[amol]

Hi,

i bought my EMU a while back and experiencing issues with playback with ASIO plugin.

The sound starts to crackle like a static after a couple of minutes of playback. I tried upping the buffer size and also tried changing the thread priority, but it doesn't help...

Oh..I tried the new 0.9 and the 0.8 version of it with SSE, SSE 2 and normal ASIO Plugins and I am almost out of ideas now :/

Similar problems happen with Winamp with shibatch ASIO plugin as well

Any ideas on what is going on ?

 

[jilgiljongiljing]

Well, I am guessing you are using a laptop. And not a very new laptop at that. This seems to be a common problem in slightly older laptops when playback has crackles and pops randomly.

From what I have tried, there really isnt a direct fix for this issue other than maybe using a different machine, preferably a desktop, or upgrading the comp.

Couple of things you can try before that though. Have a clean machine, don't have many apps running in the background, connect the EMU directly to the USB port and not to a hub, and don't use any heavy apps while using ASIO.

If these still don't work I suggest sticking to Direct sound, there really isnt a significant difference in terms of audio playback between ASIO and DS, so you really arent compromising much

 

[jiiteepee]

1st check your system with DPC Latency Checker since I found the 0404 USB to be very sensitive for some services (drivers).

- DPC Latency Checker (or TC Electronic Forum / DPC Spike Checker Tool for PC)

2nd, just as a test, try the NI BeatPort SYNC player listed in my sig. It supports ASIO/SRC natively so you don't need any additional plugins for that. I can playback @2ms latency w/o issues even other simultaenous activities going on (surfing the web, downloading/copying files etc.).

Also, you propably can't call the ASIO panel directly from your present playback software ... you can change latency settings through an utility called asiocaps (link in my sig).


jiitee

 

[amol]

my laptop is fairly powerful -1.66 ghz c2d and 2 gig of ram...

 

[sejarzo]

Yep, your laptop really should not have problems, it's definitely got more than enough power for the job at hand!

Do you run into these same problems when using the 0202 USB with Foobar if you select DirectSound as the output method?

Also, do take jiiteepee's advice....DPC Latency Checker doesn't involve any big installation, just unzip it to your desktop and double-click on the icon.

If you find problems with latency, well, I can't help you, but maybe he can!

 

[alea35]

i am having the same probably pretty much. e-mu 0404 usb on a laptop. 2 gz with 2 gb of ram etc. i used the DPC latency checker and usually it's under 500 but when it stutters and stuff it goes up past 30,000! What! i have no idea how to fix this

 

[jiiteepee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by alea35 /img/forum/go_quote.gif i am having the same probably pretty much. e-mu 0404 usb on a laptop. 2 gz with 2 gb of ram etc. i used the DPC latency checker and usually it's under 500 but when it stutters and stuff it goes up past 30,000! What! i have no idea how to fix this

Did you try that player software I suggested? Set it output through E-MU ASIO @ any rate but remember try 1st using latency settings around 50ms then you can lower this setting yntil you start getting issues (here, 0404 USB works well with native ASIO @ 2ms even other activities, as like surfing the web, are on going while playing back audio.

Hmm... when it's a laptop in question, then 1st possible culprit for bad audio performance is a wireless NIC ... this must be disabled.

Quite often stuttering issues are related to low PCI bus performance ... this can be improved by lowering the PCI latency for graphics and some other devices/controllers ... for graphics it can be set to 32-64, USB/NIC ~0-32. Remember that PCI latency can be set only for PCI based devices/controllers.

You should check if there are certain processes/services that hogs CPU/resources now and then (when you get stuttering and other audible issues). DPC Latency tool is good tool for this but to find the device driver is maybe not very easy ... you could try with Performance tool (comes with O/S). I think I have posted these instructions already here but to be sure ...

Quote:

Checking "Thread/Processor time" usage is good point to start from. ! before starting, remember start all those software you think are involved and plug/power those additional equipment/devices you have there before starting this procedure. - start the Performance utility by entering a command perfmon.msc /s in Start->Run... dialog. In performance monitor utility's main window, - enable the graph display - add "counters" by pressing the "+" icon -> select -- "Threads" in "Performance objects" drop-list box, -- "% Processor Time" in counter list -- "All instances" in instances dialog By setting the High Lite on (button), you'll be able to high lite the curve by double clicking it .. this also locates the thread (list below the graph area) which the curve belongs to. Now in graphics, you maybe see couple counters staying near 100% all the time (those are maybe just system "Idle" processes) ... just high lite those lines and by pressing the Del key you can remove this instance from monitored items (remember check that it's not some audio related item). Finally, start working as normally and then when you get those audible issues, you should then see the "spike" in graph there and so on...

jiitee

 

[alea35]

i updated my wi-fi drivers and its helped significantly. problem is i NEED wi-fi enabled to do my work and i stream a lot of my music from my NAS drive anyway. any chance that other software will still work or do i just need to pray my wi-fi drivers get updated again? or is there any tweak in windows i could use to help with these lag spikes?

 

[jiiteepee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by alea35 /img/forum/go_quote.gif i updated my wi-fi drivers and its helped significantly. problem is i NEED wi-fi enabled to do my work and i stream a lot of my music from my NAS drive anyway. any chance that other software will still work or do i just need to pray my wi-fi drivers get updated again? or is there any tweak in windows i could use to help with these lag spikes?

AFAIK, there aren't much to do with wi-fi effecting to audio. Maybe you can try by lowering the priority for wi-fi drivers and increase it for playback software. Also, lowering PCI latency for wi-fi controller to 0 - 16 (if this is possible to do) may help a bit.

I would suggest you to switch from wi-fi to cable connections (if this is possible in your setup).

jiitee