Surface Pro 4 Intel Core i7-6650U trouble with Pianoteq Pro

[WheelHead]

This may be a little long:

 

(this happened after I had a logic board failure on a MacBook Pro and wanted to use the SP4)

 

I spent a lot of time on this SP4 last week and was working with Pianoteq support. Pianoteq Pro 6.41 (and all other versions) runs awful on a Surface Pro 4 i7 THOUGH the tablet runs huge sampled pianos effortlessly usually around 10% to 15% CPU use and I believe it would probably run the new resource-grabbing Vienna Steinway probably just as easy.

 

Running Pianoteq there is a huge audio load. Multi-core enablement makes little difference and there are constant glitches, audio crackles, red-lines in the Performance view no matter how you tweak Pianoteq. This relegates it fairly unplayable despite lowering bandwith requirements.

 

I have used every tweak on this including going into the high-performance mode (shouldn't be necessary). Usually that mode is hidden you have to go to CSenable in the registry and place a "0" in there from 1 to be able to select a high performance mode in Power Options and then set the CPU speeds and turn off USB power saving modes, etc. There is also a website surfaceproaudio dot com that has every tweak in the book for the SP4. Did all.

 

After spending some time with Pianoteq support suggestions, we came to the conclusion there is something wrong with the i7 SP4. The issue went over and escalated to the programming department.

 

Pianoteq Pro 6.41 DOES run perfectly and outstanding on my very old 2008 MacBook A1181 (a computer one can get on eBay now for like 70 bucks though no SSD) Penrynn with an SSD that I am using on the piano controller for now, temporarily, when I want to use Pianoteq, with very low audio load that is a computer with probably 1/10th the CPU power. Runs absolutely perfect. (This is great about Pianoteq. Try running a new sampled piano that requires, say, Kontakt in the most recent version in an old Mac)

 

I did not use Pianoteq so much before, but I had an i5 (not i7) Surface Pro 4 that had a logicboard failure (looks like I need to solder a fuse-resister on the MB) that I do not remember having trouble with Pianoteq. This, to repeat is a CPU Model Intel Core i7-6650U @ 2.20GHz. (512GB hard drive).

 

 

Everything else runs absolutely perfect in the i7 SP4 with very LOW CPU use. I have done Intel CPU testing and the CPU is perfect. It will boot Windows 10 in seconds.

 

Doing a little research I am not the only one to have trouble with Pianoteq on an i7 SP4 16GB Ram. One person wrote about latency using on-board sound. (when I used the on-board sound with ASIO4all it had the same issues and matched this person's remarks and still had the glitches)

 

Quote:

 

The Surface Pro computer is excellent for piano use - at least so I thought, as it is small as an iPad and easily can be placed on the piano, and like I said, the processor is i7 and the RAM is 16 GB so it should definitely have enough power for this. As we can expect many users to have this computer or very similar computers from now on and in the future, I suppose it is a realistic demand on Modartt to pay attention to this issue Unquote

 

(not sure I agree with the remark of "demand" on Modartt)

 

It seems to be apparent that Pianoteq will not run on this model SP4 until Microsoft fixes it. (or Pianoteq)

 

WH

 

[Jazzmammal]

Are you familiar with this guy?

 

[video:youtube]

 

He has a whole series detailing how to use softsynths, DAW's and anything else music related with Surface Pros going back to the first one years ago. I would email him about this.

 

Bob

[WheelHead]

Are you familiar with this guy?

 

He has a whole series detailing how to use softsynths, DAW's and anything else music related with Surface Pros going back to the first one years ago. I would email him about this.

 

Bob

 

Yeap. Used all his tweaks. Did not do any good. They quote him in gear news at bottom paragraph:

 

Other problems specific to SP4 and audio programs:

 

Quote:

 

"The software under test was Avid Pro Tools, Steinberg Cubase Pro, PreSonus StudioOne, Ableton Live, Bitwig Studio, Propellerheads Reason, ImageLine FL Studio, Cockos Reaper and Native Instruments Reaktor. The results were mixed. Pro Tools, Cubase and Studio One all struggled with a simple 16 track audio project generating clicks and pops as the processor would unexpectedly shoot up to 100%. FL Studio appeared to have some graphical problems when moving windows when the same project was playing back. Ableton Live seemed to work very well with both the 16 track test and the Reaktor soft-synth test but when compared to the Surface Pro 3 it showed a surprising drop in performance. On the other hand some software performed really well Bitwig Studio and Reaper both had no trouble with the tests and performed as youd expect them to."

 

(snip)

 

"The causes of the issues are difficult to say because theres no consistent issue or workaround some things work and some things dont and wherever you try to point the finger something else comes along to contradict it. SurfaceProAudio.com <-------say they have been working with Microsoft to try to get to the bottom of the issues but so far have been unsuccessful in finding an overall cause or solution. However, the advice offered in the video should get your Surface Pro 4 making music" (will work on some things)

 

He seems to be on the Surface Pro 6 right now. The SP4 i7 has a ton of horsepower and is extremely fast and should run easily. Microsoft would need to fix this.

 

WH

[WheelHead]

 

It seems to be apparent that Pianoteq will not run on this model SP4 until Microsoft fixes it. (or Pianoteq)

 

WH

 

Update:

 

OK. I found the problem-solution when I stumbled on a post in the Piano World forum, I don't usually frequent. The topic was about the audio glitches with Pianoteq on the SP4: (and as said before, I used all the tweaks at the Surface Pro audio website-unless I missed that tweak)

 

(Quote)

 

"I used an application called LatencyMon to track down the culprit. It was the acpi.sys Battery Monitor drivers.

Once I disabled these in the device manager the problem went away completely. Of course, this means that I dont get any battery information. So, Im constantly having to turn them on/off depending on the task Im performing (music = off, coffee shop work = on). Its a pretty annoying bug on a device that carries a premium price.

 

Note. I know that there were some bugs with the Surface Pro 4 regarding old battery drivers when the device first shipped. It appears as though my device has the latest drivers (2015-11-13) version 1.2.0.2."

(unquote)

 

 

 

I disabled the driver under "Batteries" in the Device Manager called "Microsoft Surface ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery". In my tablet no other tweaks are necessary and it is running "balanced", stock power scheme. The saved high-performance scheme made no difference on my tablet that I have saved having the CPU run at full speed and other power tweaks. (not using)

 

It works fine now like this poster said. You just have to enable the driver when you are not using Pianoteq. (In my tablet the large sampled pianos are not effected including The Hammersmith though most probably there are some large sampled pianos that might be if they were installed)

 

Pianoteq, and I don't blame them, is surprisingly limited running on this i7 CPU with 16GB of RAM in the SP4. I haven't spent much time with it but it works perfectly at 64 polyphony but CPU errors- out (not the audio glitches that were the main problem) above 64 poly at 44100 and that's the least I will use. 96 poly, CPU is a problem and glitches - testing to that threshold. (96) 64? All good.

 

So Pianoteq is now quite usable on my SP4. (I should mention CPU tests were done by Intel app and the CPU is fine)

 

The solution was written years ago with a 2015 driver but Microsoft has not fixed the driver for some audio-application problems yet. (I have the latest driver)

 

I notified the tech at Pianoteq who was exchanging several emails on this problem with me some time ago that I found my solution to this and gave the information.

 

WH

[WheelHead]

Just an update to this thread I have been meaning to mention though this is not that interesting: Since Windows 10 has done a couple updates my Surface Pro 4 i7 that is a rather dated tablet now (that ran all the sample pianos always perfectly) now runs Pianoteq Pro effortlessly without ANY mods running on a balances default power scheme even connected to the Internet. No dropouts, no CPU errors, etc. Nice to have a versatile touchscreen to operate the pianos on the controller.

 

WH