DUNE 2 demo ASIO spikes

[JohnDowe123]

Hi there,

trying the demo of DUNE 2, and I notice the ASIO load shows spikes every now and then for certain patches.

E.g. when I am playing "Ice Crystals AZ", the ASIO load is around 30%, and all of a sudden it pops to 80% for a second, then back to 30%. This happens anywhere between once a minute and once every few seconds.

These spikes happen really erratically, can't relate them to the notes I play or the modwheel use or anything.

My gut feeling says patches with many effects, especially long reverbs, show this behaviour.

Any comments on this?

[Kriminal]

System spec?

[JohnDowe123]

Sorry, forgot that:

Windows 7 64 bit, Cubase 7.0.7. 64 bit, Dune 2 latest demo 64 bit. Phenom II X6 T1090 @ 3.2GHz, 12GB RAM
M-Audio Fast Track Ultra 8R @ 512 Samples / 96kHz

[Teksonik]

ASIO Driver ? Does this occur at lower rates like 48K ?

[JohnDowe123]

Yeah of course the M-Audio ASIO driver.

Will check with 48k sampling rate.

Is there oversampling under Dune's hood? Could it be disabled? I's not really neccessary at 96kHz I guess.

[JohnDowe123]

OK did the test.

At 48kHz sampling freq and 256 samples buffer it is the same as with 96/512, rather even a little worse. Spikes up to 100% ASIO pretty frequently.

At 48/512 it is way better and more stable. ASIO load still jumps around a little, but not that big.

Do these findings give any hint on where the spikes originate from?

The thing is, 512 samples at 48kHz are too much latency for me, so I really would prefer 96/512 to work without spikes. It should be possible, shouldn't it, because for many seconds in a row it runs stable?

[Teksonik]

Maybe an issue with Cubase ? Do you have another host in which to test ? I'm running two M Audio soundcards. One AP192 on a Win 7 64 bit system and one AP 24/96 on a Win XP system and I've never had any "ASIO' spikes which I assume you mean are CPU spikes.....

[Marcin]

Do you use any anti virus software?

[Teksonik]

I don't think the question was directed at me but.......I use BitDefender on the Win 7 machine and Webroot on the Win Xp system......

[JohnDowe123]

I don't use antivirus. And no, I don't mean CPU spikes, I mean ASIO spikes. Didn't actually look at CPU but I can do that.

I can try in other hosts, e.g. Reaper and vsthost. Since they don't display ASIO load, I will have to create some "background load" with other plugs, so that my system is near full capacity and the spikes will actually get audible as dropouts.

[Teksonik]

None of the 4 hosts I use display "ASIO Load" or "ASIO Spikes" so it must be a Cubase thing.........

[Teksonik]

After a quick Google yes "ASIO metering" a Cubase thing. Maybe this post will help:

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-computers/875571-kontakt-5-cubase-6-5-asio-spikes-some-resolution.html

Here's another post this time from KVR:

Up until Cubase 7, I never had a problem with it. Rock solid since version 2. I currently use Audio Kontrol 6 as my interface with Win 7. Ever since C7 x64, I get spikes and crashes all over the place. I was pulling my hair out trying to figure out the problem. Turns out its the ASIO guard feature. Now, I don't know what it's guarding against, or why it's the default setting on an otherwise perfectly good DAW, but there you go. I found it, turned it off, and no problems since.

UNTIL...I upgraded to Cubase 7.5. Same problems. Surprisingly, even though the 7.5 upgrade is supposed to overlay on top of my C7 installation, it reverted to a default on the ASIO guard again. And, again, I had spikes and crashes until I turned it off.

Hope that helps.

Cheers
-B

[JohnDowe123]

None of the 4 hosts I use display "ASIO Load" or "ASIO Spikes" so it must be a Cubase thing.........

Now thats a strange reply. It's like saying "my car doesn't have a rev meter, so going at 9000rpm is not an issue".
Cubase is the only (afaik) host that displays information about ASIO load, but that doesn't mean that other hosts don't deal with ASIO load. ASIO load is there when you produce music with an ASIO driver. How many plugins you can use depends on your ASIO performance (which is NOT equal to CPU performance). BTW I checked the CPU load, it's 20% or so. According to windows graph no core is overloaded. CPU usage does not show spikes.

OK that said, I read through the other two links you provided.

The first is Kontakt / SD specific (probably DFD issue or something). I might try to tweak the graphics cards settings though.

Second link suggest disabling ASIO Guard. Tested that, did not cure the spikes.

Anyway today the spikes are somewhat fewer and smaller. It is really an erratic behaviour. I managed to setup a Cubase project with high load where the spikes yield audible dropouts. With the same setup in Reaper I did not hear dropouts.

It is a hint that it indeed might be a Cubase issue, but it might just be that Reaper performs a little better and the setup does not yield dropouts yet. Difficult to judge ASIO power when you don't have a meter for it. I will try again tomorrow.

[Teksonik]

Now thats a strange reply. It's like saying "my car doesn't have a rev meter, so going at 9000rpm is not an issue".

No, it's saying the other hosts don't care about "ASIO Load' and hence have no issues with meters spiking. I couldn't care less about "ASIO Load" any more than I care about the color of the antifreeze in my car. I've had many DAWS and lived happily with each one without knowing what my "ASIO Load" is....but then I haven't used Cubase in years. Maybe it's an issue that Cubase needs to care about that other DAWS don't.........

No one reported any issues during Beta and I have not seen any report other that yours since release. Perhaps no one else who has tested or tried/purchased DUNE 2 uses Cubase.....I've asked at KVR if anyone else has your same setup...no response yet.

Anyway I'm just trying to help but since I don't own Cubase all I can tell you is DUNE 2 runs fine in all four of my DAWS on three different systems....two of which run M Audio products and one which uses ASIO4ALL with onboard Realtek sound.......

Perhaps you have found a bug that slipped through Beta but until we can get someone else to confirm the issue it will remain in my eyes at least a system specific issue.........Rich or Marcin will have to comment further.

[JohnDowe123]

At first, thanks very much again for helping and showing interest!

No, it's saying the other hosts don't care about "ASIO Load' and hence have no issues with meters spiking. I couldn't care less about "ASIO Load" any more than I care about the color of the antifreeze in my car. I've had many DAWS and lived happily with each one without knowing what my "ASIO Load" is....but then I haven't used Cubase in years. Maybe it's an issue that Cubase needs to care about that other DAWS don't.........

But this I cannot understand. If you load several instances of Dune 2 and a bunch of multiband compressors etc. at some point your system is going to choke. Audio won't play without dropouts. That is the point when you have ASIO overload. That is NOT CPU overload.

ASIO spike means, the ASIO load shows a short but big jump, which can lead to a audio dropout when the average ASIO load is already at 70% or so. And you get to this point with ANY host. Not having a meter for something (in the other hosts) does not mean something is not there.

So I guess you never created a really big project in your other DAWs with lots of plugins which brings your machine close to its limit. THEN ASIO spikes get important, because then they get audible as dropouts. If you load just one instance of Dune2 and nothing else, you won't see problems.