I am having massive problems with running Cubase 6 on my new computer. I have a Dell PC that has 12 gigs of ram, an Intel Core i7 930 processor, and have Windows 7 64-bit operating system. No matter how I adjust the buffer size, I cannot playback any tracks without massive drops, pops and other noise. I should have enough ram to do anything. Does anyone know how I can maximize Windows to make the latency go away? (If it helps, I am using the MR816CSX for my interface, connected via firewire.)
Please help! Cubase 6 ran well on my old computer, which ran Windows XP and had only 2 gigs of ram.
Sorry if this is a stupid question. I am a definite noob.
I gather you’re talking a desktop. Maybe you could tell more about your system.
I also have an MR816CSX, and I recently upgraded to W7 on a new i7-950 computer (HP). First thing to do is to ensure you are on the high performance power plan (control panel/hardware and sound/power options). The default is something different, which will turn off cores, which creates havoc to audio processing.
Make sure you have installed the Tools for MR 1.7.1. I think that was necessary for 64-bit.
Beyond that, couple things come to mind.
Some including me had problems with Cubase 6.0.2 at low latency settings, and I went back to 6.0.0. Caused crackles and delays in responses when using MultiBand Compressor.
Some devices don’t play well with audio. Go here http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml
and follow instructions. On my earlier xp machine, it turned out my wireless card was killing audio processing with the MR816, and I had to turn it off. I don’t have wireless with my new machine. But there could be other devices causing problems with DPC latency.
Hi Dale, I will mention as to the problems you have SEEM to be related to the Chipset drivers for your firewire card (Also is it a Texas Instruments firewire card?.. which driver are you using for you Firewire port, as there have and are problems if the wrong driver for your chipset is being used.
I use NI Traktor, for example which crashes & blue screens, and causes pops crackles and the whole shooting match, If I dont use it with the Microsoft Legacy firewire driver) check as to which firewire driver is assigned to your Card in Control panel / Device Manager.
I had to use the Legacy driver with thr RTM Windowsn 7, and thought that using the legacy driver was @old news@ but sadly it doesnt seem that way.
I use a MR816 too, and depending on the program Im going to be using, I have to switch between drivers before loading the program, as NI are blaming Steinberg, which is complete tosh,as the MR816 on my system for 2 yrs has worked flawlessly, with evry other program…switch your firewire drivers around and see if that calms the jets with cubase. as Cubase and the MR work fine with EITHER the legacy driver or the current Texas Chipset driver, but doin this switch helped in earlier times with cubase, so give it a shot.
I use to have unsolvable problems with pcs. Now I only buy Macs for my daw and haven’t looked back. The problem is driver conflicts depending on whether you’re using 64 bit, 32bit etc, especially if you have various i/o devices (control surfaces, midi usb, firewire 400, 800 etc.
No more crackles and pops. You can start with an iMac. They work great. If you need more throughput, a MacPro will work wonders. The iMacs aren’t that much more expensive that the pcs.
Is, “I can’t play back any tracks” a literal statement? As in, not one 44.1, 16bit stereo audio track?
If not…
-What is your machine clocked at?
-How many audio-only tracks does your project contain? Are they mono or stereo? At what sample rate and bit-depth? How many inserts on each of these tracks?
-How many frozen tracks? Is it just the VSTs that are frozen, or the inserts as well?
-How many VST instruments (both as tracks and in the rack)? What are the real-time plugins?
-How many group channels and effects?
-What percentages does your CPU and HD utilization meter in Cubase show?
Specifically, what instruments and plugins are you using?
Normally I let this stuff go because it’s not worth taking the time to reply, but I don’t want the OP to get the idea that Apple products are some sort of panacea. From my sig you can see that I use both, and I have to say that the iMac took a lot more fussing to get running properly (especially with control surfaces!) than my Win 7 machine which basically worked right out of the box. The idea that Windows has “unsolvable problems” is ridiculous when you look through the posters on these forums and see the number of happy and productive Cubase for Windows users. I actually really like Macs and manage a 140 Mac network at work, which keeps me busy because there are always problems to solve. Both platforms are worthy for DAW use, but Macs are NOT perfect.
For Windows (especially a name brand machine) it’s worth looking at:
Dell (and others) like to install all sorts of monitoring software which is likely to cause audio dropouts. You need to find it and shut it down.
