Weird driver latency

[halljams]

This is weird but maby i just don't understand how things are working. ...Ok, i'm running a pc with windows 98se, Motu 2408 mk3 and Sonar 2.1. (I get the same problem with the WDM and the MME drivers BTW)..... When i set the "samples per buffer" in the 2408 control panel, i get relative latency on the tracks i record. for eg. if i record a bass track to a set drum a loop in sonar 2.1 with the SPB on the 2408 set at 1024, the bass is recorded slightly late. (meaning it is roughly a 32nd note behind where i played it in sonar) As i move up the SPB settings from 512 up through 128 and try recording, my latency of the recorded track progressivly gets better. At 128 i can't really hear it, but i am obviously not getting a true placement on my track of what i am playing in real time. This.......... sucks? Anyone know what is happening? Please no one say some stupid shit about getting a Mac. Thanks for your time.

[Wewus432]

Hey Halljams: How ya been man? I don't quite understand your latency problem. What are you doing with the latency settings in Sonar under Audio-Genral? Lowering the buffers in the playback queue can reduce latency, also run the Wave Profiler at the bottom and set the slider as far to the left as you can, and still get clear audio.Under the slider you can read your actual latency. Done that?

[sonusman]

There is a "delay" in any track you record via your soundcard based against audio you listen off of it. That is a fact. I get a 63 sample delay with my Lynx One card at 48KHz sampling rate. Manageable, but something you should check before you record so that you can make adjustments to your tracks in the time line to compensate. Here is a little research a friend of mine did into his Delta 1010 card's latency: http://www.slackmaster2000.com/articles/WDM/wdmprob.html Also check your plugin's. I have found plugin's with up to 5ms of "delay" after they are applied! Being aware of it can help you fix it, but it IS a pain in the butt. Ed

[not Cereal]

get a mac. (you asked for it buddy) in protools le there are those same silly buffers, only the top out at 1024. i run at 1024 most of the time. the thing is, the tracks are in the right spot no matter what setting i use. the software is aware of the buffers and adjusts the tracks. bussing outside protools has the same problems you are having inside sonar, everything gets off and i have to nudge by the buffer amount. (not double the buffer amount, because going back in the software adjusts) maybe thats why its called PRO tools :) MAC MAC MAC MAC MAC MAC MAC MAC :thu: my pc does a great job of gobbling my time. seems like i always have to work on pc's. there's always something wrong. sometimes my mac gets lonely because of this.

[halljams]

Hay Guys, thanks for the help. sonusman, that article is right on, just what i'm getting, only like i said it isn't just WDM unfortunatley. I thought for sure it was a windows 98 thing. I'll have to test it in Nuendo with the asio drivers now. Keep ya updated. Coaster, yes i agree pc's waste lots of time. But i have heard many stories about how much time a mac can waste also. Wewus, doing great, had a good holiday. Howz you doin? :wave:

[not Cereal]

yea they all break dont they. stupid stuff like your latency problems really get on my nerves. for the $$$ you pay those problems shouldnt be such a headache. hope you get it fixed soon, otherwise your welcome to leave "the dark side" and join the 3% of people that use macs!

[sonusman]

Coaster, I would be interested in seeing what you come up with if you did this: Have just one track of audio you have already recorded playback through any D/A and hook that D/A directly to a A/D and record that into the same session on another track. Zoom in REALLY close to both tracks. Ed

[Alndln]

[quote]Originally posted by halljams: [b] it isn't just WDM unfortunatley. I thought for sure it was a windows 98 thing. [/b][/quote]Sonar requires WDM for low latencey,Win 98se doesn't work properly with WDM even with the hot fix.Sonar on Win 98 is a waste of time.Sonar also has delay compensation for DX plugs in inserts and sends.Eitherswitch to Win 2K/XP or wait for the Asio upgrade.

[Gus Lozada]

WDM drivers are for Win XP. For Win 98 / 98se the working ones are MME and those funny DirectX drivers.

[halljams]

[quote]Originally posted by GusTraX: [b]WDM drivers are for Win XP. For Win 98 / 98se the working ones are MME and those funny DirectX drivers.[/b][/quote]I appreciate the comments about xp and wdm guys but that is not the problem. the latency i am talking about happens as well with the mme drivers.

[Gus Lozada]

You may be right, amigo Halljams ! But now re-read this... and I fully agree: [quote]Originally posted by AlndLugosi: [b]Sonar on Win 98 is a waste of time. Sonar also has delay compensation for DX plugs in inserts and sends.Eitherswitch to Win 2K/XP or wait for the Asio upgrade.[/b][/quote]

[Uh Clem]

[quote]Originally posted by sonusman: [b]There is a "delay" in any track you record via your soundcard based against audio you listen off of it. That is a fact. I get a 63 sample delay with my Lynx One card at 48KHz sampling rate. Manageable, but something you should check before you record so that you can make adjustments to your tracks in the time line to compensate. Here is a little research a friend of mine did into his Delta 1010 card's latency: http://www.slackmaster2000.com/articles/WDM/wdmprob.html Also check your plugin's. I have found plugin's with up to 5ms of "delay" after they are applied! Being aware of it can help you fix it, but it IS a pain in the butt. Ed[/b][/quote]These results seem really strange and unacceptabel in any kind of professional setup. In a nutshell, if you run an analog output back into an analog input, you are doing a DA and AD conversion - and there is delay in the converters; the software may not be correctly accounting for these - especially if you do not use the sound card's converters. The fact that he gets different results, does suggest that there could be a problem with some part of his setup, but it is difficult to tell where since I don't use any of those products. In the past when this came up on another thread, I did these tests on a MKII with Nuendo and for the analog in/out case as was done in the link above, I got about 40 samples or so of delay if memory serves - about what you'd expect from the converters. For the same test done digitally (send out digital and return in digital), I got no delay at all - perfect sync. I'll see if I can try this in Sonar later and get back...

[halljams]

[quote]Originally posted by GusTraX: [b]You may be right, amigo Halljams ! But now re-read this... and I fully agree: [quote]Originally posted by AlndLugosi: [b]Sonar on Win 98 is a waste of time. Sonar also has delay compensation for DX plugs in inserts and sends.Eitherswitch to Win 2K/XP or wait for the Asio upgrade.[/b][/quote][/b][/quote]OK OK i get it. Jeez you guys are rough houses. Hay, i actually just learned that i wasn't trying the mme drivers with the 2408 after all, what happens is the wdms are interfaceing through an mme wrapper, thus the same problem. i should just get a mac! :cry:

[Anderton]

Cubase SX will work ONLY with XP or 2000. This was a smart move, because they are sooooo much better than 98. I haven't experienced the latency you describe when recording into Sonar, but the thing about applying plug-ins is right on. I've tested several plugs and interestingly, applying some creates no delay at all, others tack on several milliseconds. Welcome to the digital domain...I must say I'm very happy with my PC system. XP and dual Athlons totally rocks.

[sonusman]

I have Sonar ver 2.1, with the latest ASIO drivers for my Lynx card, etc....63 samples of "time shift" from the analog out to the analog in at 48KHz sampling rate. It is an easy test for anybody to do. For some reason, I was not able to get my digital I/O to do this test, so I cannot attest to whether it happens on my digital I/O. The guy that has that webpage happens to be a programmer/network admin/all around tech guy. While he may not know EVERYTHING about computers, he is pretty sharp. I doubt his system itself has any problems. I followed a thread about that Delta WDM recording delay on another BBS, and his results where consistent with other users of that card. As well, Delta made a note in one of their driver releases concerning this. So the manufacture admits there is a problem. Even though Sonar takes into account plugin latency now, the plugin's themselves still have to be written correctly for this to work. I have several Waves plugin's that have up to 341 samples of time delay at their output on Sonar 2.1!!! Many other plugin's don't have any at all. PSP Vintage Warmer and Antare's AutoTune 3.0 both have around 200samples delay too!!! THAT is a lot of time shift for a track to have. What was very interesting in tests I did was that in "real time" applications of all plugin's, when I did the D/A/D recording tests, the plugin's with no time delay actually recorded back into the software 1 sample ahead of the same track with no plugin's on it's inserts! Strange isn't it? I also found that the latency in these real time D/A/D recording tests was less with the plugin's in real time than they were when you "applied effects" to the track!!! Strange!!!!!!!!!!!!! :cry: :eek: I am going through all this trouble to find latencies in the system because unfortuneately the studio I am working at is gearing towards software mixing in the future. While the owner so far hasn't minded these anamolies in software mixing, I am thinking it explains why what I hear when I am monitoring the mix is very different than what I hear when I "export audio". It should be obvious that when you make subjective decisions on eq based upon flawed timing, you will be making also flawed eq choices! It would severly effect high frequencies in more obvious ways, and could in effect thin out low end a bit too! Boy, I miss my Soundcraft Ghost... :( Ed

[kktk]

Does anyone really know what controls the numbers you see to adjust the buffer. I have a delta 1010 with sonar 2.2 on 98se. I understand from the posts that it is waste of time....but I wanted to find out --the lowest number i see is 336 from the delta's panel. others on similar systems can see samples as low as 64 and always in multiples of 2. what controls this number of samples that you can adjust?

[Gus Lozada]

[quote]Originally posted by kktk: [b]Does anyone really know what controls the numbers you see to adjust the buffer. I have a delta 1010 with sonar 2.2 on 98se. I understand from the posts that it is waste of time....but I wanted to find out --the lowest number i see is 336 from the delta's panel. others on similar systems can see samples as low as 64 and always in multiples of 2. what controls this number of samples that you can adjust?[/b][/quote]I wonderWhy in the world you are using SONAR 2.2 in Win98 SE...

[Dylan]

Why anyone is still trying to make do with Windows 98 is beyond me. XP is where it's at today and Sonar and other apps are written to work with it from the ground up. Like Cubase SX, Project5 won't install unless you have XP or Windows 2000, so your days are numbered for 98 compatibility.

[Gus Lozada]

[quote]Originally posted by kktk: [b]Does anyone really know what controls the numbers you see to adjust the buffer. I have a delta 1010 with sonar 2.2 on 98se. I understand from the posts that it is waste of time....but I wanted to find out --the lowest number i see is 336 from the delta's panel. others on similar systems can see samples as low as 64 and always in multiples of 2. what controls this number of samples that you can adjust?[/b][/quote]Ok, first things first... Direct Memory Access (DMA) is a capability provided by computer bus architectures that allows data to be sent directly to and from the memory on the computer's motherboard and then written to disk. The microprocessor is freed from involvement with the data transfer, thus speeding up overall computer operation. A buffer is a data area shared by hardware devices or program processes that operate at different speeds or with different sets of priorities. The buffer allows each device or process to operate without being held up by the other. In order for a buffer to be effective, the size of the buffer and the algorithms for moving data into and out of the buffer need to be considered by the buffer designer. Like a cache, a buffer is a "midpoint holding place" but exists not so much to accelerate the speed of an activity as to support the coordination of separate activities. Usually a specified portion of memory is designated as an area to be used for direct memory access. That's the buffer size. The bigger, the safer but slower and increased latency. It depends entirely on your computers overall performance the exact setting. A 100 samples are about 2 miliseconds. 336 samples are about 7 ms, a very decent rate BTW. On the other hand I'd suggest you to download the newest version of the driver for your DELTA 1010. Maybe for Win98SE you have a minimum of 336 (?) as you mention, but for Windows XP you can get as low as 64 samples. TRy switching to Win XP.

[Duhduh]

quote:

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Originally posted by Coaster: get a mac. (you asked for it buddy) in protools le there are those same silly buffers, only the top out at 1024. i run at 1024 most of the time. the thing is, the tracks are in the right spot no matter what setting i use. the software is aware of the buffers and adjusts the tracks. bussing outside protools has the same problems you are having inside sonar, everything gets off and i have to nudge by the buffer amount. (not double the buffer amount, because going back in the software adjusts) maybe thats why its called PRO tools :) MAC MAC MAC MAC MAC MAC MAC MAC :idea: Matter of fact, it even has ALL the same features AND it works just as good! Go figure!

[kktk]

Man oh man --saying 98se is almost a crime ;) I know i am behind on the OS people. But now that you have asked.... I have over 300 gb of data(from various video editing projects), tons of software, and no time to install all that in XP---so i have been delaying the inevitable.... So that's hwy i am still on 98. thanks for the other advice though.

[halljams]

[quote]Originally posted by kktk: [b]Man oh man --saying 98se is almost a crime ;) I know i am behind on the OS people. But now that you have asked.... I have over 300 gb of data(from various video editing projects), tons of software, and no time to install all that in XP---so i have been delaying the inevitable.... So that's hwy i am still on 98. thanks for the other advice though.[/b][/quote]Actually i did finally get my setup working really well with sonar 2.1 and 98se. (98se does waste alot of time but once it gets working it is fine and i used it for a long time). That being said, i have upgraded to xp and a dual processor computer since this thread was written and am quite thrilled with all my new power and stability. :)