Reducing latency of PC

[maJ estY]

Which hardware component is it that produces most latency and what do I need to keep it as low as possible?

I plan to buy a Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro sound card and I have an AMD 1.4ghz processor and 512DDRAM. - Is this a decent setup?

[Hobbes]

Definately the sound card. Don't buy creative!

[maJ estY]

I've decided that I will definately buy the creative. I thought about a Terratec Phase, but they are more expensive and I've got EAX surround boxes here. I don't need the sound card for recording only - nevertheless I think that it's OK to do recording with the Platinum, isn't it?

[Axe2Grind]

The soundcard's driver's is the main factor in having good low latency. Depending on what software you are using, you need to have a soundcard that supports ASIO as this gives you the best latency performance. Buying a soundcard which does not support ASIO is a waste of money and unusable in serious circumstances like playing softsynths in realtime etc. M-Audio's range of soundcards come highly recommended (I have an M-Audio Duo which is excellent). It does also help to have a good CPU (either an Intel Pentium 4 or AMD XP are great) and lots of ram (512Mb at least always helps).

So looks like your setting is pretty cool, just make sure the soundcard you end up buying is ASIO compatible. :D

[maJ estY]

When I install Cubase, the program makes an automatic ASIO driver test and it's always successful, so I think that even my current sound card is ASIO compatible, but thanks for the hint, I'll check out if the platinum pro supports that!

[Hobbes]

Yes, it does support ASIO, but do yourself a favor and buy m-audio. Creative is for gamers...

[Axe2Grind]

Yes, it does support ASIO, but do yourself a favor and buy m-audio. Creative is for gamers...

I'd have to second that, for serious music making, M-Audio is the way to go. The interfacing is more professional allowing proper monitors to be connected as well as headphones on most models.

[maJ estY]

Wow, I just checked the prices of the M-Audios and I really cannot afford that. I'd pay 200$ for a new Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro, it supports ASIO 2.0 drivers and it actually has even more than I need. Of course it's the quality which matters, but although it's Creative, that thing has everything I need.

(BTW: I'm also a Gamer... at least from time to time and if my slow 1.4ghz support new games anyway. :D )

[maJ estY]

OK, I had a look at those many M-Audio cards and those which I COULD afford have less features than the Creative and ALL of them do not support my 4.1 boxes, they are only 5.1 and up compatible and I will not buy new boxes.

[Hobbes]

It looks like the ideal solution for you would be to have a ok soundcard for gaming and one for music making. Maybe an external one?

[lighthouse]

I wanna know, what`s the problem with the creative?, cause I have one and it records in 24/96 as all the other soundcards, supports ASIO 2.0 and external headphones output with independent volume, and it works very good with SONAR 3. I wanna know if there`s a real problem with it and if it`s better for me to buy another one and why, thanx

[lighthouse]

I wanna know, what`s the problem with the creative?, cause I have one and it records in 24/96 as all the other soundcards, supports ASIO 2.0 and external headphones output with independent volume, and it works very good with SONAR 3. I wanna know if there`s a real problem with it and if it`s better for me to buy another one and why, thanx

[maJ estY]

Finally someone on my side. :P

Well, I can only read what you write, because I have no experience with any better sound cards. Even though I know quite a few people who have a Creative and are very pleased with it!

[Spacehog]

I can't comment specifically on the Audigy 2, although there are fairly comprehensive reviews at http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct03/articles/audigy.htm and http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr03/articles/creativeaudigy2.asp. However, Creative have had very poor press amongst musicians for producing cards that are very restrictive in what they'll do "well". They have limited sample rate selections (if you play something that's 44.1kHz sampled, it will dither it to 48kHz before it plays it!) and have a noticable crushing / compression effect on the audio.

I recorded my last album on a SBLive Value Platinum (the one before the Audigy) and the difference in quality between that and what I have now (M-Audio Delta 1010LT - I actually have 2 of them) is out of this world. I hear things now I could never hear on the Creative. Added to which the WDM drivers (for the Sonar users out there) absolutely stink, they always have and they always will because Creative won't admit there's a problem with them, but you either have to disable ACPI or forcibly install the kxProject drivers to get stereo operation in Sonar 2 or 3. Which is quite a major issue, really!

I would never go back to Creative for these reasons. Considering a M-Audio Audiophile 24/96 is considerably cheaper (you can even pick up Delta 410's or 66's for that price), there's no comparison. If you're serious about music (and you don't use your machine to play games, which let's face it, shouldn't be done anyway, music software should exist in a completely different partition / boot of Windows than anything other than the most basic of (non-DirectX) Windows games) then you'll steer clear of the Creative.

Regarding latency, the lowest true latency I ever got out of a SBLive was something like 60ms... that's about 6 times what I get from the M-Audio :)

Martin

[Fossil Records]

We use Creative Audigy Platinums and have had nothing but great success. Everything is digital in and out for us and we get excellent sound reproduction. We don't have any problems with the drivers or stereo output at all. Going from a Live! value card to an Audigy is a big step - we have both and the Live! card is used by our drummer to interface with his drumset. But for the DA recording, we use the platinums.

Are they perfect? No. There's some quirks. But nothing that's going to a) prevent you from recording, b) record crap, or c) cost you three to ten times the amount.

If you're serious about music then you'll steer clear of the Creative.

Opinions are like a$$holes - everybody has them and they usually stink.

[maJ estY]

Spacehog: Interesting post, bad luck that you did not have the Audigy, so I we do not know what of the problems you mentioned count for the Audigy, too.
(I checked out the Delta 1010LT and I'd pay about 300$ for it, which is 100$ more.) Music is not the only thing I do with this PC - I do everything with it. And I want to keep my boxes (4 point surround = 4 boxes and 1 subwoofer) and this is not supported by any M-Audio (or any other non-creative sound card. The reason for that is that these ARE more or less creative boyes :D ).
I am far from becoming a pro and do not have any compassion for me if I buy the Creative. For sure, it has got what I need. A bit more or less latency doesn't matter, I am not too much into softsynths at the moment (maybe I will be soon and regret my decision, but remember: no compassion ;) ).

I thank everybody here for his (no girl around) comments!!!

[Georges]

The main thing about reducing latency on your PC is dedicating your PC only to the music software you really need and use. That means, no unnecessary applications (not even installed on harddrive) such as anti-virus, firewalls, games, Internet, etc., dedicate it only to your specific music software. Avoid overloading your PC with applications and processes running in the background.

Hardware: the motherboard-CPU-RAM-harddrive combo should be optimized and fastest possible (together of course). A (semi-)professional recording/MIDI soundcard (i.e. NO Soundblaster and stuff) is a must as well. Video card does not need to be high-end, even though having dual screens can be very useful even in a small private studio.

Please note: 64-bit CPUs are nice but do not add significant performance to your PC, as there are no 100% pure 64-bit software applications yet (of course, at the time I write this may already have changed).

Finally, your OS should be latest version. Windows XP is more than okay for music applications. And don't forget to invest into very quiet (yet still powerful) cooling fans and/or passive coolers.

Latency will always be an issue for people who dedicate their PCs to other things than only their music applications. Too often, money is saved in the wrong places (e.g. soundcards, RAM, motherboard, etc.) and wasted in the wrong places (e.g. CPU, video card, etc.).

[maJ estY]

That's very interesting!

I have very loud fans and and very many other applications running, because nobody would be safe without a firewall and antivirus software anymore.

So what is actually important is to seperate recording/music with the rest.

Is it possible and senseful to have two partitions - one for recording and one for the rest?
I only have a 40GB HD - it was big when I bought it three years ago, but that's not much anymore. I guess a not too full HD is important, too, as this is important for every program to run properly.

I have another PC under my bed, which I don't need, but I don't think that 166mhz, 2GB and 46MB RAM won't be a good deal...

No chance to do that right now, but thanks Georges!

[Fossil Records]

We have a minimum of 2 hard drives in our DAWs (we have 3). In my personal DAW, I have 2 36GB hard drives partitioned in halves. The "faster halves" are dedicated to TEMP directories and stream recording (AUDIO and PICTURE caches) [drive c:] and music projects [drive e:]. I use the other "halves" [drives e: and f:] for data storage - artwork for albums, accounting, etc. My software (Sonar) is on one of 3 SCSI drives that has been partitioned into [drive g:] Music Software, [drive h:] Operating System, and [drive i:] Backup. Then the other two SCSI drives hold digital audio images of the albums we produce.

So - in a word? - yes, divide things up on your drives. :wink:

[Hobbes]

I have one for OS, one for Audio progs, one for my projects and its audiofiles and one for samples

[maJ estY]

What I thought:

Wouldn't it make most sense to buy a new hd which you run seperately from the other one? That would mean that you have to install an OS on both, but they're completely different, so you can use the one for recording only!
I have also different partition on my single hd, but that's senseless if you run a firewall, antivirus and whatever, isn't it?

[Spacehog]

Mmmm, ideally your music partition (if you only have one machine) should not be used to connect to the internet at all (except for the verification of software licenses etc). Anything running in the background, be it a firewall, antivirus, software to enable the 3000 extra buttons on your keyboard, or whatever should be disabled if at all possible. For Windows XP, http://www.musicxp.net/ is a good resource for how to streamline your PC for running music applications.

As for the hard disks in a machine, I'm not gonna talk about mine cos it's just silly :D

Martin

[Georges]

It is important to seperate music and other applications. Best would be to run them on two completely different platforms, not only harddrives but also operating systems. This ensures that your computer has the maximum resources available to do what it is supposed to do. Moreover, going to Internet with the computer increases the risk of spyware and viruses (and other memory-resident applications), as well as increasing the size of the Internet data cached in the form of windows temporary files.

Creating partitions used to be a trick on FAT 32 platforms to increase the performance of a huge harddrive because a harddrive does not run at the same physical speed at this or that position. By creating partitions, the speed could be optimized because each zone could be limited to a tight speed interval, instead of having a broad interval.

Under Windows XP, however, this is no more good idea because NTFS (the new file system) works completely differently than FAT32. So under Windows XP, two partitions have at best the same performance as one single partition, usually their performance is even a bit worse. Consequently, it is better to buy two different harddisks and to keep the size for the recording unit reasonable - this is however only a big issue for harddrive recording applications. As for live synthesizer playing and stuff, RAM is the suppreme solution.

What matters about harddrives is above all their speed, which also has to be at best optimized with the motherboard, CPU and the RAM chips (keep that in mind when you buy your computer) - they interact with eachother all the time, so these four guys have to be the best team possible. If one of them fails, the system will no more run under optimum conditions.

Reducing latency is both a software and a hardware issue. People often forget the software issue and think that it is cheaper to invest only in music software. If you are on-stage however, it is important to have a seperate dedicated music computer - of course, this is way more expensive and actually reduces the price advantage of software synths compared to hardware synths, but it is one of the most secure ways to ensure both minimum latency and maximum system stability.

[Mr. Make Believe]

There are loads of great suggestions in the above posts on how to create a great PC to record music.
Since there are lots of people that can't afford those fancy profi soundcards and are restricted to consumer cards, the way to reduce latency is use the correct asio drivers.
If you are using a creative card check for the kxproject. google for it. It's a hassle to get everything tuned max. But wel worth it. reduce your latency to 8 ms with a ok PC is possible. Use your soft synths in real time. Excellent.
For other cards us the asio4all drive (again google) also very efficient. I reduced my latency to 12 ms. recording hasn't been as good as it is now. Using those soft synths.... Just excellent.!!!

[ChrisMcCoy]

Which hardware component is it that produces most latency and what do I need to keep it as low as possible?

I plan to buy a Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro sound card and I have an AMD 1.4ghz processor and 512DDRAM. - Is this a decent setup?

If your system can take more Ram, the golden rule is "you can never have enough".
If you can go up to a gigabyte, I recommend doing it.
Another question, are you running windows2000 or xp ? If so, check your startup folder on the start menu, delete anything that isn't needed at startup such as MSOFFICE. Then reboot. Apps in the Startup folder tend to eat up available memory quite quickly.

Hope this helps.
Best Regards,
Chris

[maJ estY]

Well, I don't have anything I don't really need in my startup folder, but I don't know how to edit the autostart programs that you find in the system information. I simply forgot about it. Can anybody help me with that? I use Windows XP.

I am not sure if RAM is the most important thing regarding that, but the more you have, the better it is, for sure! I have 512ddr RAM and that has to be enough for the moment.

Furthermore I think that I use the correct ASIO drivers.

Can someone answer my question regarding the two cin one system?

I'd have two harddiscs and I always start only one of them. Both would have an own OS on it and I'd work with one of the two for music creation and with the other one for anything else. I wouldn't have to install any programs like a firewall on the music disc then.
I am pretty sure that this is possible, but who knows how to do that?

[Taurus]

Without having read 100% of the posts here i'd just like to add that there is a program (free) on the internet avaiable that changes latency of your other hardware (videocard etc) so you can get a better value for your soundcard. I used it myself before but its long ago and i dont have it anymore.

But for those who are interested you might want to google for it. The idea behind the progam is great anyways.

[Luca_Capozzi]

i've ever used my old friend Live! 5.1 for audio. With standard WDM and "generic" ASIO drivers i've got a lot of latency.. but with "alternative" drivers i've touched around 4ms of latency in MIDI/AUDIO apps in windows. With linux, i've got same low latency using a standard Red Hat ditribution with Planet CCRMA addons.

first, you have to put your audio card in a pci slot that have highest priority and WITHOUT shared IRQ. Lesser the IRQ number, higher is the priority.

btw, is ever a valid concept that you can buy a better audio card instead of Creative one.

my 2 cents,

see ya