I changed this project now to 96 kHz .. the audio files become now twice as large and the CPU has more data to process.

But even with 400 Audio tracks @96 kHz I can playback the project without audio loss via UFX+ -> AES -> ADI-2 Pro without any loss at lowest ASIO buffersize of 64 samples, which is the lowest for projects @96kHz.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qxwqrgh2irnxv5a/UFX%2B-400-tracks-96kHz-001.jpg?dl=1

Each of the 400 audio tracks have these 2 inserts loaded:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/84h32pxuc4b0hou/UFX%2B-400-tracks-96kHz-Cubase-2inserts-per-track-002.jpg?dl=1

From taskmanager you can see my systems memory is full and some data has been moved to pagefile.
And you see that the CPU load of all 6 cores / 12 threads of the E5-1650v3 is around 39-55% with average about 45%.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/m2nb7tw7rzi8b76/UFX%2B-400-tracks-96kHz-taskmanager-003.jpg?dl=1

In the RME driver settingsdiaload you can also see 96kHz and ASIO buffer size.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/f4julvipmm5gc2d/UFX%2B-400-tracks-96kHz-RMEdriversettings-004.jpg?dl=1

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

Do the dropouts only happen occasionally ? Or constantly ?

It begins to occur with complexity of the projects. Well, if I play guitar there is no issue. If I have 3-5 track project - there are no dropouts, neither in Reaper nor in Sonar.

However, once the complexity begins to increase the problem start to show themselves. The dropouts are 100% reproducible on that reference project in Sonar. It has 50 tracks, including 15 tracks for drums (about 5/15 are used so most of them are empty). Also, most of the tracks are muted so there are may be 7 tracks really are playing at most. Frankly, I do not understand why the system "thinks" its complex. There is another but smaller project - and the dropouts/crackles occurs there as well - constantly but much rarely.

So there is a tendency.

Do you have the same issues with the same project, but with 44.1 sample frequency ?

I am not sure if I can use mixed frequency in that project. The tracks are recorded with that frequency so they will be played 96/24 anyways, correct? I might convert them all somehow but this is quite a radical downgrade. Besides, the 12 years old Konnekt 8 is capable to handle the project so I suspect the issue is USB (because it cannot be UFX+, can it?)

Further notes:
- CPU load in that ref project is 30-36% - that's just the idle state, no playback or recording.
- Playback can increase it up to 40%
- CPU load is the same for both UFX+ or Konnekt 8, no difference

Let me now run LatencyMon.

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

Simple thing to try. Change the graphics card driver to standard VGA or the included in windows (choose update driver from device manager and choose 2 times choose yourself)

Vincent, Amsterdam
https://soundcloud.com/thesecretworld
BFpro fs, 2X HDSP9652 ADI-8AE, 2X HDSP9632

11 (edited by ramses 2017-11-02 13:53:04)

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

vinark wrote:

Simple thing to try. Change the graphics card driver to standard VGA or the included in windows (choose update driver from device manager and choose 2 times choose yourself)

Good idea, but I would prefer / suggest to gather information 1st before he starts changing the system.

This is IMHO necessary as you need to be able to compare before and after to be able to judge,
how one or the sum of all changes influence the system.

And the simple ample function of LatencyMon, whether its green or not is simply too coarse.

Making a backup of the system (i.e. diskimage with Macrium Reflect) would be a good idea before any change
is being done to the system to make it possible to come back to previous state in a reliable way.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

ramses wrote:
vinark wrote:

Simple thing to try. Change the graphics card driver to standard VGA or the included in windows (choose update driver from device manager and choose 2 times choose yourself)

Good idea, but I would prefer / suggest to gather information 1st before he starts changing the system.

This is IMHO necessary as you need to be able to compare before and after to be able to judge,
how one or the sum of all changes influence the system.

And the simple ample function of LatencyMon, whether its green or not is simply too coarse.

Making a backup of the system (i.e. diskimage with Macrium Reflect) would be a good idea before any change
is being done to the system to make it possible to come back to previous state in a reliable way.

Agreed!

Vincent, Amsterdam
https://soundcloud.com/thesecretworld
BFpro fs, 2X HDSP9652 ADI-8AE, 2X HDSP9632

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

For you a further option would be to connect the UFX+ via thunderbolt, I see your board supports thunderbold
https://www.heise.de/preisvergleich/asu … 06017.html

But 1st you should fix the general problem.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

Thank you Vinark for a hint, I will try it at some point. Before that I indeed would like to collect all initial info as Ramses suggested.

LatencyMon, measure on almost idle machine, just Skype and this browser was running:

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CONCLUSION
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Your system appears to be suitable for handling real-time audio and other tasks without dropouts.
LatencyMon has been analyzing your system for  0:10:02  (h:mm:ss) on all processors in the system.


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SYSTEM INFORMATION
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Computer name:                                        HELIOS
OS version:                                           Windows 7 Service Pack 1, 6.1, build: 7601 (x64)
CPU:                                                  GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790K CPU @ 4.00GHz
Logical processors:                                   8
Processor groups:                                     1
RAM:                                                  32710 MB total


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU SPEED
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Reported CPU speed:                                   3997.0 MHz
Measured CPU speed:                                   832.0 MHz (approx.)

Note: reported execution times may be calculated based on a fixed reported CPU speed. Disable variable speed settings like Intel Speed Step and AMD Cool N Quiet in the BIOS setup for more accurate results.


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
MEASURED KERNEL TIMER LATENCIES
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Highest measured kernel timer latency (µs):           377.045124


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
MEASURED SMIs AND CPU STALLS
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Highest measured SMI, IPI or CPU stall (µs)           0.0


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
REPORTED DPCs
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Highest DPC routine execution time (µs):              477.057793
Driver with highest DPC routine execution time:       ndis.sys - NDIS 6.20 driver, Microsoft Corporation

Highest reported total DPC routine time (%):          0.325621
Driver with highest DPC total execution time:         iusb3xhc.sys - Intel(R) USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller Driver, Intel Corporation

Total time spent in DPCs (%)                          0.472110

DPC count (execution time <250 µs):                   1435578
DPC count (execution time 250-500 µs):                0
DPC count (execution time 500-999 µs):                3
DPC count (execution time 1000-1999 µs):              0
DPC count (execution time 2000-3999 µs):              0
DPC count (execution time >=4000 µs):                 0


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
REPORTED ISRs
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Highest ISR routine execution time (µs):              161.030773
Driver with highest ISR routine execution time:       dxgkrnl.sys - DirectX Graphics Kernel, Microsoft Corporation

Highest reported total ISR routine time (%):          0.096773
Driver with highest ISR total time:                   dxgkrnl.sys - DirectX Graphics Kernel, Microsoft Corporation

Total time spent in ISRs (%)                          0.161721

ISR count (execution time <250 µs):                   864871
ISR count (execution time 250-500 µs):                0
ISR count (execution time 500-999 µs):                0
ISR count (execution time 1000-1999 µs):              0
ISR count (execution time 2000-3999 µs):              0
ISR count (execution time >=4000 µs):                 0


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
REPORTED HARD PAGEFAULTS
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Process with highest pagefault count:                 none

Total number of hard pagefaults                       72
Hard pagefault count of hardest hit process:          70
Highest hard pagefault resolution time (µs):          2950.217663
Total time spent in hard pagefaults (%):              0.000488
Number of processes hit:                              0


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
PER CPU DATA
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 0 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       18.432363
CPU 0 ISR highest execution time (µs):                149.311984
CPU 0 ISR total execution time (s):                   4.524244
CPU 0 ISR count:                                      703945
CPU 0 DPC highest execution time (µs):                477.057793
CPU 0 DPC total execution time (s):                   10.317062
CPU 0 DPC count:                                      678224
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 1 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       4.997062
CPU 1 ISR highest execution time (µs):                152.834626
CPU 1 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.959452
CPU 1 ISR count:                                      45080
CPU 1 DPC highest execution time (µs):                245.854391
CPU 1 DPC total execution time (s):                   3.530980
CPU 1 DPC count:                                      169461
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 2 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       1.556279
CPU 2 ISR highest execution time (µs):                135.726795
CPU 2 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.053923
CPU 2 ISR count:                                      3068
CPU 2 DPC highest execution time (µs):                211.363523
CPU 2 DPC total execution time (s):                   0.180284
CPU 2 DPC count:                                      21531
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 3 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       4.465268
CPU 3 ISR highest execution time (µs):                161.030773
CPU 3 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.70860
CPU 3 ISR count:                                      32526
CPU 3 DPC highest execution time (µs):                238.859144
CPU 3 DPC total execution time (s):                   3.194049
CPU 3 DPC count:                                      178526
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 4 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       1.79570
CPU 4 ISR highest execution time (µs):                130.317738
CPU 4 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.049236
CPU 4 ISR count:                                      3074
CPU 4 DPC highest execution time (µs):                171.184388
CPU 4 DPC total execution time (s):                   0.220853
CPU 4 DPC count:                                      24196
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 5 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       2.858066
CPU 5 ISR highest execution time (µs):                152.654491
CPU 5 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.623343
CPU 5 ISR count:                                      29383
CPU 5 DPC highest execution time (µs):                234.165624
CPU 5 DPC total execution time (s):                   1.912515
CPU 5 DPC count:                                      100083
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 6 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       2.622846
CPU 6 ISR highest execution time (µs):                137.893420
CPU 6 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.235451
CPU 6 ISR count:                                      17705
CPU 6 DPC highest execution time (µs):                210.477858
CPU 6 DPC total execution time (s):                   0.613526
CPU 6 DPC count:                                      87992
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 7 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       3.874437
CPU 7 ISR highest execution time (µs):                151.903928
CPU 7 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.639181
CPU 7 ISR count:                                      30090
CPU 7 DPC highest execution time (µs):                243.167376
CPU 7 DPC total execution time (s):                   2.781961
CPU 7 DPC count:                                      175568
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________


what was the lowest value your system was able to reach ? On my system 1,75 microseconds

25us

in what range are often recurring low values ... on my system 5..11 microseconds

35..90us

in what range are often recurring peaks values .. in my system there are no often recurring peaks, sometimes 40

110-150us


DRIVERS TAB
How to insert pictures? here is the link to dropbox
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jikbum94x1fcu … s.jpg?dl=0

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

But even with 400 Audio tracks @96 kHz I can playback the project without audio loss via UFX+ -> AES -> ADI-2 Pro without any loss at lowest ASIO buffersize of 64 samples, which is the lowest for projects @96kHz

These are some insane numbers! I'd be happy just to get 512 @ 96/24 like with my old interface.

Did you try already all USB3 ports on the system for the UFX+ ?
Were they all from chipset or do some come from an add-on chip, pls check mainboard description / manual for that.

I did try every USB3 port I have - same results.
According to this page https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/Z97A/ - the m/b has Intel USB3 controller.
Here is the screenshot: https://www.dropbox.com/s/thbtp0du2zqcq … r.jpg?dl=0

I also tried USB2 port - no difference.

I will answer the other question soon, regarding BIOS, etc.

Thank you very much for your help!

16 (edited by ramses 2017-11-03 10:19:27)

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

You should best close all applications when running the tests so that its really an IDLE system.
Especially Webbrowser and Chat applications might keep tcp sessions / network communication open...

And when I see that you have there a high number of DPCs with the ndis driver.

Highest DPC routine execution time (µs):              477.057793
Driver with highest DPC routine execution time:       ndis.sys - NDIS 6.20 driver, Microsoft Corporation

But also with the USB3 driver ... Do you have the DAW application open or why is there so much communication via USB3, this I do not understand.

Highest reported total DPC routine time (%):          0.325621
Driver with highest DPC total execution time:         iusb3xhc.sys - Intel(R) USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller Driver, Intel Corporation

But if your lowest kernel latencies are not below 25us and usually at around
35..90us and 110-150us

Then I assume, that you most likely have not disabled power saving in your BIOS.

How are the settings for C-States (eventually also P-States, T-States), enhanced Halt (C1E) ?
You should disable them all .. sleep / halt states of a CPU cause latencies.

In my blog article there is a table where you can see which sleep state causes which latency.
This can be quite huge: http://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/inde … -X10SRi-F/

EDIT:
You need to completely disable energy saving in the BIOS, C-States, T-States, P-States.
Also C1E needs to be disabled.

The presentation of these values differs a little bit between products. On some systms you can disable them, on some systems you need to limit the energy saving state to C0 (no saving) or at least C0/C1. C1E has to be disabled.

Best is you make a picture with camera and post screenshots of the BIOS page(s) where the settings are displayed to see what the current setting ist.

And please answer the rest of the question, especially what you mean by "VM".

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

17 (edited by alex128 2017-11-04 11:20:56)

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

Also pls post a screenshot of your BIOS in regards to energy saving settings usually under INTEL known as
- C-Statess / P-States / T-States
and also
- EIST
- TURBO

I have Americal Megatrends BIOS. It has C-State setting, which I turned off.

Here are my current, new settings:
BIOS Main Settings
BIOS bbcode test1

BIOS CPU Power management
https://www.dropbox.com/s/j1rircrbjaq05e3/cpu-power-bios-management.jpg?dl=1


BIOS AI Tweaking 1
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ldo384f668egamq/bios-ai-tweaking-1.jpg?dl=1


BIOS AI Tweaking 2
Note here EPU Power Saving Mode, apparently it also improves the performance but when ENABLED. It was disabled by default.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/u3cqzokclyfkmvw/bios-ai-tweaking-2.jpg?dl=1


BIOS AI Tweaking 3
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wakgh4e179zvpx8/bios-ai-tweaking-3.jpg?dl=1


BIOS USB Settings
https://www.dropbox.com/s/q539h1q3p2tmekf/bios-usb-settings.jpg?dl=1


Do you run your system in High Energy Profile ?
Did you disable CPU core parking ?

Yes, I have High Performance plan enabled.
I downloaded ParkControl and set both Parking and Freq Scaling to Disabled
(sorry, now the correct image)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7788rnqaobumsyf/parkcontrol.jpg?dl=1

As you are using a SSD .. do you record to it ?

Yes I do, I had HDD but it's used only as archive, the system/recording/audio storage is SSD.

If yes, please let AS SSD Benchmark run and post screenshot of results.

here they are:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2hfwprmnlfvjvx4/as-ssd-c.jpg?dl=1

One of the objective is to see there also, which driver is being used for SSD and whether the filesystem is properly aligned to the 4k blocks of SSD, otherwise you address 2 cells with 8k on every read/write operation, which is not good for the performance and also doubles the "wear" on SSD cells.

How to check that?


Did you try already all USB3 ports on the system for the UFX+ ?
Were they all from chipset or do some come from an add-on chip, pls check mainboard description / manual for that.

I tried each USB3 and USB2 port, I even tried to remove keyboard & mouse while Sonar was paying - no difference in all cases.
All these USB3 ports apparently belong to the same Intel USB3 controller.
All these USB2 ports apparently belong to the same Intel USB2 controller too.

Install CPU-Z, on an IDLE system look whether / how the multiplier for CPU clock changes and between which multipliers/GHz it changes.
In one of the TABs of CPU-Z there is a button to create CPU load. Observe again multiplier for CPU clock and GHz of CPU. Which values, does it change ?
I want so see whether your system does change of clock speed and between what values even if you are in High Performance energy profile. This would also indicate that we eventually should perform some changes in BIOS.

Yes, my computer was in a balanced mode, not in performance mode. The multiplier was 8-10 in normal regime, under the load it went to 42. After I changed 2 settings in BIOS (C-State=Disabled and EPU Power Management=Enabled -- yes, despite the expectation, it appears to improve the performance when Disabled) the multiplier is constantly on 42 now, regardless of the CP load.


VMs ? Virtual machines ? Do you use the system for virtualization ? If yes which vendor/solution: VMWare, .. ?

Yes, VMWare Player. Never had issues with Konnekt 8, usually 2-4 VMs are running together with Sonar.


You should best close all applications when running the tests so that its really an IDLE system.
Especially Webbrowser and Chat applications might keep tcp sessions / network communication open...

I have all apps closed but the results were even a bit worse this time. I ran it multiple times and did not observe any improvement, the pattern was the same, USB3 driver constantly in the top lines, also the Ms Security Essentials process had the most disk faults. I tried to disable MsSE during the audio tests but that did not seem to affect anything. And yes, I turned off DAW, closed all apps, and turned off audio interfaces while measuring those LatencyMon results.

Now the conclusions:
After following suggestions from Ramses and changing the Power Plan to this: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8kz0u9211zuof … d.jpg?dl=0
and (a) disabling C-State in BIOS and (b) enabling EPU Power Management in BIOS, the situations with dropouts has improved indeed. Now I can run Sonar project with buffer = 512. Both tweaking CPU Parking and disabling C-State in BIOS helped, each contributed its own part. Doing one without another makes the palyback a bit worse. Note that even if I change the Power Plan to Bitsum Highest Performance the results do not get change, i.e. apparently Parking has much bigger effect than Freq Scaling.

However:

1) Now I constantly hear CPU fan working, which is really annoying, considering that I use machine 24x7 and not for music. My PC is now a bit like a jet that is getting ready to take off.

2) I am now able to run Guitar Rig 5 with both Konnekt 8 and UFX+ on buffer=64 and 96KHz - hich is great. Interesting, now I can hear a clear difference between buffer=64 and my regular buffer=512, which I was used to. Of course, now I clearly see that buffer=64 is perfect and buffer=512 is bad smile

Sonar is different - much more demanding than Gutar Rig 5. I wonder if Cubase or any other DAW is better in terms of latency than Sonar.

3) After the changes to Power Profile, TC Konnekt is now able to run one of the reference Sonar projects at buffer=128! This is not possible with UFX+, which even now cannot handle buffer=256. Note that my reference projects have 3-5 Guitar Rig 5 / BIAS FX tracks playing simultaneously + Addictive Drums on 4-5 tracks or so (15 tracks in total). So these are TINY projects in my understanding.

So I still have questions:

1) How come my 12 years old TC Konnekt 8 works better than UFX+ on USB3?

2) It seems that the root of the problem is Firewire agains USB, not CPU. This is where Konnekt beats UFX+.

Does CPU influence USB dispatching? It seems like improving CPU Profile adds a performance boost, which somewhat compensates USB problems but not fixing them.

I.e.:
UFX+ and USB --> improved CPU profile --> CPU gets better, USB stays at teh same poor level == improved overall performance, still worse than Konnekt 8

Konnekt 8 and Firewire --> improved CPU profile --> CPU gets better, Firewire stays at the same great level == improved overall performance, still better than UFX+.

Is that a correct conclusion?

3) In fact, Konnekt 8 did not need all that CPU boosts in order to get running, meaning that CPU is NOT really the issue here. Am I correct?

4) So would it be possible to improve USB without tweaking CPU?

Thank you!

18 (edited by ramses 2017-11-04 11:48:31)

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

I think your machine has simply too much stress for recording.
Doing virtualization with potentially some load on the VMs will not work on your system.

I also use my system for many things, BUT, only one thing at a time, either office, or gaming, or recording, see what I mean ?

And .. you cannot compare and argue with your old interfaces with a handful of channels with the UFX+, which is a 188 channel interface. No mattter how many channels you actually use in your DAW project in the USB3 communication always all 188 channels are active.

SSD alignment is ok, you see it by the performance values themselves, but explicitely by the driver in use printed in green letters.

If your blower start blowing and making noise this is an indication CPU load, heat. Either this is really required because your CPU becomes too hot based on load rr the blower control need adjustment or your blowers are simply (sorry) crap and you need silent blowers for your case and the CPU.

As your system runs now with a high multiplier instantly everything in terms of energy saving issues should be solved. To disable CPU core parking with a desktop PC is fully valid. Steinbergs Cubase does this as well if you activate an options in the settings to use Steinbergs optimized energy profile. Then it overrides the systems energy profile during runtime.
If you do this change with the normal system profile (Highest Performance), then you have the benefits out of it also for other application and when you are recording not using cubase.

I think you should either take care of shutting all the VM stuff down, so that recording can make full use of the systems resources or you should use 2 different PCs. One as Home server for all the stuff that you are doing and one system which is simply optimized for recording.

If you have a PCIe x4- x16 Slot free you could try to get the  Sonnet Allegro and see whether this makes a difference.
https://www.heise.de/preisvergleich/son … 79334.html
This card uses MSIs (message signaled interrupts)
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/window … interrupts

But what you are doing there, recording on a device which seems to be more something like a server with the 4 VMs, that is not a valid basis for a stable recording system.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

19 (edited by alex128 2017-11-04 11:44:27)

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

I have looked at you BIOS settings, mine are not the same.

Is this how I SHOULD set mine?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/heqk2p7urvkhsrj/bios-c-states.jpg?dl=1

This is the entry point for the settings, there are some settings above:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/o2hkyyodprm9w1u/bios-entry-to-cpu-power-management.jpg?dl=1


Do all there (4?) VMs still run when you are recording ?

Yes, for Konnekt 8 they did run however, in the recent tests I did not open them so we can discard VMs for now.

What happens inside of these VMs ? What services / applications are running there ?

Stand-alone VMs, only myself work there. 5-40 open tabs in Firefox, instances of Visual Studio, Slack, Skype, can be trading software but disconnected from the feed -- so there is some load.

Do you have access to these VMs from Internet or from inside of your own LAN ?

No.

20 (edited by ramses 2017-11-04 12:25:55)

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

I added some stuff to my previous posting #18, please re-read (https://www.forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopi … 48#p125648).

I strongly suggest to split it into 2 machines. Or do a parallel installation of Windows for only recording purposes.
The way you use your system now is counterproductive for the purpose of recording without any issues.

You can give it a last try with the Allegro Pro as I wrote as the driver with the MSI might be superior to normal chipset / USB3 driver on your system.

In terms of noise reduction, you can view articles about my own system.
http://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/inde … mponenten/
http://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/inde … -X10SRi-F/
http://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/inde … arrow-ILM/
http://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/inde … al-Design/

If you can turn C-States completely off with one switch, then do this.
With my BIOS I cant do this and needed to tweak several options, you have it simpler with this one switch.

You can eventually get some more robustness out if you disable EIST and maybe let TURBO activated.
In a system where I had much problems I had a lower but 100% static CPU clock.
That was for that system (i7 quad core) perfect.

In my current system I let EIST enabled, so that I have under Win7 the control over CPU core parking and system clock by using park control to tweak each of the Energy Profile to my demands....

EDIT: btw many thanks alex for the many screenshots and information.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

21 (edited by ramses 2017-11-04 12:42:50)

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

Maybe one additional thing from internet developers / VMWare VCPs perspective ...

Every system has a certain base load, generates interrupts etc .. the DPCs issues by an interrupt can not be stopped by the system or process scheduler in any way.

By 4 VMs you generate even more interrrupt / DPC processing for your machine than it has to process by its own. Thats IMHO even worse, compared to simple applications causing CPU and eventually I/O load.
Because the DPCs (low level routines) following an Interrupt, are non-interruptable by the process scheduler.
They can block a CPU for too long.
By this the likeliness increases, that an audio process has to wait for the availability of a CPU core/thread to become available from interrupt processing. This all is very counter productive for a system to catch / deliver audio data from/to an USB port and to process this in time ...

And your system has only 4 cores (and 4 threads which use only the rest of the cores resources to utilize a CPU more)
And has to operate in total up to 5 machines as you say (1 real, 4 VMs).

This can not work out this way if you think over it for a while.

MAYBE on a system with much more cores 8+, it might be possible, but this all is speculation.

The more pragmatic / best practise / "professional" approach is, to optimize a system for audio processing !
This is what the companies do when delivering turnkey systems for audio, ie Xi machines: http://xi-machines.com/de/systeme-audio.php

This is what I did with my PC. Pick good parts and optimize accordingly (not a system "to death").

And the strategy is there clearly:
- stable clock (all energy saving to be disbled)
- deaktivation of CPU core parking
- eventually also deactivation of not required Windows system services that can start jobs that you do not want during a recording session as this increases the likeliness (depending on your audio workload) that you get dropouts.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

Thank you, Ramses, for all your answers.

Yes, I agree that VMs and other apps do not affect recording in a good way smile Of course. And when I was testing UFX+ I had not run VMs. I do not run anything extra and yet UFX+ still cannot reach Konnekt. All I say is that Konnekt 8 did not seem too be affected by VMs. But again - I have not been running VMs with UFX+, it's not capable to run on my idle machine, leave alone VMs.

Having another PC for recording is not an option at the moment.

Truly speaking, I think that my system in general -- i7-4790K + ASUS Z97A + 32GB RAM + SSD drives -- is not bad for audio recordings. I am fine to shut down the unused apps. I have no servers/services running. I am not recording 50 channels simultaneously, I have 5-10 tracks, recording 1 per time so I expected that the flagship RME interface would be capable to do better than being behind 12-years old TC Konnekt 8.

TC Konnekt 8 doesn't require all those CPU tweaks - it just works. While RME interface apparently requires a lot of tuning, and even new hardware - to the extent of buying a new PC! I am not sure if that's what one expects from a flagship.

May be I made a mistake and I should have bought UCX instead... but it has 2 preamps only.

I am going to try Thunderbolt as recommended by RME. That should help me to issue the final verdict.

23 (edited by ramses 2017-11-04 17:20:03)

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

alex128 wrote:

Thank you, Ramses, for all your answers.
Yes, I agree that VMs and other apps do not affect recording in a good way smile Of course. And when I was testing UFX+ I had not run VMs. I do not run anything extra and yet UFX+ still cannot reach Konnekt. All I say is that Konnekt 8 did not seem too be affected by VMs. But again - I have not been running VMs with UFX+, it's not capable to run on my idle machine, leave alone VMs.

1) VMware player is a complex piece of software and it makes changes to various parts of the system.

If I were you I would do a clean parallel installation of Windows 7 and make further observations there.
Esp. now where you seem to have got the BIOS settings right (although I still wonder that your system
is not capable of reaching down 2us). Only then its possible to come to "valid" conclusions compared
to a system where much has been installed incl. virtualization.

2) Sorry, but your comparison with Konnekt 8 is completely invalid. Its only a 12 channel interface.

As we know all from reading the forum USB2 is good for up to 60 channels (see UFX, UFX II).
So the 12 channel interfaces even doesnt put an USB2 interface under fire (even if Konnect 8 is a Firewire interface it doesnt matter much, 12 channels is a little nothing compared to 188).

It can be the case, that the i/o of only 12 channels was still possible under your system, but its not quick and agile enough to get reliably 188 channels via USB3. I assume this has 2 reasons: 1. the current installation of your system with many many software and Virtualization Software 2. potentially still bad drivers and/or bad USB3 infrastructure of your mainboard.
This you need to find out now on a clean Reference Win7 installation where you can fully exclude the impact Virtualization and potentially other stuff ....

So in short: You need to make this new reference installation and observe, whether the problem persists.
Eventually the suggested USB3 PCIe card helps for the already described reasons.

The performance of your CPU is not so far from mine if you look at passmark benchmarks.
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cp … mp;id=2389   Passmark 13572
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cp … mp;id=2275        Passmark 11191
13572-11191=2381, 2381/13572=0,17 = 17%
So your systems performance is from a mixed benchmarks perspective only 17% less compared to my system.

Maybe then you cannot run 400 tracks on your system but something in the range of 300 should be possible at lowest ASIO buffer sizes, if there is not something blocking this on your system.

Therefore my strong recommendation: clean Win7 reference installation. re-measure there. Get the recommended USB3 card with the very good drivers and then you have a good chance to be happy with your UFX+.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

Thank you for your answers and suggestions.

So you do not recommend to proceed with Thunderbolt? You think that USB2/USB3 on my machine is not an issue - but something else?

Actually, an installation of another instance of Windows could be a good idea. That would reduce bad factors down to hardware. I just don't have a free SATA port for a new SSD drive... in fact I do not have an extra SSD too smile Let me see, I might be able to re-use one of the existent drives.

And to your remark about 188 channels - I thought some of them on UFX+ are digital so they are not being transmitted? What's the point to transmit no-signal? Also, even for analog inputs, can't UFX+ detect the inputs are not being used and exclude them from transmission? This way there could be no load on USB2/USB3 at all, just like for Konnekt 8.

Thank you!

25 (edited by ramses 2017-11-04 17:55:23)

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

Sorry I forgot about the possibility that you could install thunderbolt. This is also a very valid option for you as thunderbolt is like an extension of PCIe to outside devices. Yes try this 1st.

Then you need to deploy/install the thunderbolt driver of the UFX+ which btw has again the nice feature of a "pitch" function shall you require it some day for some reason. I only wanted to mention it, not very important at the moment though ...

Simply make some room and/or reduce oversampling (free space) on your SSD, this alone might allow you for a basic Win7 installation which is not huge. A tool which is free of charge and quite nice / reliable: https://www.heise.de/download/product/e … free-70200

But please make a backup 1st with i.e. Macrium Reflect, there is a free version available.

I cannot judge about the quality of your USB2 / USB3 on your machine.
1st of all there is too much installed for my taste.
2nd even on my system I had at a certain point issues with USB3. The Intel C622 chipset alone was unable to handle TWO (!) UFX+, ADI-2 Pro and besides this I have also a RayDAT connected. And what most likely caused issues as well was a connected USB3 4-port hub with connected USB Bluetooth adapter and USB Headset, etc. Maybe the devices influenced each other too much. This problem I could become entirely rid of by using the already recommended USB3 card which has 4 USB3 FL1100 chipsets on the card, so that each of the 4 USB3 ports deliver full USB3 Bandwidth / performance. maybe also the way the driver has been programmed (I mentioned it already) leads to very good results again.

Putting together a PC for audio sometimes requires a little let me say, "experience".
Its not everything the "fault" of driver and interfaces.
Its more to find the proper balance and one thing you should always remind yourself.
Windows is not a real-time OS, drivers (low level routines) can not be interrupted by process scheduler and can block a core. So to build a reliable Audio PC should follow a "best practice approach", to avoild or fix things that are not good for audio. But working with audio has "near real-time" processing requirements.
For some audio interfaces it works maybe on the 1st glimpse better, because they dont have so many channels to transfer.
Or you found a wonderful combination of mainboard / bios / HW / drivers by simply occasion.
The same occasion allows that you buy components which simply suck.

For this reason some people dont waste time and buy a turnkey system (ok this is more applicable for professionals).

You have the luck that RME writes very good drivers and does not trust on communications chips of other companies.
Its all in the FPGA. You only have to concentrate on to get your system into shape.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

For €50 you can get ~128GB SSD which allows installation of Win7 and recording applications.
The already existing SSD you can use then to store data/recording projects.
Then you have even split the OS and Recording related I/O load across 2 SATA ports ...

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

27 (edited by alex128 2017-11-05 15:02:15)

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

I think I am going to install Windows 7 onto the existent SSD, 512 GB Samsung Pro (I will format it before installation). The Windows updates will take a day or so it's not gonna be quick. Actually, would you recommend Win7 or Win10?

Side question: you mentioned UFX+ sends all 188 channels back and forth. I wonder why UFX+ cannot detect that digital I/O is disconnected (in fact it does - No Lock status tells about that) and simply exclude it from the routing? On top of that, they can do the same with analog I/O, excluding the channels if signal is lower than X. Well, user should have an option to enable/disable certain channels if RME cannot detect whether particular channels are used or not.

This way we get the same "10-channel Konnekt 8" setup, don't we? Unless I make a mistake: it's hardly possible that RME engineers have not considered such an obvious technique smile

My point is that I expect a flagship RME interface to be at least equal to "some old 10-channel audio interface" - and yet I do not observe that. I bought UFX+ just to have "all-in-one". I don't mind to pay a premium but I expect to have the maximum set of features.

I will post my observations for a fresh Win7 installation soon.

28 (edited by ramses 2017-11-05 17:35:45)

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

> I will format it before installation

Formatting is completely useless on a SSD and only causes wear on the SSD without any need.
Better repartition the SSD to make some more room at the end by using tools like easeus partition manager free.

Also to think of .. your SSD might require approx 10% free unpartitioned space at the end of the SSD
("overprovisioning") to have enough free blocks when heavy I/O occurrs.

> Actually, would you recommend Win7

Win7 but before doing any Windows update pls change the parameters NOT to install the recommended updates along with important updates. If you remove this option, then only the important updates will be installed (this is whats not possible with Win10 anymore, so its an instantly changing system).

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

29

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

alex128 wrote:

user should have an option to enable/disable certain channels if RME cannot detect whether particular channels are used or not.

The way audio is transmitted over USB (isochronous streaming) does not allow to change the stream content / size in real-time. This would require to change the driver properties (which again is not possible) and then reboot the computer to use a lower channel format.

It was different with PCI and FireWire, there this was possible.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

Win7 but before doing any Windows update pls change the parameters NOT to install the recommended updates

Yes, I have that done.
regarding SSD formatting - I meant a simple format, I think it just destroys the address table and doesn't do anything to the actual content, i.e. no wear occurs.

The way audio is transmitted over USB (isochronous streaming) does not allow to change the stream content / size in real-time.

1) Isn't Iso Streaming disabled by default?
2) There is no need to detect that in real-time. Say if I'd like to disable MADI permanently (or, in general, disable any I/O) then I (un)check the corresponding input/output checkbox in settings and UFX just ignores that input / doesn't send anything to that output. This way we'd save bandwidth and processing time, wouldn't we?
In fact, you guys already do that when UFX+ switches to USB2. You limit the number of channels anyways. It would be good to give user that sort of control, correct?

31

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

You have that control, then use it with USB 2 if that helps (you tried?). 'iso streaming' is disabled for recording 'by default'. You have problems on the playback side, and there only iso streaming exists.

Also this kind of discussion leads nowhwere. On a 'normal' computer it will just work. It does not make sense to add complicated workarounds (for broken systems) that in the end still leave unsatisfied costumers, as they don't fix the incorrectly working computer. Finally you still have the Thunderbolt option, which is there to give an alternative if USB doesn't work. Chances are very high that TB (=PCIe) will work much better.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

Thank you for your reply, Matthias.

then use it with USB 2 if that helps (you tried?

Yes, I did, on my machine USB2 is identical to USB3.

When you say "broken system" - what's your criteria for "being broken"?
Sorry, I do not consider my system to be broken to the extent of not being able to play only 3-4 guitar tracks (Guitar Rig 5 and BiasFX) without constant dropouts on buffer=256 samples with 100% disabled parking.

Frankly, I still do not understand what is broken in my configuration.Whether it's :
- USB3 (and apparently USB2).
- CPU-related issues.
- Windows 7 / BIOS misconfiguration
- misconfigured peripherals
- bad software
- bad hardware

or a combination of those.

Believe me, I like UFX+ and I would like to keep it, hence I am trying to find the flaws in my system that hard.

I will try the same setup on clean Windows 7 and clean Windows Server (if find all drivers).

33 (edited by alex128 2017-11-06 12:49:09)

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

LATENCY on Windows Server 2012R2

I have installed Windows Server 2012R2 on a separate SSD partition. There were some issues though:
- could not install LAN driver for Intel I218V Ethernet controller, so there was no network
- no NVidia driver, i.e. only a standard VGA driver

I measured latency on a clean system, even RME software had been shut down.
Minimal kernel timer latency: 4.8us
average was around 5-8, pretty stable around 6, rare peaks at 15-20

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CONCLUSION
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Your system appears to be suitable for handling real-time audio and other tasks without dropouts.
LatencyMon has been analyzing your system for  0:10:01  (h:mm:ss) on all processors in the system.


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SYSTEM INFORMATION
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Computer name:                                        WIN-JJK5UAC3N1D
OS version:                                           Windows 8 , 6.2, build: 9200 (x64)
CPU:                                                  GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790K CPU @ 4.00GHz
Logical processors:                                   8
Processor groups:                                     1
RAM:                                                  32710 MB total


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU SPEED
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Reported CPU speed:                                   4000.0 MHz
Measured CPU speed:                                   828.0 MHz (approx.)

Note: reported execution times may be calculated based on a fixed reported CPU speed. Disable variable speed settings like Intel Speed Step and AMD Cool N Quiet in the BIOS setup for more accurate results.


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
MEASURED KERNEL TIMER LATENCIES
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Highest measured kernel timer latency (µs):           35.584009


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
MEASURED SMIs AND CPU STALLS
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Highest measured SMI, IPI or CPU stall (µs)           1.7920


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
REPORTED DPCs
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Highest DPC routine execution time (µs):              119.4050
Driver with highest DPC routine execution time:       ntoskrnl.exe - NT Kernel & System, Microsoft Corporation

Highest reported total DPC routine time (%):          0.028492
Driver with highest DPC total execution time:         rspLLL64.sys - Resplendence Latency Monitoring and Auxiliary Kernel Library, Resplendence Software Projects Sp.

Total time spent in DPCs (%)                          0.062093

DPC count (execution time <250 µs):                   440968
DPC count (execution time 250-500 µs):                0
DPC count (execution time 500-999 µs):                0
DPC count (execution time 1000-1999 µs):              0
DPC count (execution time 2000-3999 µs):              0
DPC count (execution time >=4000 µs):                 0


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
REPORTED ISRs
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Highest ISR routine execution time (µs):              13.3350
Driver with highest ISR routine execution time:       storport.sys - Microsoft Storage Port Driver, Microsoft Corporation

Highest reported total ISR routine time (%):          0.000465
Driver with highest ISR total time:                   storport.sys - Microsoft Storage Port Driver, Microsoft Corporation

Total time spent in ISRs (%)                          0.000467

ISR count (execution time <250 µs):                   3272
ISR count (execution time 250-500 µs):                0
ISR count (execution time 500-999 µs):                0
ISR count (execution time 1000-1999 µs):              0
ISR count (execution time 2000-3999 µs):              0
ISR count (execution time >=4000 µs):                 0


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
REPORTED HARD PAGEFAULTS
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Process with highest pagefault count:                 none

Total number of hard pagefaults                       26
Hard pagefault count of hardest hit process:          25
Highest hard pagefault resolution time (µs):          48149.5250
Total time spent in hard pagefaults (%):              0.002306
Number of processes hit:                              0


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
PER CPU DATA
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 0 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       4.473948
CPU 0 ISR highest execution time (µs):                13.3350
CPU 0 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.019691
CPU 0 ISR count:                                      2915
CPU 0 DPC highest execution time (µs):                119.4050
CPU 0 DPC total execution time (s):                   2.542979
CPU 0 DPC count:                                      325584
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 1 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       0.486614
CPU 1 ISR highest execution time (µs):                13.2250
CPU 1 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.002010
CPU 1 ISR count:                                      275
CPU 1 DPC highest execution time (µs):                75.0350
CPU 1 DPC total execution time (s):                   0.040645
CPU 1 DPC count:                                      13167
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 2 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       0.514618
CPU 2 ISR highest execution time (µs):                11.170
CPU 2 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.000011
CPU 2 ISR count:                                      1
CPU 2 DPC highest execution time (µs):                36.010
CPU 2 DPC total execution time (s):                   0.050659
CPU 2 DPC count:                                      15408
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 3 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       0.493272
CPU 3 ISR highest execution time (µs):                12.480
CPU 3 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.000609
CPU 3 ISR count:                                      68
CPU 3 DPC highest execution time (µs):                73.9050
CPU 3 DPC total execution time (s):                   0.045690
CPU 3 DPC count:                                      14002
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 4 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       0.692385
CPU 4 ISR highest execution time (µs):                10.4050
CPU 4 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.000010
CPU 4 ISR count:                                      1
CPU 4 DPC highest execution time (µs):                34.8490
CPU 4 DPC total execution time (s):                   0.105501
CPU 4 DPC count:                                      20107
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 5 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       0.531668
CPU 5 ISR highest execution time (µs):                10.5450
CPU 5 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.000070
CPU 5 ISR count:                                      8
CPU 5 DPC highest execution time (µs):                39.6680
CPU 5 DPC total execution time (s):                   0.057065
CPU 5 DPC count:                                      14216
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 6 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       0.524556
CPU 6 ISR highest execution time (µs):                10.710
CPU 6 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.000011
CPU 6 ISR count:                                      1
CPU 6 DPC highest execution time (µs):                66.8560
CPU 6 DPC total execution time (s):                   0.065726
CPU 6 DPC count:                                      16924
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 7 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       0.543796
CPU 7 ISR highest execution time (µs):                10.9950
CPU 7 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.000030
CPU 7 ISR count:                                      3
CPU 7 DPC highest execution time (µs):                37.880
CPU 7 DPC total execution time (s):                   0.077378
CPU 7 DPC count:                                      21560
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Drivers

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2vtfjqe816auvgr/latency-drivers-3.bmp?dl=1


Processes, note zero almost everywhere

https://www.dropbox.com/s/znarfq6igmm7wi7/latency-processes-3.bmp?dl=1


CONCLUSION
For some reason Sonar did not produce anything hearable on any buffer size settings - 256..1024. It sounded like a wall of crackles and dropouts, no expected sound at all, no matter what buffer size is. Perhaps, some fundamental issue with this setup.

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

LATENCY ON FRESH WIN7

I have installed a fresh Win7 on a separate SSD partition.

First, I measured latency on it:
Minimal kernel timer latency: 1.02us
average was really fluctuating around 5-20us, quite unstable, peaks at 20..100us, about 10-20% of time (each 5th..10th)

Then I uninstalled nvidea video driver:
Minimal kernel timer latency: 1.02us
average had become stable around 3-7us (mostly around 3-4), with rare peaks at 8..12us

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CONCLUSION
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Your system appears to be suitable for handling real-time audio and other tasks without dropouts.
LatencyMon has been analyzing your system for  0:10:02  (h:mm:ss) on all processors in the system.


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SYSTEM INFORMATION
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Computer name:                                        UFX-PC
OS version:                                           Windows 7 Service Pack 1, 6.1, build: 7601 (x64)
CPU:                                                  GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790K CPU @ 4.00GHz
Logical processors:                                   8
Processor groups:                                     1
RAM:                                                  32710 MB total


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU SPEED
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Reported CPU speed:                                   4000.0 MHz
Measured CPU speed:                                   4592.0 MHz (approx.)

Note: reported execution times may be calculated based on a fixed reported CPU speed. Disable variable speed settings like Intel Speed Step and AMD Cool N Quiet in the BIOS setup for more accurate results.


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
MEASURED KERNEL TIMER LATENCIES
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Highest measured kernel timer latency (µs):           41.215494


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
MEASURED SMIs AND CPU STALLS
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Highest measured SMI, IPI or CPU stall (µs)           0.511994


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
REPORTED DPCs
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Highest DPC routine execution time (µs):              184.799250
Driver with highest DPC routine execution time:       ataport.SYS - ATAPI Driver Extension, Microsoft Corporation

Highest reported total DPC routine time (%):          0.005205
Driver with highest DPC total execution time:         rspLLL64.sys - Resplendence Latency Monitoring and Auxiliary Kernel Library, Resplendence Software Projects Sp.

Total time spent in DPCs (%)                          0.012255

DPC count (execution time <250 µs):                   560957
DPC count (execution time 250-500 µs):                0
DPC count (execution time 500-999 µs):                0
DPC count (execution time 1000-1999 µs):              0
DPC count (execution time 2000-3999 µs):              0
DPC count (execution time >=4000 µs):                 0


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
REPORTED ISRs
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Highest ISR routine execution time (µs):              11.466250
Driver with highest ISR routine execution time:       ataport.SYS - ATAPI Driver Extension, Microsoft Corporation

Highest reported total ISR routine time (%):          0.028395
Driver with highest ISR total time:                   ataport.SYS - ATAPI Driver Extension, Microsoft Corporation

Total time spent in ISRs (%)                          0.030570

ISR count (execution time <250 µs):                   1407652
ISR count (execution time 250-500 µs):                0
ISR count (execution time 500-999 µs):                0
ISR count (execution time 1000-1999 µs):              0
ISR count (execution time 2000-3999 µs):              0
ISR count (execution time >=4000 µs):                 0


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
REPORTED HARD PAGEFAULTS
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Process with highest pagefault count:                 none

Total number of hard pagefaults                       2694
Hard pagefault count of hardest hit process:          1321
Highest hard pagefault resolution time (µs):          124912.272250
Total time spent in hard pagefaults (%):              0.183291
Number of processes hit:                              0


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
PER CPU DATA
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 0 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       2.581707
CPU 0 ISR highest execution time (µs):                11.466250
CPU 0 ISR total execution time (s):                   1.473107
CPU 0 ISR count:                                      1407652
CPU 0 DPC highest execution time (µs):                184.799250
CPU 0 DPC total execution time (s):                   0.569659
CPU 0 DPC count:                                      532881
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 1 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       0.047058
CPU 1 ISR highest execution time (µs):                0.0
CPU 1 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.0
CPU 1 ISR count:                                      0
CPU 1 DPC highest execution time (µs):                11.83450
CPU 1 DPC total execution time (s):                   0.001453
CPU 1 DPC count:                                      2379
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 2 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       0.068399
CPU 2 ISR highest execution time (µs):                0.0
CPU 2 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.0
CPU 2 ISR count:                                      0
CPU 2 DPC highest execution time (µs):                10.510
CPU 2 DPC total execution time (s):                   0.000315
CPU 2 DPC count:                                      337
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 3 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       0.141082
CPU 3 ISR highest execution time (µs):                0.0
CPU 3 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.0
CPU 3 ISR count:                                      0
CPU 3 DPC highest execution time (µs):                12.142250
CPU 3 DPC total execution time (s):                   0.007122
CPU 3 DPC count:                                      7767
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 4 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       0.076579
CPU 4 ISR highest execution time (µs):                0.0
CPU 4 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.0
CPU 4 ISR count:                                      0
CPU 4 DPC highest execution time (µs):                12.760
CPU 4 DPC total execution time (s):                   0.001060
CPU 4 DPC count:                                      789
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 5 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       0.084682
CPU 5 ISR highest execution time (µs):                0.0
CPU 5 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.0
CPU 5 ISR count:                                      0
CPU 5 DPC highest execution time (µs):                7.15450
CPU 5 DPC total execution time (s):                   0.001136
CPU 5 DPC count:                                      1015
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 6 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       0.064325
CPU 6 ISR highest execution time (µs):                0.0
CPU 6 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.0
CPU 6 ISR count:                                      0
CPU 6 DPC highest execution time (µs):                9.42850
CPU 6 DPC total execution time (s):                   0.000350
CPU 6 DPC count:                                      351
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 7 Interrupt cycle time (s):                       0.156121
CPU 7 ISR highest execution time (µs):                0.0
CPU 7 ISR total execution time (s):                   0.0
CPU 7 ISR count:                                      0
CPU 7 DPC highest execution time (µs):                4.1170
CPU 7 DPC total execution time (s):                   0.009450
CPU 7 DPC count:                                      15438
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Drivers

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qc85sfizwb6r7oa/latency-drivers-fresh-win7-no-nvidia.bmp?dl=1


Processes
https://www.dropbox.com/s/11s7hesjaf9rcla/latency-processes-fresh-win7.bmp?dl=1


CONCLUSION
On buffer=256 RME UFX+ became better but still in some places crackles were audible. Even if I played a single track, dropouts were audible at constant time spots. Konnekt 8 sounded approximately like that but on buffer size=128.

Original Win 7
Konnekt 8 Firewire === 512 samples === OK
UFX+ === 512 samples === dropouts

CPU/BIOS optimization, no CPU parking
Konnekt 8 Firewire === 256 samples === some dropouts
UFX+ === 512 samples === OK now

Fresh minimal Win 7, no nvidea driver
Konnekt 8 Firewire === 256 samples === OK
Konnekt 8 Firewire === 128 samples === minor dropouts exist even when playing back a single guitar track
UFX+ === 256 samples === minor dropouts exist even when playing back a single guitar track
UFX+ === 128 samples === massive dropouts

Fresh minimal Win Server 2012R2, no nvidea driver, no LAN driver
Sonar did not produce proper sound for UFX+ no matter what buffer size was set. Most probably due to system misconfiguration.

As we can see, the latency on this fresh Win7 install is tremendously better than on my regular Win7 and yet that did not make a too significant difference for UFX+ playback. Though a difference exists, it's pronounced but still doesn't allow to run a single track in Sonar without dropouts when buffer size=256. Konnekt 8 improvement due to latency had the same magnitude as UFX+ improvement.

So I guess my next step would be purchasing Thunderbolt card + TB3-TB2 adapter (which is a bit expensive for an experiment). The problem is that I am not sure if that is going to improve the performance. Matthias said it should but my concern is whether buffer size = 256 could be reachable on my system with TB.

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

Then try another DAW, i.e. reaper to see whether issues come from the application.

Maybe also try another USB2 and USB3 cable.

What is your cable length ? Using any hub ?

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

Then try another DAW, i.e. reaper to see whether issues come from the application.

Yeh, I will need to prepare the test environment first, it will take time.

Maybe also try another USB2 and USB3 cable.

I am using USB cable shipped with my UFX+

What is your cable length ? Using any hub ?

I connect it directly to m/b. There are 4 USB3 ports and only one is used -- by UFX+.

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

Simply another cable to exclude any potential cabling problem...
For USB2 and USB3 to increase the likeliness to eventually see a difference.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

38 (edited by ramses 2017-11-06 13:25:32)

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

With Lindy cables I had no issues so far
http://www.lindy.de/CROMO-USB-3-0-Kabel … p;pi=41612

3m is the maximum for USB3 I tend to say, so pls try with 2m to have some "headroom".

Another thing .. if you keep the RME driver settings dialog open, then you see there an USB Diagnosis.
Keep this window open for some time, also when you work with DAW and are getting these crackles.

Do you see any USB transport errors there ?

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

Do you see any USB transport errors there ?

No errors ever.

I am going to post the next set of results now.

40 (edited by alex128 2017-11-09 13:42:12)

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

So I have conducted a series of new tests yesterday. Below are the results with my comments

An existent, small 96/24 project in Reaper, on my original Win7
- 7 Guitar Rig tracks
- 1 track Dimension-based pad, (soft synth)
- basic XLN Addictive Drums 2.

Both UFX+ and Konnekt 8 played back audio in Reaper at any buffer size, including 64 (WTH?)
Initially I thought something is wrong because there was absolutely no difference when switching buffer sizes, somehow Reaper manages to handle that. Not sure how. However, once I enabled echo for 1 guitar track then the dropouts appear right away - on 64 samples. Nevertheless, 256 samples made it stable in Reaper with one track with echo, i.e. it's possible to record and hear what you play.

That was on my original "broken" Windows machine. Then I moved to the fresh Win7:

UFX+/USB2, Win7-fresh installation, small NEW project in Sonar
- 5 guitar tracks
- 8 voice tracks (duplicated)

Sonar was able to play back and echo 1 guitar with no issue on buffer size = 128. What?

How come my reference Sonar project cannot do that even on 256 although the number of unmuted tracks is about the same? OK, I began to delete tracks and after deletion of 6 muted tracks from the reference project I was able to play Sonar on buffer=128 with no dropouts! I do not understand what's so special about those tracks. Furthermore, if I add NEW guitar tracks (different VSTs though - but not anything small - full-scaled GR5 presets) - that doesn't bother UFX+ and Sonar still plays on buffer=128 with no dropouts! What's going on? The old presets are also pretty standard, the only difference was that they were applied on a bus, i.e. old 6 tracks routed signals to each own bus while new tracks have Guitar Rig directly in track's FX bin. It feels almost like if UFX+ somehow detects the tracks were created with a rival Konnekt 8 and doesn't want them to play properly ))

The same case was observed with another reference Sonar project, now with Bias FX guitar tracks (Bias is more demanding than Guitar Pro). And again I deleted a lot of MUTED tracks and suddenly UFX+ could playback with no dropouts on buffer size = 128.

Then I switched back to USB3 and the results were the same as for USB2.

How come muted tracks still influence the playback? Unless user unmutes them they should not participate in anything?

Anyways, it appears that the initial issue is quite resolved. I can have a decent buffer size = 256 with UFX+ (and probably even
128, which is excellent for guitar on 96KHz) if I keep the number tracks small (10-15) in the project OR if I find a method to somehow mute the tracks properly so they do not affect the playback. I believe any DAW should have such option, too bad I am not aware about such in Sonar.


P.S. I have ordered Asus Thunderbolt EX II card for my ASUS Z97A m/b -- apparently the last item in thousands km around -- it should arrive in a week or so. Once I try TB2 with UFX+ and post the results.

Thank you Ramses for your great help and support, thanks to RME for having a patience (I heard that is not common in German customer service? Although Ramses' example tells the opposite) and thank you all for your attention.

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

Maybe Sonar is not so efficient in handling audio at a severe load when 96kHz sample frequency come into play.
Changing ASIO buffersizes in a running project is also possible in Cubase without issues.

As you mentioned that adding an echo effect brought instability which could be cured by raising the ASIO buffersize to 256.

Dont underestimate, that VST instruments alone put some stress to the CPU. Especially at 96 kHz.
I assume your machine is with that load at the edge of which it can handle all together.
Audio loss already happens, even if the CPU is not yet fully loaded.
It simply means that the CPU can not quick enough perform the I/O to your recording interface anymore.
And the reason is a combination of load that you produce by
- application (DAW, VSTs effect, VST intruments)
- additional load by high sample frequency (96 kHz)
- other drivers that eventually block audio processes a little bit too long

I would use a professional program like Cubase where you can freeze tracks to reduce load.
i.e. the load of all virtual instruments in your project.

And eventually in the future I would tend to recommend you to get at least a 6-core system,
so that the load can distribute over even more cores.
But you still might require for your virtual instruments a high single thread performance,
so I tend to recommend you only a 6 eventually 8 core Coffee Lake CPU with still
high enough base clock ....

If you should get a 20 core monster I would not be shure without tests upfront, whether for your applications the many cores are more important or whether then a certain "base clock" of CPU might be missing along with many cores.

The THunderbolt card might help. Eventually also the from me recommended USB3 card, but as you have thunderbolt (me not) I would try this in the 1st place, as an extension of PCIe should be better.

BTW thanks for the flowers and also thanks for your patience.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

Maybe also another thing to consider.
I personally think its not required to record at 96 kHz.
You put your system only under much more stress.
Audio Files only become longer, it wastes more space etc.
I have doubts that in a double blind test you would be able to differentiate between 44.1 and 96 kHz.
More important is to strictly use at least 24 bit depth for higher dynamic and SNR.
Eventually you do yourself a favour to go back to 44.1 especially as you seem to work with a lot of VSTs and also VST instruments. Could definitively give you more headroom in terms of system load / bigger projects.
Maybe try it out.
Also maybe cubase in terms of the ability to freeze tracks of VST instruments but still having the capability of changing the volume and doing panning of this instrument.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

Also maybe cubase in terms of the ability to freeze tracks of VST instruments but still having the capability of changing the volume and doing panning of this instrument.

Sonar has track freeze feature, of course. It just doesn't seem to help performance wise in my case.

I personally think its not required to record at 96 kHz.

This is my concern, in theory that should be the case. In practice, there is a huge difference between 44.1 vs 96 in GR5 / Bias FX. I do not know what is the real reason for that but when I set 96Khz then both  GR5 / Bias FX begin to sound much better.

44 (edited by ramses 2017-11-07 19:30:23)

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

Summary for my own, where we stand.

At the end it turns out to be an application problem, as with Reaper you didnt have these severe problems, is this correct ?

So you / we hope that Thunderbolt give you a little bit more headroom so that it runs eventually without issues with Sonar.

Which version of Sonar do you have exactly ?

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

Which version of Sonar do you have exactly ?

Sonar Platinum with lifetime updates, up-to-date.

At the end it turns out to be an application problem, as with Reaper you didnt have these severe problems, is this correct ?

It's more complicated. The original issue still remains, i.e. Sonar + Konnekt 8 is twice better than Sonar + UFX in terms of latency on non-optimized machine. On optimized machine (power settings in BIOS + no parking) UFX+ gets closer to Konnekt but still a bit behind it. Since UFX is able to support buffer=256 with some DAW track optimization (remove unused tracks and freeze the rest) that solves my problem. Nowhere near buffer=64 but still a decent result.

Regarding Reaper:

Reaper has a different project than Sonar - Reaper has GR5 tracks + XLN Addictive Drums 2 + a soft synth. Cakewalk Sonar also has GR5 tracks + XLN Addictive Drums 2 - but different presets/instruments. Number of tracks is approx the same.

1) Playing back tracks, no echoing guitar
Reaper plays tracks much smoothly than Sonar - that's true for both interfaces. Reaper's playback is perfect on buffer=64. Sonar is behind - however, strictly speaking, those are a bit different projects with apprx equal number of tracks

2) Playing back tracks and playing guitar at the same time
Here Reaper breaks apart - a lot of dropouts appear. I have to increase buffer to 256, still dropouts occur but it's more or less OK. Sonar seems to have better results - it's good with buffer=256

So it's hard to compare both DAWs. On a side note I liked Reaper interface, it feels much more natural to me although I am an old Sonar user (who have always been struggling to grasp Sonar mechanics as it felt so unnecessary complicated)

The bottom line
1. I have a decent workaround now. Not anything astonishing like buffer=64 but somewhat better than I had before (if I keep the number of non-frozen tracks in DAW minimal - which is fine to me).

2. It seems to me that USB is sensible to CPU "restrictions" -- CPU power limitations or general CPU load on machine -- much more than Firewire is. So the plan is to remove that dependency with TB and then I dare to expect UFX to close the gap with Konnekt 8 in every aspect.

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

alex128 wrote:

2. It seems to me that USB is sensible to CPU "restrictions" -- CPU power limitations or general CPU load on machine -- much more than Firewire is. So the plan is to remove that dependency with TB and then I dare to expect UFX to close the gap with Konnekt 8 in every aspect.

I would think yes absolutely. If the problems are USB related I would expect the UFX+ to outperform firewire on TB by a margin. Here at least PCI outperforms firewire.

Vincent, Amsterdam
https://soundcloud.com/thesecretworld
BFpro fs, 2X HDSP9652 ADI-8AE, 2X HDSP9632

47 (edited by ramses 2017-11-09 08:32:34)

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

In regards to this I have a theory.
We had already the discussions about some drivers with negative IRQ numbers.

These are the so called Microsoft Message Signalled Interrupts.
They work more efficient.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_S … Interrupts
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message-S … Interrupts
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/window … interrupts

The driver of my USB3 card with 4 FL1100 USB3 controllers on it uses MSI.
At least it handles a severe workload very good also at 96 kHz sample frequency.

http://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/inde … cks-de-en/

On the other hand I fully agree that thunderbolt is now the way to go for you.
Am curious how it will finally work on your system.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

Yes, it appears that your theory might be correct. Though I do not expect a magic from MSI, otherwise all other USB controller vendors would have employed this technique. Perhaps, it's not just MSI.

Here at least PCI outperforms firewire

My PC has no Firewire on m/b, i.e I have a PCI card with TI chip on it so essentially my Firewire is PCI. Or you mean that Firewire itself (TI chip) is the bottleneck? If so then yes, TB PCI card should be at least on par with Firewire PCI card, since they share the same PCI but TB itself is much faster than Firewire.

Let's wait for the delivery of TB Card. Once it gets here I'll perform tests and post the results.

49 (edited by alex128 2017-11-09 13:37:13)

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

Ramses, regarding your test with 400 tracks.

For example, on my system that is not THAT behind yours, Reaper reports 3-4% CPU load per track with a single GR5 VST. Well, of course a single GR5 preset usually consists of multiple components but it's a single VST.

So in theory the max number of non-frozen GR5 tracks is 25. In practice, it would probably be less than that. So I guess the test results depend on VST.

Another point - I would do different VSTs, or at least VSTs with per-track settings in order to be on a safe side. DAW might be too smart and apply VSTs at master - since they are all identical. This could save some CPU. Having said that, it's just my speculation, the reality can be different.

50 (edited by ramses 2017-11-09 16:31:01)

Re: UFX+ : a lot of dropouts and crackles on Windows 7

You are completely right, VSTs differ much in complexity, i/o and CPU usage.
Not to compare chicken with eggs it would be best you perform the same test as me.
So if you could get a demo version of cubase ...

In RME Driver settings dialog, set lowest amount of ASIO buffersize, for me 32 samples.
As track I simply used a 5 minute .wav file from an audio CD.
In Cubase set the project settings 1st for 44.1 kHz sample frequency and 32bit float.
In Cubase select the RME driver and check that the following tick boxes / options are being used:
X enable multi processing
X activate ASIO guard
X ASIO guard level normal
Audio Prio: normal
X Mode for optimized audio performance of Steinberg
X Preload 2sec
X honor record latency
Import audio file.
Put the same 2 VSTs as insert into the track: i used frequency and compressor.
I think this requires the Demo of the Cubase Full version, if I remember right.
Then duplicate this track including the 2 VSTs to 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 50, 100, 200, ... tracks.
Watch memory consumption closely not to completely overload your system.
Ensure to let i.e. 1 GB DRAM free.
Look to enable pagefile that if required the system gets its DRAM and you issue no application or even system crash.
Normally I deactivated page file in Windows, as I have not so huge projects, I keep the min value so that the system would be able to write at least a small memory dump ...
Then you can try with 96 kHz.
But with 192 kHz my system also comes to the edge although the CPU is not fully loaded.
Therefore there I need either to choose higher ASIO buffer or I need to reduce the amount of 192 kHz tracks to i.e. 200 or alike, I do not remember exactly anymore.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13