Audio latency problem with VST, SONAR and Audigy 4 PRO

Question

Hello all,
I have a slight problem with audio performance on my computer and I can't isolate what is wrong. I am using Cakewalk SONAR 4 studio edition, and a recently purchased Audigy 4 Pro soundcard. ( I know it's not quite professional grade, but it works well for me) I recently bought some string instruments from the Vienna Symphonic Library. So far, I love the sound of these "virtual instruments" if you will. The problem comes when I try to record them. I get stuttering and dropouts when I try to record the track in Sonar. I've tried the WDM drivers in 16 and 24 bit modes and the ASIO drivers (which apparently only support 16 bit!?) I know Creative has mentioned that these cards can record easily at 24/96 which is what I'd like if possible. Vienna instruments come in a 24 bit format. Is there something I'm doing wrong or do I need to seriously consider a different soundcard? I use Sonar to bring in the Vienna instruments as a VST. I also apply a reverb on it. When I just play this stuff on my MIDI keyboard, it all sounds great and keeps up. The moment I go to record though, I get dropouts after about 15 seconds or so. Also, is there no way to get ASIO 24 bit support for creative's consumer level cards? I'd be happy with the WDM's personally if those would work. I've looked into the KX project as well but haven't had a chance to try their drivers yet. On a different note, what are the significant differences between ASIO and WDM if any at all? (aside from supported bit rates) My current computer setup is quite powerful and I don't use much CPU power at all so I don't think it's my setup. Intel E6700 (2.67Ghz) Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR2-800, 320GB Seagate SATA in RAID 1, Nvidia 7600GT, and Creative Audigy 4 Pro. Any help, or insight would be greatly appreciated!
Matthew

Answer 1

Audigy 4 Pro should support 24-bit/96 kHz w/ ASIO --> have you selected those I/O drivers in Sonar audio settings (Options-Audio-Drivers -tab). ! You need to unselect all I/O drivers first to get those 24/96 drivers selectable)?
Dropouts comes from various sources. Have you checked if the read/write caching is set properly (Sonar, try different settings)?
Stuttering may come from shared IRQ/resources and PCI Latency settings.
If your graphics card is not PCIe then, make this registry tweak
Run regedit and search the key named as DisableProgPCILatency
- set all 'DisableProgPCILatency' key values to 1 (HEX or DEC) (1 = disabled, 0 = enabled)
- boot to BIOS settings and find the "PCI latency timer" option --> set its value to 32 or 64 (this is global PCI latency setting)
- reboot
and check the IRQ situation. If there are IRQ shares between Audigy and other devices/controllers, try to get those fixed by disabling unneeded controllers/devices or by moving the Audigy into another PCI slot (PCI slots #3 and #4 are normally not shared).
Couple meaninful differences between WDM/KS and ASIO are;
- you can't get latency lower than 10 ms w/ WDM/KS (well, you can in Sonar by manually editing those buffer values but, the result is not good when you go under 10 ms buffer values (buffersize / samplerate * 1000 = latency in ms --> 512/96000*1000=5.33ms)
and
- you can record from one stereo (you can split this to two mono) source at a time w/ WDM (recording source is set in CT Surround Mixer (or windows recording controls))
- ASIO supports (Audigy serie) locked 'resolutions' only - 16/48 or 24/96
Also, tweak your system for music - http://www.musicxp.net/
Some information on CT ASIO -
http://forums.creative.com/creativel...essage.id=1726
jutapa
Message Edited by jutapa on 12-17-200606:01 PM