diegote_86

Hi, I'm a guitarist, but I also play keyboards for drum tracks, piano, etc. I'm using Sonar 3, along with NI's Guitar Rig, and NI's software samplers (mainly Kontakt).
I can play ALMOST flawlessly with a 5ms latency within Guitar Rig. (Standalone, and as a DXi inserted on Sonar). There are very few cracks on the audio (if any), and that's OK.
The problem is with NI's software samplers. They are playable of course, but the cracks are present here and there, distracting me from playing in a relaxed way. I tried different latencies, 5ms-20ms (although >10 ms is not acceptable for me, I was just trying to see if the problem dissapeared), but I had no luck.
Before the SBLive!, I had the chance to use an Audigy 2 ZS, and a Delta Audiophile 2496. Both cards working with their native drivers, NOT the KX drivers. Everything worked fine.
I am saying this to state that this is not a HD streaming issue. I cannot get a good performance even with NI's standalone versions of Kontakt, Intakt, etc.
And the biggest instrument I tried to play is an Acoustic Grand Piano (220 Mb). I think that my system is able to handle this burden...I tried to experiment with buffer settings but the results where almost identical (I didn't notice neither improvement nor degrade of performance while tweaking buffers).
Any suggestions please?

My system specs are:

AMD Athlon XP 2400
ASUS Motherboard (A7V8X MX SE)
512 Mb DDR 333 Mhz
On Board Video (Using 32 Mb of system RAM)
On Board Lan
80 Gb Maxtor HDD (working at Ultra DMA Mode 6). 60 Gbs free.
SB Live! Value OEM (CT4832 10k1) working with it's own IRQ (not shared)

Win XP SP1 installed. CPU Usage is optimized for Background processes.
ACPI PC.

dj_stick

the more programs loaded, the higher the useable latency will be

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diegote_86

The only 2 programas that Win loads upon startup are : KX Mixer, and VTTimer.exe (related to my onboard video).

I also keep the number of services in a low number, just loading the ones that are critical for the system, in order to have the maximum resources.

But as I said before, when I used the Audigy ZS / Delta Audiophile, there weren't any problems with ASIO, with 5 ms latency, and the system not perfectly optimized for audio...(more processes running than I have now)

Anyone having this kind of problem - mainly with Native Instruments software samplers - ?

Any tweaking tip would be appreciated...

dj_stick

if you are using the DFD module for the samplers, you will experience some latency effects while the samples are being played from the hard-drive… i think after a short while they are then stored in the memory where the useable latency is reduced… not sure though, have to re-read the docs on this

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Lex Nahumury

[color=yellow]What kX driver versions have you tried/used are you refering to?[/color]
[color=yellow]Personaly I still use 3534f which gives me the best ASIO performance[/color]
[color=yellow]in terms of stability (no crackels etc.) at 5ms.[/color]
[color=yellow][/color]
[color=yellow]/LeMury[/color]

diegote_86

I'm currently using :

Version: 5, 10, 00, 3537 - debug
Compiled: Feb 17 2004 00:46:58

Will try with that previous version of the KX drivers and see what happens.

Djstick: Yes, I'm using the DFD module. Is there any way to reduce the cracks? I'd be happy by just reducing the problem
I tried another sampler (HALION 2) and same problem...not as bad as Kontakt, but the cracks are still too many.

It seems that I have an issue with KX and samplers...(With Guitar Rig and Hammond B4, for instance, it's O.K.).

BTW, my HD is defragmented every week.

First, I'll try previous versions of KX...any tip on setting buffers that may help?

Lex Nahumury

[color=yellow]Very strange.[/color]
[color=yellow]Did you setup ASIO in your apps properly? That is;[/color]
[color=yellow]kX ASIO ->48khz etc etc?[/color]
[color=yellow][/color]
[color=yellow]/LeMury[/color]

dj_stick

could be an issue with your RAM/memory controller. What speed is the memory rated at and what is it running at?

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diegote_86

RAM: 2 x 256 Mb (400 Mhz each)

But they're working @ 333 Mhz because the motherboard can't do more than that.
Settings in standalone applications and sequencer (Sonar 3) are Ok, 48khz, kx ASIO driver.

Tried moving SB Live! to different PCI slots, but no change. In slot #1 (I read that slot #1 was a good idea), it shares its IRQ with the onboard video...so I moved it to the original PCI slot I had it installed (the last one).

I read about some issues about motherboards having the VIA chipset. Something going on with PCI speed, and PCI latency...i tried a PCI latency patch for my motherboard with no luck.

dj_stick

ok so the ram shouldn't be the problem, hmm what is the chipset you have? compare it with the chipset mentioned here

EDIT: also, check to see how much ram is being taken up when you have your audio programs loaded.

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