Boost your PCs audio performance.

[random007]

Quote:

DPC latency is the max delay ( (usually from poorly written kernel level driver interrupt code) ) resulting from displacing
what you might want executed at a lower priority (like audio transfers, although those are also part of the same priority queue) into deferred calls
(as opposed to things like graphics painting or memory mgmt)... With a priority queue for DPCs where all of these get placed for processing (not sure how concurrency/sync/starvation are managed there, but there are definitely things you want favour ASAP execution of vs audio

Hence DPC is not really absolute system latency.

Rating $k/ms latency is just ridiculous. It's about as of a legitimate or useful heuristic as saying an expensive food joint is necessarily good. Just because there's a
high margin, doesn't mean people spent any time designing the DAC section or minimizing magical latency (presumably he talks about inherent jitter of the various interface components (dodgy CD opt out to dodgy dac chip opt in

?).

Yes, totally. And people often confuse software latency with hardware. Software latency issues means delay between a program calling an API function and the output of the drivers and has nothing to do with the internal electronics.
 

 

[MaciekN]

OK, looks like it's much much easier to talk about some irrelevant soundcards than on topic. What do you poeple actually do to optimise your PC audio rigs? Apart from disregarding any idea that is not posted by a scientist with full documentation and sources?
 
Kiteki, maybe you could post your impressions on Fidelizer or any similar app, do you hear any sonic improvements?
 
PS. So how can I actually set excessive bus time for soundcard? I'd like to try some extreme settings to see if they make any difference. And after you end the discussion about how wrong it was to use DPC meter, how can I measure the "relevant" latancy, be it hardware or software?

 

[Head Injury]

Quote:

OK, looks like it's much much easier to talk about some irrelevant soundcards than on topic. What do you poeple actually do to optimise your PC audio rigs? Apart from disregarding any idea that is not posted by a scientist with full documentation and sources?

I use WASAPI to bypass any Windows crap, and I maximize the volume in Foobar.

 

[Dradder]

Quote:

OK, looks like it's much much easier to talk about some irrelevant soundcards than on topic. What do you poeple actually do to optimise your PC audio rigs? 

 
Fidelizer 2.0, Game Booster 3 beta 2.0 with all services except fidelizer stopped, then either XMPlay for FLAC files or pkshan's foobar2000 HE v3.8 for WAV files, volume at 100%.

 

[MaciekN]

Using system mixer bypass seems obvious (ASIO, Kernel Streaming, WASAPI, whatever), at least for me, I asked what else do you do to improve the quality of audio.
 
Since nobody responded my question about articles similar to "The Art of Building Computer Transports" I have conducted a little search myself, resulting in this.
 
Among regular stuff about setting bit perfect output and using quality soundcard as a source (or at least with a quality clock), on page 11 they sate that a computer optimised for audio should have at least some of the system services disabled and apps like anti-vir (or any resources hungry) disabled or even uninstalled.
 
I think that this prooves that at least some system optimisations described in "The Art..." have an impact on audio, as well as killing background processes. My subjective tests showed pretty much just that.

 

[Head Injury]

Quote:

I think that this prooves that at least some system optimisations described in "The Art..." have an impact on audio, as well as killing background processes. My subjective tests showed pretty much just that.

If they supply no measurements or blind tests, it proves nothing. I'm not about to dig through that whole thing looking for some, so are there any?

 

[MaciekN]

Why won't you make a blind test yourself? I've heard it's not that hard afterall.
Or find a paper on computer audio that supports their theories with measurements/blind test documentation? The second article comes from linkwitz lab website, this is no random source. Personally, if they say it makes a difference then I believe them. I understand that you may be sceptic towards digging in your system but it seems it's neccessary for higher fidelity, at least that's what both articles state. Sure the dCS document is not that specific about what exactly should be disabled; therefore, it is far less controvential.
 
 

 

[earwaxxer]

The computer and all its noise becomes a "non-issue" if you use Ethernet protocol as your digital out.