Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Mikkel]

Hi everyone,

I'm having a bit of head-ache with ASIO and my Asus Essence ST (+H6).
I'm using ASIO to output 7.1 channels to my amplifier. In JRiver I have upmixing to 7.1 enabled as well as convolution.

Unfortunately I get occasional stutter during the playback. I have tried different buffer settings but nothing above approx 30ms makes any difference. I have checked the latency of the overall system during playback and it seems to go up to 200ms occasionally but mostly it stays around 100ms or below.

This is with 24/96 audio. It happens less with lower-quality audio.

Do you have any suggestions? Is it the ASIO-drivers that have problems with all the DSP going on or...? As a footnote, Wasapi-Event Style works fine. But I would really prefer asio, since I have to change sample rate manually if not (plus I cannot play 88.2 audio w/o asio).


Best regards,
Mikkel

[Matt]

Try increasing the hardware buffer size in the ASIO control panel from the sound driver.

Sometimes we can do this automatically when 'Use large hardware buffers' is selected, but not always.  It depends on the hardware.

[dean70]

The latency spike could be caused by another driver or device - do you have the latest drivers installed?

[mwillems]

Hi everyone,

I'm having a bit of head-ache with ASIO and my Asus Essence ST (+H6).
I'm using ASIO to output 7.1 channels to my amplifier. In JRiver I have upmixing to 7.1 enabled as well as convolution.

Unfortunately I get occasional stutter during the playback. I have tried different buffer settings but nothing above approx 30ms makes any difference. I have checked the latency of the overall system during playback and it seems to go up to 200ms occasionally but mostly it stays around 100ms or below.

This is with 24/96 audio. It happens less with lower-quality audio.

Do you have any suggestions? Is it the ASIO-drivers that have problems with all the DSP going on or...? As a footnote, Wasapi-Event Style works fine. But I would really prefer asio, since I have to change sample rate manually if not (plus I cannot play 88.2 audio w/o asio).


Best regards,
Mikkel

I know I mentioned this in the other thread, but (if you haven't already) I would strongly recommend doing a clean install of the low latency Unified Asus drivers (i.e. the version that bypasses the Asus driver control panel) and/or disabling all the DSP in the Asus Control Panel.  The Asus control panel is a huge source of latency and drop outs (at least for me).  I'm using the same card you are and I have hardware buffers disabled and am using a .10 second buffer with no stuttering.  If I have to run the Asus control panel for some reason, my latency immediately (and audibly) spikes, doubly so if I try to use any of the driver's built in DSP (as distinct from JRiver's DSP which works fine).  

If you've tried that already, have you tried disabling other sound cards in your system (like the one on your motherboard)?  Asus recommends disabling them, and I've had strange results when I didn't disable integrated audio.

As a last resort, I've previously had problems with PCI soundcards (including the Asus) because my power settings were set too conservatively (cpu throttling, etc.).  As an experiment, try setting your power settings to "high performance" (if they aren't already) and see if that changes anything.  That cured latency problems for me on a few different occasions over the years with several different PCI audio cards.

I know you said it works fine in WASAPI, which wouldn't necessarily be explained by any of this, but I'm just throwing out some steps that helped me in the past.  Hopefully one of those helps :-)

[Mikkel]

Thanks everyone for your input. I will try it ASAP and report back. Thanks once again for taking time to help me.


Best regards,
Mikkel

[Mikkel]

I tried all your suggestions but none seems to have made the trick. I have tried large buffers, ensured all drivers are updated, using the unified drivers. I'm sure, though, that it is a buffer problem.

I have begun investigating my PC using Latency Monitor (latencymon), and I can see that occasionally something strange is going on causing the latency to sky-rocket. So even though the latency for the most part is quite fine (as long as I don't scroll or do other things with the PC while listening) from time to time the latency goes crazy.

I will post the logs as soon as I have more time to investigate the problem.


Best regards,
Mikkel

[Mikkel]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering if some of you know a hack so that it is possible to set the buffer size > 80 ms in the ASIO control panel?


Best regards,
Mikkel

[InflatableMouse]

Is it just latency spikes or do you get CPU spikes as well? maybe using ASIO is somehow more taxing on CPU than Wasapi?

[Mikkel]

Is it just latency spikes or do you get CPU spikes as well? maybe using ASIO is somehow more taxing on CPU than Wasapi?

I haven't noticed any CPU-related issues. I have tried using Latency Monitor (http://www.resplendence.com/latmon), which does state that there is a problem but finding it from the diagnostics of the software seems to be beyond my abilities.

With latency at 80ms it is only rarely the stutter appears - except if I navigate in theater view or use other programs simultaneously. I have always found it odd why this does not happen with WASAPI.


Best regards,
Mikkel

[InflatableMouse]

I'm not sure but I think I have the same thing. When I listen to music and need to work on the PC I use a different zone using DirectSound.

With ASIO I hear constant clicks and short stutters (short, fast repetition, like half a second or so) when I'm using the PC, shift-deleting an email from outlook, emptying trash, browsing a disk with Explorer or starting a simple program like Notepad or doing simple stuff in MC.