Have you read this?
ASIO guard playback latency is fixed. It ups the ante by 4.
So if your ASIO card latency is set for 64 samples. You get proper 64 samples monitoring latency for all tracks in record or monitor mode.
The playback channels have the asio guard buffer added, giving a latency of 256 samples.
Pål
You know, for some reason I was thinking it was dual core - it’s been a couple of years since I put this one together - but I could be wrong. Did a quick search and it appears so. Perhaps I need to look in the BIOS?
Did you run this???
Hugo
Interesting!
Although the article doesn’t specifically state that ASIO guard is four times the selected user buffer.
I wonder if future versions will increase this or make it user controllable? Would be great to be able to have an ASIO-guard buffer of say 1024 samples, while running realtime tracks at a low buffer of (for example) 64 samples.
Anyway - it’s a great start… this is probably the most exciting new feature for me in Cubase 7 (and has killed off the one remaining appeal that Logic had too - handling heavy projects so well using exactly this method of dual-buffering).
Great work, Steinberg!
How does this work in a real recording situation?
I have 128 or 64 samples latency on my echo mia midi depending on how complex the song I am working with is…
Then asio guard adds x4 samples to that? And to that we must add whatever latency different plugins might have?
If this is so it will make Cubase 7 unworkable in real time to me.
For me the biggest playable latency in real time is 192 samples coming from the sound card. And even that is too much.
I am not buying faster computers to get more latency so to speak. So if this asio guard means if effectively adds 4 times more latency to the buffer I set up my audio card to use it is a no go for me.
Tell me I have got this wrong please?
Kim
This is the first step to exactly what Logic does. Logic has a setting that sets non-armed tracks to either 512,1024, or 2048k buffer. This is how one is able to do everything inside one machine as apposed to having slaves. Logic, however, works with VI’s that stream samples and Cubase says it won’t. Perhaps that will change in the future.
I can’t wait to give this a try actually.
Chris
How is this even doable?
Playback channels with say 256 samples of latency or even more together with my record enabled guitar/vocal at 64 samples of latency?
The only way i can see this working is if there is some delay from you/me pressing record to make the already recorded tracks “line up” before the actual recording of new takes happens.
And even that sounds a bit far out if you ask me.
But by all means if it somehow works contrary to normal logic I am all the happier
Kim
OK all of that is nice, but we really need to know exactly what motherboard you system has, make and model ? Did you build the system yourself or is it OEM ? and how are your drives setup (RAID for instance) and what type of drives are they, (SATA1/2/3) and make Segate, Samsung, etc… it makes a difference because different drives will have different read/write and access times and behave differently under certain conditions and configurations. Also, have you upgraded the bios firmware and do you have the latest manufacturer chipset drivers or are you just using the Microsoft default ones ? they can make a massive difference to system throughput…
As for your page file, in the past we used to set the page file to 2x the memory, but with 16gb of ram it’s a bit impractical. Set your page file to ‘System Managed’, there is a whole science around how big it should be and where it should be located but try and put it on a filesystem that does not have other system files on it and has a sector size of atleast 4096… (that’s what I do anyway), while you are there change your ‘Processor Scheduling’ to ‘Background Service’, as ASIO is considered a background service and this will give it some priority…
Have fun with all that… 
From my first-hand experience so far, all audio lines up the same whether ASIO-Guard is on or not (“sample accurate,” if you will). Tracks are not playing out of sync ever. Ergo, the latency is not “added” to your I/O latency on non-monitored tracks so as to make them offset from monitored tracks in any way.
What I found was when you initiate playback, non-monitored tracks do not start sounding immediately. It’s much more apparent with Instrument Tracks. They need more time to “render” before they become part of the audio stream.
For example, if your playhead is precisely on the downbeat of a bar, and there is a MIDI note on an Instrument track at that position, that note will not be triggered. But notes starting a beat or two after the playhead position at the time of pressing Play will sound out as normal, just as they should.
You can sort of get around this by setting up a constant pre-roll of 2 beats for playback & record so playback always starts 2 beats before the playhead, and you always hear what you should be hearing from the playhead onward. It’s just a bit annoying.
Sorry for the slapdash responses earlier; I was working to finish a Christmas record for a client, and the deadline is tomorrow morning.
First, I have an Asus P7P55D-E. It appears as though the BIOS is pretty far from the latest version, so I’ll be updating that soon.
I put together this computer a couple of years ago. I have several different hard drives in there - I believe they are Seagate Barracudas - of different sizes. I have no idea if they are SATA 1,2 or 3 - Can you tell by looking at how they are listed in device manager? No RAID array.
When I built the computer I installed all the appropriate drivers from Asus, but I haven’t checked to see if there is anything new on that front.
I do have the processor scheduling set to background services, and just today I’ve set the paging file to system managed. It seems to have picked a non system drive and allocated 16382 MB, although, curiously, it recommends 24573 MB. Should I change that? I have plenty of space.
One other interesting fact: in device manager, under Processors, it shows 8, despite the System Information showing only 4 threads.
I would say that is doing that because HT (Hyper threading) is not enabled in the BIOS. Look at section 3.6.1 of the manual to find out how to turn it on.
Nice job on using ASUS, I’ve used ASUS for my last 4 machines and have had rock solid performance with Cubase, currently running a Sabertooth X58 and can’t recommend it enough.
I would defiantly going for a BIOS upgrade, and make sure that you update the system files at the same time… but don’t do it when you have client work due…
After the upgrade if the problem persists I would also try disabling ‘SpeedStep’ which is section 3.5.4, this will stop the operating system changing the CPU speed.
Also, do you know what type of RAM you have. You can use a tool called ‘CPU-Z’ to check the timings on your RAM. It is quite common for the motherboard to incorrectly detect the timings and this can cause problems. Let me know if you need further assistance with that one…
Just leave the pagefile as it is, that’s fine.
You can get exact drive model information from device manager. It might be worth going through the exercise of disconnecting all your drives (except the boot drive) and seeing if the problem persists. The reconnect them one at a time to find if one of them is faulty. Just a thought… but try the other stuff first because it’s easier…
And remember, relax, it’s only a computer… 
This bollocks, ive been using Cubase for years and the one thing I have always like about it is Cubase starts immediately on the downbeat, no hesitation. Logic does pre-buffer for about a second or two from pressing play
What also should be checked is your memory, run stress tests (tip: MemTest: RAM reliability tester for Windows)
The included url has a memory test tool which can test up to 2048 MB ram, so if you have 16GB you have to run 7 instances with 2048 configured and last run with option ‘available memory or left over mem’
Also a comment on not having a pagefile, which seems a great idea because basically you do not want paging as it is a interupting event which takes precedent over anything, however there are many applications which need paging resources when starting up, they put some config or whatever on the page file for some reason.
With C7 the advise of Steinberg is to enable HT, where under C6/C6.5 it was advised to disable it.
Oh yeah, the standard recommendation of Microsoft is to size your pagefile to 150 percent of your internal memory, more is overkill and less then 100% will make full memory dumps in case of crashes impossible.
for the virtual memory 150% of the internal memory is good, but it’s important
to fix the minimum and the maximum to the same value.
In this way, windows won’t waste time to upgrade or shrink the pagefile.
Yes, turn on Hyper-Threading and enable a page file. With that much RAM, the automatic setting might be a bit OTT. Assign a couple of hundred MB somewhere. The uses Windows makes of a page file on a modern, RAM-heavy system are obscure, but it does like to have one!
