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Subject:STUTTERING song and BUFFER
Posted by: bflat
Date:12/12/2003 3:09:23 PM
I only have this problem since adding FX to tracks; This causes my project to stutter and sound awful (which it didn't do prior). The only thing that solves this is setting BUFFER SIZE from default of "MME" to 16384 and choosing "TIME CRITICAL." Then, after a while it starts sounding bad again, and I set buffer to 8192. This works for a while, then I have to set it back to 16384. Over & over. NEW PROBLEM: any manipulations I do during playback (re-sizing, etc) now work very slowly or not at all. If I click STOP, it takes about 30-60 seconds to actually stop a song. And my cursor is all over the place. This makes Acid so unstable, it's almost unuseable. I had to listen to playback at ear-splitting volume for over a minute 'cuz neither volume or stop worked. (My ears are still ringing.) The Acid app flashes like it's going to crash, then eventually it finally stops. --- What can I do? *Somebody Help!* |
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Subject:RE: STUTTERING song and BUFFER
Reply by: xxFT13xx
Date:12/12/2003 8:33:03 PM
were all gonna need some specs of your pc and what sound card youre using. (please PLEASE dont say a Sound Blaster..) then well be able to help you more -Sin |
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Subject:RE: STUTTERING song and BUFFER
Reply by: bflat
Date:12/12/2003 10:41:38 PM
Pentium III at 731 MHz 192 Megs RAM *** I paid $250.00 for the top-of-the-line Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum EX, please don't tell me it's what's causing the problems. It's got good specs, despite being from Creative. For what it's worth, remember that I've had no problems UNTIL I discovered and began using Track FX. |
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Subject:RE: STUTTERING song and BUFFER
Reply by: Iacobus
Date:12/13/2003 10:48:14 AM
You may be hitting a performance ceiling with your current setup. Sin is very much onto something. Though Creative's cards are very good quality for what they do, they just can't hold a candle performance-wise with those offerings from, say, Echo or M-Audio. That might be because of the way the drivers for the Audigy were written, which, I would assume, would be for general purpose tasks. Just like you wouldn't use any of Echo's or M-Audio's pro-level offerings for gaming (they just don't perform well with games), you probably don't want to use the Audigy for such a task such as real-time FX rendering, especially at 24-bit. You can try to render the track with FX applied by soloing the track, setting the Loop Region over the area you'd like to bounce down, and then using CTRL+M with the "render loop region only" option. This will make it so that your system doesn't have to process the FX in real time. Iacobus ------- RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid mD's ACIDplanet Page |
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Subject:RE: STUTTERING song and BUFFER
Reply by: xxFT13xx
Date:12/13/2003 11:18:56 AM
thats right. mD and i are pretty much the "guru's" on this board and when we mention to you all that Sound Blasters suck..we MEAN it!!! please, everyone who reads this, DONT GET A SB card!!! do yourself a favor and save a LOT of headaches and get a Terratec or a M-Audio. They are really cheap now and if you have to, go on Ebay! -Sin |
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Subject:RE: STUTTERING song and BUFFER
Reply by: bflat
Date:12/13/2003 6:27:11 PM
Man, that sucks. (This was an $250 card, remember.) Is there a test or anything I can do to tell for certain that it's my card? Like I said, I'm not having problems until I start using track effects, and -- the more FX I use, the worse the problem gets... I take it, this couldn't be a low RAM or weak processor issue... Something to do with configuration? (my acid files run fine, until I add FX) Thanks alot for the tip on rendering the samples, so my system won't have to work on them in real time. Is the M-Audio Delta 66 a good card? Fairly easy for a novice to set up? ...why doesn't this sound blaster garbage just have big stickers on it saying: "FOR GAMES ONLY." I'm sure it doesn't help their reputation that people who don't know any better -- like me -- get stiffed, then bad-mouth their product until the end of time. Oh: if I get an M-Audio, then upgrade my computer, can I simply pull the thing out of the slot and re-install it? Are Terratec and M-Audio good about keeping drivers up-to-date, etc? Please give me good feedback on cards, so I don't waste more cash. Thanks, guys. |
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Subject:RE: STUTTERING song and BUFFER
Reply by: bflat
Date:12/14/2003 3:20:56 AM
update: Sony recommends setting sampling rate to 48KHz for Audigy cards, as they do internal calculations at that rate and Acid uses 44.1 (this discrepency can cause stuttering issues, according to support). Well, that made the problem MUCH worse, so I'm back at 44.1. I took MD's advice and rendered out some of my samples, so I could bring them back in without "live" FX. I only needed to do this 5 or 6 times to notice a BIG improvement. It's a hassle, but at least a temporary kind of work-around. Are there a maximum number of track FX you can use before your system goes bonkers? Can a healthy non-sound blaster system handle a hundred tracks, all with tons of effects? |
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Subject:RE: STUTTERING song and BUFFER
Reply by: Moondog
Date:12/14/2003 4:36:15 AM
Well - I use an Audigy (cheapo Player V1), and while it's probably not the best sound card in the world, I get a reasonably low latency and good enough playback. The only time I've had problems is when I maxed out the CPU on a song with 40ish tracks, all with FX + some soft synths. Rendering to a track is then you only hope. Your problems sound more like a big CPU hit than anything else. FX are processor intensive (especially stuff like Reverb). So suddenly adding them will thrash the CPU more than a vanilla track. That being said - I used to do all my stuff on a Dell Laptop which is about the same spec as your PC and I never really hit any CPU problems. If you're not using any MIDI then try pushing the latency way up and see what happens... Might work. Nic. |
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Subject:RE: STUTTERING song and BUFFER
Reply by: Iacobus
Date:12/15/2003 12:25:56 PM
It may not be the Audigy itself but how the drivers were written for that soundcard. Its drivers just may not be up to the task. It's very much the same way for CAD video cards. They're great for what they do, but you'd never want to use one to play computer games with. You'd think a video card meant for CAD would ace a computer game's graphic acceleration needs, but it's just not the case. I remember the big brouhaha when the Audigy 1 was released. That was hardware related. Creative claimed it did 24-bit in and out when in reality it did 16-bit internally and then back out to 24-bit on the fly. That meant the use of 24-bit was basically worthless and negated. Once you convert to 16-bit, there's no point at going back to 24-bit since the benefits of 24-bit were lost when converted to 16-bit in the first place. Naturally, many Audigy 1 users were miffed when this fact came out. I used to own a Live! (which did 16-bit max) and knew this beforehand, so I completely skipped Creative and went straight for M-Audio's Audiophile 2496, which does true 24-bit audio across the board. The Delta 66 is also a great card. (The Audiophile belongs to the same Delta family as the Delta 66.) What makes cards like these so good is that there's no gimmicks or doodads—the cards set out what they're supposed to do. You have the soundcard and its drivers and that's it. These soundcards come with optional software, but it's left completely up to you whether or not to install them to check them out. What you get away with for real-time FX will depend on your system's hardware and what OS you're using. The soundcard is just one factor in the chain. For example, since Windows XP/2000, being both based on Windows NT technology, smoke Windows 9x/Me performance-wise, it's the OS of choice for those doing intensive work for multimedia, whether it be for audio or video. ACID also supports dual processors if they exist in your system. (Your OS must also support dual processors; Windows XP Professional has this feature, while Windows XP Home does not.) HTH, Iacobus ------- RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid mD's ACIDplanet Page |
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Subject:RE: STUTTERING song and BUFFER
Reply by: bflat
Date:12/16/2003 2:43:32 AM
mD, Got an idea and ran several Acid files, while watching CPU USAGE w/ Cntrl-Alt-Delete. My problem project almost immediately jumps to 94-98% CPU USE (when the first 3 tracks play simultaneously -- not a whole lotta tracks -- each with maybe 3 FX on them). Then it hits 100% and STAYS THERE. On other Acid projects, and in other apps, I am usually well below this, with perhaps an occasional micro-flash into 100%, which dips down right away. Anyway, does this mean it's more likely I'm over-taxing my processor, than a soundcard problem? I know everyone hates Audigy/SB cards for audio recording (BIG MISTAKE getting one!), but if my processor is too puny my immediate concern is probably to cut resources, look at getting a more powerful computer, etc. w/ my configuration (XP Professional), I could get dual processors, like you mentioned. Is this a hassle to install, can it cause other conflicts and problems? Thanks so very much for your help. |
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Subject:RE: STUTTERING song and BUFFER
Reply by: ATP
Date:12/16/2003 4:23:22 AM
i would think it's fairly evident from your initial post what the real problem is. but the words "Creative" or "Audigy" tend to cause knee-jerk reactions amongst most of us. ;) you have stutters in the sound while playing tracks with FX on them? definitely a CPU/RAM performance problem. especially since you mentioned you only have a PIII 731 (weird number btw) Mhz, and just 192 mb of ram. if you run XP on that too then there will be almost no memory left for anything else. my advice, get a new cpu AND get more ram. however, keep in mind that if you get a new CPU chances are you need to replace your motherboard, and that might in turn mean you need to get another type of ram sticks. so it could be quite an investment, but i think it will be far more effective than keeping this pc and just getting another sound card. good luck in any case. |
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Subject:RE: STUTTERING song and BUFFER
Reply by: Iacobus
Date:12/16/2003 11:58:51 AM
To add to what ATP said, since Windows XP (Home or Professional) requires 128 MB of RAM, you are indeed more than likely hitting a performance ceiling with your current setup. I still stand by what I said about Creative's cards, however. They can't hold up against cards from Echo, M-Audio or Terratec performance-wise. I've seen instances of those who have 512 MB to 1 GB of RAM with a 2 or 3 GB Pentium 4 and still have stuttering/performance problems due to having a resource-hungry video card and/or an underperforming audio card. As an example, I have a system with an 800 MHz Pentium III w/ 384 MB of PC133 SDRAM running Windows XP Home. This system also has an ATI Radeon 32 MB DDR AGP video card and an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 soundcard, and two 7200 RPM, 8 MB cache hard drives (one for system, one for audio). Running ACID Pro 4.0, I can run a 31 track project (consisting of Loops and One-shots) with two track-level effects (thus far) at 24-bit/44.1 kHz. My CPU's meter doesn't go above 12 %. This may be due to the fact that I keep my system clean and free and the config of my system. (Two hard drives are definitely better than one for audio.) You could get a dual-processor setup, sure. It shouldn't be a problem, since XP Professional supports such a setup. Other apps that support only one CPU should work just fine but you won't see an improvement with those apps; only those that support dual processors like ACID. The only hassle I can think of is getting the dang CPU's in their sockets (unless you have it built). ;o) HTH, Iacobus ------- RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid mD's ACIDplanet Page |
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Subject:RE: STUTTERING song and BUFFER
Reply by: ATP
Date:12/16/2003 2:01:15 PM
---------------- I still stand by what I said about Creative's cards, however. They can't hold up against cards from Echo, M-Audio or Terratec performance-wise. ---------------- i don't dispute that in the least. but i wouldn't want the topic starter to rush off getting a new card only to find out it didn't really help all that much (i'm not saying you implied this btw). it's always good to think of all options before spending a few 100 bucks on new hardware. :) |