A must-watch for users with real-time issues!

I don’t want to advertize certain brands, but i use a silent (no ventilator) Radion HD 5450 for 4 years, and you’ll have to avoid getting all that extra unneeded software to boot, called Catatylzer or so, just the basic drivers. No problems there so far. Only when you play games or render video there might be better options. Autoruns is a nice checker for what stuff gets booted and you can switch off some. You can also check what gets booted by running msconfig.exe.

  • If you mean sharp clicks: Spikes are usually related to buffersizes, samplerate settings, and audio cards. Sometimes a lesser setting means avoiding stuttering LoL.

  • Also have enough RAM for Cubase; i found the 6GB i had was not enough since Cubase 8 64bit came out, had 5 before that. have 16 GB now, and bought reasonably fast DIMMs, and do MAKE SURE you have one type and brand fitted. AND SWITCH OFF ASIO GUARD !!

  • Check your master clocking and samplerates, using 44.1 and 48 kHz through one and other means spike related trouble. I always try to use an external master clock and slave my computer. RME’s stuff is famous for an affordable good one, even an onboard PCI HD9632 sound card has a good master clock.

  • I had good experiences by avoiding USB for audio all together, and with Firewire no real problems as such. After a M Audio delta 1010, i switched to firewire : Focusrite Saffire, RME Multiface with HDSPe, and Fireface UFX, they never gave me spikes. But you’ll need a proper Firewire card for those.

PS In case someone is interested: as RME fan i have some stuff up for sale, like a Multiface 2 with PCIe card (this is not a standard Firewire card but RME’s own protocol BTW), and some PCI (non PCIe), like a HD9632 and also a Creative Soundblaster ZS2 with breakout box that has a really now missed headphone out for my PC. Mine has (non official) 64bit drivers i never had problems with it. Alas my mainboard’s only PCI was slot already taken by my Firewire card, as the sound blaster was the most useful hardware GM synth i ever used with it’s programmable soundfont options too. - F

Very helpful post. I agree,make this a sticky.

+1

So do Steinberg recommend a video card, because I have had a lot of issues with Nvidia.

I will also mention that Cubase can be a lot more prone to asio spikes etc. where other DAWS have no problems with the same project.

Just checked back in on this - really glad it was helpful to some of you! I would love to see an officially endorsed/supported vendor list. Specifications of the PC’s Steinberg use to develop and test would be amazing.

<3 Too kind bro :wink:

Thanks, this got me thinking about my current and former machines.

Update: I dont allow my main DAW to visit the internet, but I do use it on my LAN, by disabling the ethernet NIC I gained a much higher rating for real-time, like 35% improved… nice. :sunglasses:

Perhaps this topic should get “stickied”?

Steinberg did something with HP a while ago. They were running Cubase on HP workstations like the Z1. I remember all the Mac users commenting very positive. Could be great if one of the big ones like HP or Dell did make a DAW optimized configuration of an existing model.

The top software companies in the audio world would do everybody a huge favor by getting together and standardizing a DAW for minimal latency and maximum performance. They should specify recommended video cards, recommended audio interfaces etc. etc and work with the component manufacturers to keep the components focused solely on audio production, or audio/video production if you need that in your DAW. Perhaps every 5-7 years if/when the technology really advances make a new recommendation and have serious users see it as a cost of doing business. Let’s face it, it’s the wild wild west out there and there are way too many places to have to look to troubleshoot problems. I bought a DAW from a guy who knew what he was doing, but I am having to troubleshoot problems all the time anyway and spend way too much time fixing my computer based problems instead of making music.

really cool post thanks. had some issues myself this has helped and getting rid of effing norton antivirus! maybe some recommendations for what the best system could be for different budget ranges would be cool in the future as everyones suggesting

Good to know what Steinberg recommends as a video card. I have nvidia Geforce 8400GS and i have vst performance problem when i do basic editing i.e using scissors etc. The worst is when i use the piano roll or drum editor.

However Steinberg are working for a fix…i hope it will solve this issue. Lets have fait in the company.

Just mentioned something about this to an experienced PC assembler who said, regarding a video editing PC and some nVidia card that he prefers for budget reasons, that he install them with just the bare drivers, not all the x-tra stuff for tuning and gaming, the same as i did with my old radion ATI 5450 card …

It seems to me it is the non negotiable timing constraints that put the pressure on the real time performance of a DAW. Thanks for sharing the video an informative watch.

Haven`t seen a laptop in a serious production environment,always towers as the main computer and laptops for less demanding,helpful tools.

So what’s the video card recommended instead Nvidia?

Don’t have problems now but would like to upgrade my ancient one.

I think it would be good if Steinberg would give us a list of recommended GPUs, which they tested and are confirmed to work well.

I think you will have good luck with any AMD-based card. It’s not that Nvidia has bad hardware, it’s that they write terrible drivers with regard to DPC latency. I don’t think any driver since they got into the 300s has had acceptable DPC latency for DAW usage.

For reference, my old system had a Radeon HD 4850 and my new system has a FirePro W4300. Both have shown near-zero DPC latency.

Great video, thank you very much for sharing.

The latest update was very stable for me, but I had some spikes on heavier projects.
Following the recommendation to further investigate parts/drivers that may cause problems, I decided to try disabling the on-board wifi in device manager (also disabled bluetooth as I don’t use it).
Now my systems runs those heavier projects with no spikes. Great!!!

That makes me think if there’s still some room for improvement for my system and if other drivers / parts need to be investigated.
Of course the GPU drivers, which (I think) I found a good nvidia release that is working for me.
The LAN drivers, maybe the on-board soundcard. I’ll definitely check disabling those also.

“I think you will have good luck with any AMD-based card.”

Do you think that this “ASUS RADEON HD6450” will improve my system.
Atm I’ve a GForce 8400gs Nvidia card.

Or should I need something more sophisticated.

TIA

This http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon program is a huge helper, when it comes to sort out all the conflicts.