DUNE 2 demo ASIO spikes

[Christophe]

At Unison 4 -5, that range, its the sporadic thing. And THAT is not ok.

i disagree on this, i think we can explain that the sporadic or periodic drop out / crackle is due to a new note being played
this new note can't be handle by the system and you get crackles!
to understand it, like teksonic said, reduce the release on every layers and you will see that everything is ok

[JohnDowe123]

At Unison 4 -5, that range, its the sporadic thing. And THAT is not ok.

i disagree on this, i think we can explain that the sporadic or periodic drop out / crackle is due to a new note being played
this new note can't be handle by the system and you get crackles!
to understand it, like teksonic said, reduce the release on every layers and you will see that everything is ok

No definitely not. I play a 8th or 16th pattern, that means new notes are triggered twice a second or so. Used voices quickly go up to 80 (5 unison x 16 polyphony) and stay there virtually fixed. So we have reached kind of a "steady state". Old notes are dropped when new notes come in, voices in use are constantly 80. This plays well for 20 seconds and then a dropout. The midi input can't be the reason because that does not change.

[Christophe]

you have Average CPU Mark of 5693 :
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu ... 90T&id=393
Single Thread Rating: 1222
mine is 3038 :
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu ... 50GHz&id=9
Single Thread Rating: 1064
my asio is set on 96khz/221 sample
if i modify Blue pigment KS like

Open a Dune2 track, select "Blue Pigment KS", set 8 fold Unison and 16 notes polyphony.

my cpu load is 54% max when playing a 1/16 th arp,
i set multithreading on both in orion and dune2, the only problem i heard is the overloaded channel i have to lower the volume
if i load a second dune2 with the same preset i overload my cpu 100% so orion stop and i listen to crackles but i can't say it's a bug, the problem is i have pushed my cpu 4 voices too much yes if i set the second dune2 to 12 voices my cpu stay around 89% and crackles around 93%
i experienced your problem but it can be related to anything
for example i have less crackle if i close the task manager
and none if i close chrome

[JohnDowe123]

For me it is far more drastic though. ASIO load can be fairly stable around 25% and then suddenly jump to 100% for just a moment. In Windows CPU meter I can't see anything, all cores seam to have some medium load. Not sure if Windows really shows the actual individual per core load. Also, update speed of the CPU graph might be too slow to catch the short spikes.

The fact that it is so erratic might actually be a hint on the Windows system interfering here.

Is there any CPU tracking tool that is more detailled and accurate which could possibly help?

[Marcin]

Please try also the below:
- turn off the network devices while playing (mostly if it's wifi)
* there might be some services which causes spikes by online checks etc.
- turn off windows Defender service if turned on (only during network device is off)

Also please answer for the below questions:
- what Audio priority do you have set for Cubase?
- do you have turned off "Steinberg Audio Power Scheme"?
- do you have RIDE system installed (such driver sometimes may produce strange CPU spikes)?
- do you have any possibility to check Cubase 5 or 6?
- did you try Multithreading on and off for DUNE 2?

The note about CPU vs ASIO spikes.
If there is any short CPU overload, then it's natural that ASIO spike may occur, even if ASIO usage is 5%.

Anyway, as I observe your symptoms it is something more regular than just "sometimes", and it looks like something produces short CPU overload in your OS, and it can be as above - raid, or network device, or any service which uses network connection (like update checker or so), it may be also an external disk or network disk or any of many other possibilities. It would be good also to experiment with different Cubase audio priorities.

[Teksonik]

Also what version are your Fast Track Ultra 8R drivers ?

[HYPNAGOGIA]

Wow, Marcin gives a run for the money

[Teksonik]

I just tried the test with my studio computer. (i7 3770K), With the modifications noted 8 layers full poly, Reaper's CPU meter shows 11.8 % with a looped sequence playing. Not a hint of audio degradation. With the release turned to zero on all layers it settles in at about 3.1 % Same test in Orion....same results although Orion's meter shows 26 % at the highest. I find Reaper's meter to be the most accurate although Sonar's shows Per Core results.........
EDIT: Same result in Sonar although it doesn't report numbers it just has a bar graph.........very little CPU activity.

This test just impresses on me how CPU efficient D2 really is........

[piel]

Did the test in Renoise.
Results
One instance 8x unison 16 poly (96kHz 512 samples) 93% in the DAWs meter CPU 70% 128 voices playing constantly. No crackles unless i start chrome or else.
Two instances 5x unison 16 poly, 93%!!! in the DAWs meter CPU 80 voices play on both constantly. (That's 160 voices!!!) I get a dropout after about 5 miutes but it is obvious that the system pushes over the CPU with some sceduled duty or net access.
If i don't play with the comp it holds out even longer without a dropout.
i7 3632QM laptop.

[JohnDowe123]

OK this is puzzling. Yesterday playing Pigment with 8/16 mod gave me constant crackles. Today it plays almost fine, but still sporadic dropouts. CPU is around 50% on all cores. So while not perfect the performance just varies too much, I can't replicate things reliably.

A test in reaper showed comparable CPU load, around 50-60% (Reaper itself says it's only 11%), but also crackles, even more than in Cubase.

(It also depends on the number of notes I play. If I just play enough notes to keep the 128 going, an 8th pattern at tempo 150, I only get sporadic dropouts. If I play really wildly as many notes as I can using both hands, playback gets more and more crackles.)

If I close Dune's GUI window, ASIO load is a little lower, and crackles are far more seldom and a little smaller (no crackles), They are not fully gone however. If I insert

If I let two instances of Dune with Pigment 4/16 play an 8th pattern at 150bpm, I get the same, mostly stable playback at 60% CPU, but occasional crackles. The more notes I play, the more crackles.

So I think we can agree that my system (CPU wise) is not close to it's limit, yet every now and then there are dropouts.

As to Marcins questions:
Please try also the below:
- turn off windows Defender - is off
- what Audio priority do you have set for Cubase? - Normal
- do you have turned off "Steinberg Audio Power Scheme"? - yes, I never touched that thing
- do you have RIDE system installed (such driver sometimes may produce strange CPU spikes)? - no RAID
- do you have any possibility to check Cubase 5 or 6? - I should be able to do that.
- did you try Multithreading on and off for DUNE 2? - If I turn multicore off I have to reduce the unison/poly to 4/8 to get stable playback. It seems to be a little more stable then, but I still get sporadic dropouts. If the GUI is on much more than if the GUI is closed.

[Marcin]

Try also with all network devices off. And what gfx card do you have?

[Christophe]

Also what version are your Fast Track Ultra 8R drivers ?

+1, as shown my cpu is not very powerful and i don't have so much crackles

[JohnDowe123]

Gfx is ATI Radeon HD 5500, 4GB, 400MHz

Audio Driver is 5.10.0.5100, Firmware 1.5.1, Fast Track Ultra 8R

I tried with network device turned off, that does not change anything.

Tested in Cubase6.5, it's the same there.

[Teksonik]

Audio Driver is 5.10.0.5100, Firmware 1.5.1, Fast Track Ultra 8R

According to this site:
Fast Track Ultra 8R Drivers

The latest drivers are 6.1.9 looks like 5.10 would be from some time in 2009.

This is from the next to latest driver update:
*Hardware latency values are now reported with far greater accuracy, allowing host applications to perform the best possible hardware latency compensation
*Improved performance
*Improved multi-client support
*Miscellaneous bug fixes

[Christophe]

oh my god !
well done !
an other case solved by Tek !
look like CSI Las Vegas