Have you tried committing more Ram to your audio/DAW program?

It's usually done in blocks of 128... it all depends on where your current Ram amount is. Some audio I/O's, upon installation will "set" the Ram usage at where it thinks is "best" for its own optimal performance, but sometimes that's wrong and needs tweaked.... especially if you start crowding tracks with all kinds of processing and FX or soft synths and virtual plugs like guitar amp sims...

If your current ram usage is set for a default of say, 128, try setting it for 256. ..or 512.

Now.. what you need to know is the the higher you set your ram, the more likely you will encounter latency.

You have to find the best trade off, begin by small blocks, one setting at a time, and see if this cures your freeze-up or drop outs.

In many cases, DAW users will set their RAM at a minimum of 128 to get the best latency, then record/track their instruments, then when all is done, they will increase their RAM amount during mix down when it's common for multliple FX and processors to come into play, and latency doesn't really matter at that point because you are mixing and not recording at that stage.

fwiw
-d.

Do I comitt mote RAM in my DAW (REAPER) or in the OS ?
I have 16 GB RAM in my computer.

I was referring to the RAM allocation within your DAW program (Reaper).

I've never used Reaper other than in a passing way with a few clients, so I don't know where that command would be. Read your manual. It should tell you.

You must realise, video card drivers are mostly writen to have better gaming experience, sometime they are not so good for recording softwares.
I use independant drivers that are very lite compared to ATIs or Nvidia. You can find them there : [="http://www.omegadrivers.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=53&Itemid=53"]Omega Drivers[/]="http://www.omegadri…"]Omega Drivers[/] They saved me, when I prepared my current setup and the one before..
Also deactivate any video acceleration and 3d optimising.

Out of the video card problems, make sure you use the right drivers for your sound card. (sometime the last available is not the most latency efficient)

You can even try asio for all drivers, which is a lite free alternative.

Then use a latency monitor and check what is slowing you down. [[url=http://="http://download.cne…"]LatencyMon - CNET Download.com[/]="http://download.cne…"]LatencyMon - CNET Download.com[/]

Took me 3 weeks for tweaking my current PC so hang in there, you'll get it right !

How are you two extra hard drives connected? If they are internal SATA connectors then that should be fine. If you are connecting external enclosures via USB connections that could very well be the issue. Other things to look at, latency settings on your audio interface. USB2 interfaces have come quite a long way but they do have more latency than firewire or PCIe connected devices. If you are utilizing VST instruments you will need tweak your operating system. Win7 is very good and doesn't require much adjustment but the more FX and VSTi the more likely a tweak will be needed.

Yes I have internal sata and my audio interface(motu ultralite mk3 hybri) is connected with firewire. I'm uses a lot of vsti and fx.I noticed that when I use high quality vsti and fx the problems was gone. It is only when using freeware vsti and fx I got problems . I also found some settings in REAPER pref that makes it easier to handle troublesome vsti and that helped.

The majority of "free" VST FX and instruments are very old versions or not very well implemented to begin with. They could very easily be causing problems as the computer motherboard and DAW technology has long ago passed them by and therefore a modern setup has to error correct these plugins constantly.

There are some high quality VST plugs that are free or inexpensive and they will play nicely with most any DAW and current computer technology. For free FX I would use the Reaper plugs or download the stand alone versions if you are not using Reaper. At this point, I would NOT invest in any VST that was not 64bit because computers will never go back to 32 bit hardware or operating systems.

pcrecord, post: 401751 wrote: You must realise, video card drivers are mostly writen to have better gaming experience, sometime they are not so good for recording softwares.
I use independant drivers that are very lite compared to ATIs or Nvidia. You can find them there : [="http://www.omegadrivers.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=53&Itemid=53"]Omega Drivers[/]="http://www.omegadri…"]Omega Drivers[/] They saved me, when I prepared my current setup and the one before..
Also deactivate any video acceleration and 3d optimising.

Out of the video card problems, make sure you use the right drivers for your sound card. (sometime the last available is not the most latency efficient)

You can even try asio for all drivers, which is a lite free alternative.

Then use a latency monitor and check what is slowing you down. [[url=http://="http://download.cne…"]LatencyMon - CNET Download.com[/]="http://download.cne…"]LatencyMon - CNET Download.com[/]

Took me 3 weeks for tweaking my current PC so hang in there, you'll get it right !

Thanks ,yes I was told so, therefore I switched from Nvidia to AMD . Now I got most latency from the Motu driver and USBPORT.SYS (according to Latency Mon) but it is not so much that it disturb the audio. I maybe shall try the Omega drivers cause the chops and freezing have increased (only in the videocard when I´m working with REAPER) .
I have done a lot of tweaking ,as for ex I have disabled EIST and C1E in the BIOS and disabled 3 of Asus services .
I also disable ethernet and my antivirus when I do audio work .
But I can´t find any way to disable the 3D settings ?
I have bought Mytek Stereo96DAC and will later buy Mytek Stereo96 ADC wich improved the sound quality enormous .
I have read that Mytek recommends Lynx PCIE card together with Myteks products , does that decrease the latency ?

When I read on Omega drivers site I can´t find that their drivers support the Radeon HD 5-series .
Can I anyway use them ?

Have you also set your operating system paging file from dynamic to static. Adjusted to a minimum and a maximum of 1.5 times the size of your RAM? Did you go into control panel's, into display and chosen highest performance not best appearance? Did you disable all background programs running that have nothing to do with a recording computer? Such as automatic virus checking, Program updates, scheduled events, all that stuff. You want a lean mean screaming fast machine. After all you want to have it devote all of its available resources to your VST libraries and effects. And so it really matters not how capable the computer is but how capable you make it. Because all that junk even running on a nice i 7 will provide for underwhelming performance of only a dual core Pentium. So yeah, dedicated DAW. The same way a console is just a console and a tape recorder is just a tape recorder. Microphones can be used in other entertaining places. I don't think I have to tell you where to stick your microphone? LOL. Aside from the obvious places.

Wasn't that easy?
Mx. Remy Ann David

I'm lost, you say you switched from Nvidia to AMD (which is the same company) Than you're looking for ATI drivers...
I've been a Nvidia users for many years, Omega's drivers support nearly all cards (I use a Nvidia Quadro fx3500 now with their drivers)
You can try the Omega's ATI drivers even if the HD 5 is not listed.. Just uninstall every video drivers first and if Omega's not working uninstall them before trying anything else.

For me, what made a world of difference is the audio card drivers. Everybody was saying Asio is the best way to go, so I tried every drivers I could find (including all the older version from the audio cards website.) I did every single tweak I could find on every forums I could find online. In the end, I installed the last drivers available and I switched to MMe drivers (in my DAW) and boom, It was running like a charm and I can barely hear latencies when using a realtime effect when recording. The play back was not my main problem at the time. I had a too long latency when recording a guitar while using a Amp simulator in real time. That was the test I used with every changes I made to see if it was getting better. I also found out the problem was much worst when I recorded on a sound card and the realtime playback was on a second card (I have 4 m-audio card).

All that said, tweaking windows and video drivers might be worthless if the audio drivers are no good.
BTW I did'nt know the Stereo96DAC (which is a digital to analog converter only) I understand you take the output of you motu to this converter. I wonder How it could help your latency since, latency usally occures with the handling of signal going through the pc and audio card. (unless the AD in the motu are very slow..) Did you try different drivers for you MOTU ??

If you still feel the videocard is the issue, try this: right click on you desktop (away from any icon) and choose graphic properties. In there you might go in advance and find the 3D section. You should have a slide from performance to quality. Put it to Performance. (I can't be specific on this, because every drivers has different menus)

Than there's the windows visual effects : go in the control panel and open the system properties. than choose Advance system parameters and look for performances and click on parameters than chose ajust for best performances. (it will deactivate all transparencies and windows visual effects)

RemyRAD, post: 402248 wrote: Have you also set your operating system paging file from dynamic to static. Adjusted to a minimum and a maximum of 1.5 times the size of your RAM? Did you go into control panel's, into display and chosen highest performance not best appearance? Did you disable all background programs running that have nothing to do with a recording computer? Such as automatic virus checking, Program updates, scheduled events, all that stuff. You want a lean mean screaming fast machine. After all you want to have it devote all of its available resources to your VST libraries and effects. And so it really matters not how capable the computer is but how capable you make it. Because all that junk even running on a nice i 7 will provide for underwhelming performance of only a dual core Pentium. So yeah, dedicated DAW. The same way a console is just a console and a tape recorder is just a tape recorder. Microphones can be used in other entertaining places. I don't think I have to tell you where to stick your microphone? LOL. Aside from the obvious places.

Wasn't that easy?
Mx. Remy Ann David

Thanks, I've done all this except the first one wich I got the advice at the REAPER forum to not have any page file or virtual memory at all. But maybe I shall try your advice.

With respect, MME drivers are never the proper answer if one has a proper audio interface. Onboard sound chips will require an MME driver and sometimes an ASIO wrapper like ASIO4ALL to function correctly. I've never seen a low latency onboard audio chip.

Be aware that in some newer computers, the video chip is actually part of the CPU and therefore could cause latency issues though that is not how the integrated chip is advertised.

pcrecord, post: 402277 wrote: I'm lost, you say you switched from Nvidia to AMD (which is the same company) Than you're looking for ATI drivers...
I've been a Nvidia users for many years, Omega's drivers support nearly all cards (I use a Nvidia Quadro fx3500 now with their drivers)
You can try the Omega's ATI drivers even if the HD 5 is not listed.. Just uninstall every video drivers first and if Omega's not working uninstall them before trying anything else.

For me, what made a world of difference is the audio card drivers. Everybody was saying Asio is the best way to go, so I tried every drivers I could find (including all the older version from the audio cards website.) I did every single tweak I could find on every forums I could find online. In the end, I installed the last drivers available and I switched to MMe drivers (in my DAW) and boom, It was running like a charm and I can barely hear latencies when using a realtime effect when recording. The play back was not my main problem at the time. I had a too long latency when recording a guitar while using a Amp simulator in real time. That was the test I used with every changes I made to see if it was getting better. I also found out the problem was much worst when I recorded on a sound card and the realtime playback was on a second card (I have 4 m-audio card).

All that said, tweaking windows and video drivers might be worthless if the audio drivers are no good.
BTW I did'nt know the Stereo96DAC (which is a digital to analog converter only) I understand you take the output of you motu to this converter. I wonder How it could help your latency since, latency usally occures with the handling of signal going through the pc and audio card. (unless the AD in the motu are very slow..) Did you try different drivers for you MOTU ??

If you still feel the videocard is the issue, try this: right click on you desktop (away from any icon) and choose graphic properties. In there you might go in advance and find the 3D section. You should have a slide from performance to quality. Put it to Performance. (I can't be specific on this, because every drivers has different menus)

Than there's the windows visual effects : go in the control panel and open the system properties. than choose Advance system parameters and look for performances and click on parameters than chose ajust for best performances. (it will deactivate all transparencies and windows visual effects)

It was the tweaking of windows that solved the audio problems. But then I had to deal with the video freezing only. When I looked on the Omega site they only had drivers for windows xp,not 7.I'll look again.I have one side in the catalyst with tons of 3D settings wich I don't understand yet,not the slide you wrote about.I have a video card in the mobo but I can't find how to disable that. I have already set for best performance.

Video freezing may not be video related ! Does it freeze, when playing a project ?
You could work with the performance monitor open in the background. After a freeze, check it to see if there's a peak with the memory or CPU or HDD..
If you have to reboot, check the event properties, windows might have log what's the cause.

A video card freezing the image by itself would be a very rare thing. Unless, it's overheating or has a problem with its memory

RemyRAD, post: 402248 wrote: Have you also set your operating system paging file from dynamic to static. Adjusted to a minimum and a maximum of 1.5 times the size of your RAM? Did you go into control panel's, into display and chosen highest performance not best appearance? Did you disable all background programs running that have nothing to do with a recording computer? Such as automatic virus checking, Program updates, scheduled events, all that stuff. You want a lean mean screaming fast machine. After all you want to have it devote all of its available resources to your VST libraries and effects. And so it really matters not how capable the computer is but how capable you make it. Because all that junk even running on a nice i 7 will provide for underwhelming performance of only a dual core Pentium. So yeah, dedicated DAW. The same way a console is just a console and a tape recorder is just a tape recorder. Microphones can be used in other entertaining places. I don't think I have to tell you where to stick your microphone? LOL. Aside from the obvious places.

Wasn't that easy?
Mx. Remy Ann David

Thanks, I tried your first advice but the video card´s freezing got worse , so I set back to no page file . And that was better . But I found some settings in REAPER pref. and that made the video card behave better . The problem is not completely gone so I will go deeper in the REAPER settings .

pcrecord, post: 402314 wrote: Video freezing may not be video related ! Does it freeze, when playing a project ?
You could work with the performance monitor open in the background. After a freeze, check it to see if there's a peak with the memory or CPU or HDD..
If you have to reboot, check the event properties, windows might have log what's the cause.

A video card freezing the image by itself would be a very rare thing. Unless, it's overheating or has a problem with its memory

Thanks ! Both when I playback and work with the piece , but I found some settings in REAPER pref. that made the video card behave better .
I have to bad computer knowledge to understand the performance monitor , but my brother (who built my PC) will check that for me.
I have checked the temp and it´s steady on 40 celcius (it´s passive cooling).
Can I see if the video card has memory ptoblem ?

pcrecord, post: 402277 wrote: I'm lost, you say you switched from Nvidia to AMD (which is the same company) Than you're looking for ATI drivers...
I've been a Nvidia users for many years, Omega's drivers support nearly all cards (I use a Nvidia Quadro fx3500 now with their drivers)
You can try the Omega's ATI drivers even if the HD 5 is not listed.. Just uninstall every video drivers first and if Omega's not working uninstall them before trying anything else.

For me, what made a world of difference is the audio card drivers. Everybody was saying Asio is the best way to go, so I tried every drivers I could find (including all the older version from the audio cards website.) I did every single tweak I could find on every forums I could find online. In the end, I installed the last drivers available and I switched to MMe drivers (in my DAW) and boom, It was running like a charm and I can barely hear latencies when using a realtime effect when recording. The play back was not my main problem at the time. I had a too long latency when recording a guitar while using a Amp simulator in real time. That was the test I used with every changes I made to see if it was getting better. I also found out the problem was much worst when I recorded on a sound card and the realtime playback was on a second card (I have 4 m-audio card).

All that said, tweaking windows and video drivers might be worthless if the audio drivers are no good.
BTW I did'nt know the Stereo96DAC (which is a digital to analog converter only) I understand you take the output of you motu to this converter. I wonder How it could help your latency since, latency usally occures with the handling of signal going through the pc and audio card. (unless the AD in the motu are very slow..) Did you try different drivers for you MOTU ??

If you still feel the videocard is the issue, try this: right click on you desktop (away from any icon) and choose graphic properties. In there you might go in advance and find the 3D section. You should have a slide from performance to quality. Put it to Performance. (I can't be specific on this, because every drivers has different menus)

Than there's the windows visual effects : go in the control panel and open the system properties. than choose Advance system parameters and look for performances and click on parameters than chose ajust for best performances. (it will deactivate all transparencies and windows visual effects)

The ATI drivers on the Omega site is still only up to windows XP , none for Vista/7 .

I'm sure this is probably not the issue, but since I haven't seen it mentioned, I'm just gonna throw this out there for consideration...

In older versions of Sonar, there is a folder in the prog folder called "picture cache".

This is where all the various waveform images reside of all current and past project's audio files.

If the picture cache isn't cleared from time to time, and the program allowed to refresh or "redraw" those updated waveforms, things can get very bogged down, and cause freeze ups, hiccups and glitches.

Now... I'm not a Reaper user... but I would think that those waveform's various "draws" would have to reside somewhere within the program's memory.

You may want to check Reaper's help file or manual to see if there is a similar issue with that program?

have you checked this out?

http://reaperblog.net/2012/01/reaper-101-peaks-folder/

Again... just an idea.

fwiw
-d.

DonnyThompson, post: 402487 wrote: I'm sure this is probably not the issue, but since I haven't seen it mentioned, I'm just gonna throw this out there for consideration...

In older versions of Sonar, there is a folder in the prog folder called "picture cache".

This is where all the various waveform images reside of all current and past project's audio files.

If the picture cache isn't cleared from time to time, and the program allowed to refresh or "redraw" those updated waveforms, things can get very bogged down, and cause freeze ups, hiccups and glitches.

Now... I'm not a Reaper user... but I would think that those waveform's various "draws" would have to reside somewhere within the program's memory.

You may want to check Reaper's help file or manual to see if there is a similar issue with that program?

have you checked this out?

[[url=http://[/URL]="http://reaperblog.n…"]REAPER 101: Peaks Folder[/]="http://reaperblog.n…"]REAPER 101: Peaks Folder[/]

Again... just an idea.

fwiw
-d.

Thanks ! I´ll check that , thanks for the link .

Please understand that by simply creating a folder where you want these files to reside may not in itself cure your issues... all this process is doing is giving you a place where you now know where these graphics files will now reside in, so that you can maintain them from time to time, (or clear them) as the case may be.

Let us know what you find out.

-d.

TheJackAttack, post: 402283 wrote: With respect, MME drivers are never the proper answer if one has a proper audio interface. .

M-Audio Delta66 and Delta44 in fact, are proper audio interface. They are just OLD !! And M-audio did a sh..ty job writing win7x64 drivers for them.
With one card everythings works perfectly with Asio drivers, but I have 4 Delta cards and I think the asio driver had some probleme keeping them in sync.
Anyway, now it works and the sound is good and my pc is stable, so I don't care about the name of the driver!! Let's do some music!! :redface:

Jack ; Good point with audio card included on the motherboard, but Trana uses a motu ultralite mk3 hybrid

TheJackAttack, post: 402283 wrote: With respect, MME drivers are never the proper answer if one has a proper audio interface. Onboard sound chips will require an MME driver and sometimes an ASIO wrapper like ASIO4ALL to function correctly. I've never seen a low latency onboard audio chip.

Be aware that in some newer computers, the video chip is actually part of the CPU and therefore could cause latency issues though that is not how the integrated chip is advertised.

I have an integrated video card on my mobo , but I don´t know how to disable it , if it´s necessary .

DonnyThompson, post: 402487 wrote: I'm sure this is probably not the issue, but since I haven't seen it mentioned, I'm just gonna throw this out there for consideration...

In older versions of Sonar, there is a folder in the prog folder called "picture cache".

This is where all the various waveform images reside of all current and past project's audio files.

If the picture cache isn't cleared from time to time, and the program allowed to refresh or "redraw" those updated waveforms, things can get very bogged down, and cause freeze ups, hiccups and glitches.

Now... I'm not a Reaper user... but I would think that those waveform's various "draws" would have to reside somewhere within the program's memory.

You may want to check Reaper's help file or manual to see if there is a similar issue with that program?

have you checked this out?

[[url=http://[/URL]="http://reaperblog.n…"]REAPER 101: Peaks Folder[/]="http://reaperblog.n…"]REAPER 101: Peaks Folder[/]

Again... just an idea.

fwiw
-d.

I`m trying this .
I will see if it have any effect on the video card during weekend .
I also found that I can change the media buffer size when per-take FX UI open ,I´ll try that over the weekend to .

It seems to work! I also before I begins to work on a project , first delete all peak cache files and then rebuild all peaks .
Then I got no issues. Is that what you meant? Anyway I now use the advice from the link and I got no chops in the video card.
Many thanks.