Recording - September 2011 - 22

Swapping slots – Sometimes moving the video card to another slot may shuffle the Windows resource assignments and clear up a conflict. It’s always worth a try, but this time it didn’t help. There wasn’t any difference in the performance, and when I checked the resource sharing (using msinfo32.exe) I saw that resource assignments had not changed at all. Video Card Settings – Your video card software likely has various settings you can try in order to improve performance. For instance, the Nvidia software has a slider control to favor performance vs. 3D graphics speed/resolution. Moving the slider towards performance did help audio engine stability somewhat. Generic Driver – Trying different drivers can resolve a problem, or at least provide important clues. As a test, try the Microsoft generic VGA driver. When I tried it, audio playback became stable. Predictably, since this was not a recommended driver for my Samsung 225BW 22” monitor, the display looked horrible, with huge fonts, icons and bad pixellation. But this test helped to confirm that a conflict with the video system was causing audio issues. Driver Versions – Next, try different versions of the video driver from your manufacturer. Start with the newest and work backward, testing each driver with your monitor and DAW software. I found acceptable performance with an Nvidia driver that was several versions old; not an ideal solution but OK as a workaround until I had something better.

Luckily I found another Ebay bargain, for less than $15, on the ADS Pyro 1394 PCI Express Card API316. Before buying I emailed ADS and got a fast reply verifying the card uses a TI chip. Once I installed this card, my DAW workstation was finally rock solid, and ready to rock. Plus, I was also able to update the video driver back to the most recent version again.

And In The End...
At last, my DAW is performing great and living comfortably in a 64-bit world. It’s handling large numbers of tracks and simultaneous powerful plug-ins, not even close to breaking a sweat. I haven’t found the upper limit yet, but so far the SONAR CPU meters are easily between 5%—30%. On the old PC I often hit 90% CPU usage, then audio would start to break down, even under a much lighter load. My largest VST instruments load up at least ten times faster than on the old PC. File Save normally takes one or two seconds now, where it used to take as long as 30 seconds or more. In final mixes, I use some effects processing on almost every track, which used to kill the performance on the old PC. Now, I’ve not been able to hit a limit on the number of effects yet. I’m using more powerful plugins than before, without bogging down the PC and without needing to freeze tracks in order to conserve CPU and RAM.

FireWire Motherboard FireWire – From troubleshooting on past PCs, I knew that my TASCAM audio interface works best with Texas Instruments FireWire. [See the August 2011 Talkback column for more on this thorny problem.—Ed.] I made sure the TI FireWire chipset was used on the Gigabyte motherboard before I bought that model in the first place. Still, I was having symptoms of a hardware conflict with the audio interface. PCI Card FireWire – With more research I learned that a PCI card sometimes proves more reliable than the motherboard chip. A helpful forum user pointed me to an Ebay bargain on a 3-Port Adaptec AFW-4300 FireWire PCI Card for less than $10. I figured it was worth a try. This card used exactly the same TI chip as the Gigabyte motherboard, so it shouldn’t be any different, right? Yet once I installed the card, there was a significant improvement in latency, as reported by the DPC Latency checker, which dropped from around 32 microseconds down to 8 microseconds. Latency improved in SONAR X1, and now I had a functional DAW system again. But I still had serious issues with stability, audio dropouts and a sometimes jumpy mouse. PCIe Card FireWire – Back to the drawing board, I got a tip from another forum user that a PCIe FireWire card would be even more stable than the PCI card I had installed. The PCI standard has become legacy and will soon be 20 years old! The PCIe standard was released in 2004, it’s much faster and better designed for better resource handling and sharing.
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RECORDING SEPTEMBER 2011

One caveat: For live real-time recording, say recording guitar or keyboard while playing to the existing tracks, I still need to temporarily bypass the effects while I’m recording (unless the project is just using a few simple effects). Otherwise the latency is too high to be able to play in sync. I don’t consider that to be a big problem, as SONAR lets you bypass all the effects with one click. Looking back on this upgrade, considering the problems I had and the time required for troubleshooting, would I have done things differently? Would I have bought a more expensive audio PC already built and tuned for audio? I could certainly make a case for that. But I doubt that would have resolved all of the troubleshooting with my particular gear. Although I don’t exactly enjoy the troubleshooting process, I learned a lot that I can use going forward—the inner workings of my PC, Windows 7, and the DAW software. Plus there’s the sense of accomplishment in completing and “surviving” a journey through my most extensive DAW upgrade ever! Jim Stamper (stamper@recordingmag.com) is a composer, producer, and musician living and working in Fort Wayne, IN.

Recording - September 2011

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