So - any solutions to MR816X Driver / Audio Dropouts?

Xpost from mine on the Steinberg site because… KVR is way bigger.

I’ve scoured basically all threads on the topic of MR816X driver and audio issues…
At this time - is there a “solution” to them?
I mean, if it doesn’t work on your system is that the end of the line? (get a different interface?)

I have the following set up:

  • Lenovo W520
  • i7-2820QM
  • 16GB ram
  • SIIG firewire card with TI chipset
    (Yes, I’ve read about optimizing your system… DPC latency checker etc, it’s all good)

I run this flawlessly with an M-audio Profire 610.
With a 64 buffer, I can have an Ableton set playing with lots of VSTs, including playing guitar through an amp sim live, WHILE playing back mp3s in Winamp and I’m good. This is WITH wireless enabled and with some power saving. While loading Ableton or changing settings, there is no change in mp3 playback.
If I playback a youtube video at the same time, I’ll get a few crackles (youtube seems to be especially crazy for some reason).

With the MR816X, I can’t do it. Lots of audio drop outs, especially when loading Ableton or changing things. And I had to switch to the Legacy firewire driver even though multiple post said that it’s not necessary with the latest (1.72) MR tools release. If I switch back to the TI drivers, I will bluescreen. I also tried the driver included in the 1.6 release, no change. Is anyone running this WITH the TI drivers, or do you still need to use the legacy?

I can’t even play a youtube video (by itself) without getting audio dropouts! I’ve increased the buffer to no avail, as well as running the machine in high performance mode and turning off the wifi, but am still getting drop outs.

So I highly suspect the drivers do not play nice with certain systems (mine included) and from reading many threads it appears that lots of people have similar issues. It’s probably always a good idea to turn off wifi, disable power mngmt etc, but if your system works perfectly with a different interface, doesn’t it suggest that the drivers for the MR816X could be vastly improved upon?

It sucks that the little Profire 610 runs flawlessy and very quickly at 1/2 the cost, and the MR816X struggles with the same tasks…

I’m wondering if driver development will continue? I know from reading all the posts online what I was getting into (Yamaha and Steinberg support not being very good, dropping product support etc.), but I was wondering if there is any further help I can get with getting the drivers to work better.

This post is not about bashing, but asking if drivers will be improved upon / confirming that other interfaces have much more efficient drivers.

If not, it is what it is, but it sounds good so I’m trying to get it to work instead of getting something else… I just don’t really want to make my pretty fast laptop look like Windows 3.1 when my other interface gives me no issues… or have to run a larger buffer because I play a lot of guitar and midi instruments.

Please note that version 1.72 (as mentioned in your post) is not the latest MR Tools release.

My recommendation is to install the latest 1.7.7 version available for your specific operating system from the following public downloads page:

http://www.steinberg.net/index.php?id=downloads_mr816&L=1

There is another place to modify the settings for your MR816 that is anything but obvious. In the folder you extracted your “Tools for MR” into, there is a folder named “Utility.” In that folder is a file named ysfwutility.exe. just double-click on it. It is a tool to set the parameters of the 1394 driver. You can set the buffer size (this is NOT the ASIO buffer, but the 1394 buffer) to small, medium or large, and you can set the 1394 speed to either 400 or 200. Try setting these to the most forgiving settings, large buffer and speed 200. Yes, this will have a small effect on the ASIO latency, but it will further stabilize your system. If everything works at these conservative settings, you can gradually sneak back up on them until you find the point where you have consistent performance at the highest speeds your system will allow.