CPU Performance vs. Real-Time Performance in Digital Audio Workstations (DAW)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ก.ย. 2024
- Here are links to the latency tools used in this video:
DPC Latency Checker (Win7 only): www.thesycon.de...
LatencyMon: www.resplendenc...
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Connect with me on Facebook: / richardamesmusic
This is by far the most lucid discussion of one of the mysterious aspects of home recording.
Insane amount of valuable information in this video. Thank you Richard!
John Judd Music Thanks!
+Richard Ames Music I totally agree. Great stuff, many thanks
I have to agree, great video still on 2019! Thanks Richard!
I feel like I have to pay something to this guy. Freaking awesome video.
Hei Tor
pay attention. He deserves it!
2024 and this 8 years old video got more quality than 90% of todays' videos 🤣
Just stumbled upon this video while troubleshooting some issues after updating to Monterey on M1 Mini, Logic 10.7.4. I am astonished that this video was created in 2015 yet it is absolutely relevant and frankly invaluable in October 2022. As another commenter said, this is a college level education right here. The information provided is essential, yet in all my years I've not once heard this subject matter discussed like this anywhere. Thank you @Richard Ames, your wisdom spans across time.
Wow. I feel like I just had a college course. Killer editing and presentation, totally straightforward....thanks Richard.
2019, just found this. THANK YOU.
same here, but it's 2021
I wish my mom explained all this shit to me when was 5. Seriously: Great explanation! Thanks for creating and posting this.
There is an unbelievably huge amount of incredibly useful information here. Seriously, this is a damn GOLD MINE for people running DAWs on workstation-grade machines! Many kudos to you, sir.
Richard, your point about CPU probably not being the main reason is so clearly explained, thank you. My one ask however is that you go a little deeper into defining 'real time performance.' You identified potential device issues that can affect real time performance, but what should we looking for when looking at acquiring a workstation, to maximize real time performance - bus speed, buffer size, RAM? These are things I'm sort of familiar with but would love to know how they could help improve RTP.
When I make music there's always garbage audio coming out anyway
Underrated comment.
Indeed!!!
life
same, bro
Came here through Guy Michelmore, and I am simply blown away. After so long of dealing with DAWs and Computers, finally someone explained that topic to me in an easy to follow manner. I have never seen an explanation as good as this one ever. Thanks so much!
i reeeeeally wish i found this vid 3 weeks ago...so much navigation of bogus info. this was refreshingly concise. bravo. 👏
Omg you just answered something that I’ve been researching for ages! Thank you for teaching me about real time vs non real time. I’ve gone into the realm of testing with “mouse feeling” vs hard data, and it was making me crazy!
Now I understanding why the windows timer tool makes such a huge difference with certain buffer settings in game. One setting allows for real time sound through memory, and the other is non real time through pre loaded data prior to the round starting.
Sorry this is all related to competitive gaming in counterstrike, and sound directly equates with hit registration in that game!
If you ever wanted to get huge(even bigger) on TH-cam... if you jumped into teaching DPC latency reduction, and other informational videos like this, but instead directed at esports, it would be massive! Everything you speak about directly correlates, probably much more than you could imagine. When it comes to competitive games tweaking is the name of the game and there is a huge community of people searching for this information. They are ignorant to the audiophile community and all the work that has been done with latency reduction.
Not even the TH-cam tech community talks about this at all. You are a Gem Sir!
This is such a well-communicated video about a cloudy subject, thank you for taking the time to make this.
well met
Incredible.. In 2020, this is by far thee most useful and coherent explanation, on this potentially daunting subject matter Ive seen to date. Many thank you's sir. Impact of this information is otherworldly, and probably saving many people lots of money. Cheers
Still relevant info today. Thanks Richard. Now I need a new computer. 😝
This has probably saved countless musicians, engineers, system integrators for daws save a lot of money and make very wise choices instead, like it did for me. Thank you so much for this. Hats off to the patience and diligent attention to patiently explaining the details required! Cheers!!! 🎉
Wow. This was the ultimate lesson for understanding the everyday-issue on most prosumer audio setups. And I've have searched a lot. Can't thank you enough!
We need more channels like this and less pensados and tips and tricks of how to use a compressor or eq! Thank you so much!
I come from a mainframe performance background. One thing you learn is that when a system is under strain, it is either CPU-bound or I/O (input/output) bound. In particular, it is the synchronous I/O which is normally the killer, if you have enough CPU, which is what I think you are calling "Real-Time performance". When doing a "render to audio", most of the I/O is asynchronous, which as you say puts less of a strain on the machine as it is not always waiting for a response.Multi-core processors can help, as these can allow multiple things to happen simultaneously, so that even if one-core is waiting on synchronous I/O, another can do some useful work. But only if the software is designed to exploit multi-core processors.Large amounts of RAM can help, as this essentially functions as a very low-latency I/O storage device - it's quicker to read from memory than read from Disk - as can the use of SSD rather than HDD, for holding things like the operating system and digital samples (you demonstrated this when booting from a different device).Thanks - a clear explanation of things that make a difference, with good suggested values for sampling rates and buffer sizes (with explanations).
+Charles Gaskell Indeed, as well as a Solid State Drive for fast system and data flow.
Best video on this subject. Great explanation. Thank you so much. Still relevant in 2021.
Thanks a lot. Never seen anything this good on understandig the problems of real time audio performance. You just took me lightyears ahead of the dark ages I have walked trough. I can't thank you enough. 🙏🙏🙏
Wow, this is one incredibly valuable discussion! Once upon a time in my career I was a designer of 8 and 16 bit systems, and now this topic makes complete sense to me! Thanks!
Awesome, after months finally understand this things happening in DAW's !
Never thought i'd see an NVMe drive cause more problems than a SATA drive, I guess it is because of PCIe lanes of the CPU being shared across NVMe and other devices on the laptop? Amazing video. I'll never give up my PCIe RayDAT :) The state of drivers for interfaces is abysmal for so many products. I have no issues using NVMe drive with my RayDAT (I write to a SATA SSD) but I'm now going to double check my PCI lane configs and make sure my NVMe isn't shared with the RayDAT. Thanks for the great video.
Excellent video Richard, cleared up a lot of confusion for me! Information on this particular topic is very hard to come by, it seems, when compared to video editing and gaming. I have been building custom desktop PCs for 15 years now, but never understood why my laptops (and friends' laptops) would not perform well with real time DAW recording/instruments, despite having a well rounded system on paper with i7 CPUs that don't show super high CPU usage. Running latencymon definitely shows issues with real time latency, and now I know why, how, and where to investigate. Probably just saved me a bunch of money in "upgrades." Feel like I just sat in on a legitimate school course on the subject. You are the man!
Richard, this is the best explanation of this I have seen anywhere. I have a highly spec’d laptop that was working great with Cubase for a year and has just started dropping out in the last few months and I have been unable to locate the culprit so far. This video has given me more insight into how I might be able to do so, so thanks so much for making it!
I'm surprised he didn't suggested installing more RAM. It worked for me to help correct the issues he talked about.
Also switching NVMEs to other slots sometimes has huge effect. My two brand NVMEs triggered different drivers in Windows 10 in different slots.
I can't thank you enough! This remedies some hardcore frustrations. This is such valuable information that is not touched on nearly enough!
i've been searching for this info and level of detail for ages. thanks man
Re: Tim's question below: yes, I've found that some setups are very sensitive to the specific video driver. As I mentioned in the video, sometimes the latest driver is not the best and you have to hunt around to find a good one. Also, if the DPC Latency meter is staying in the green then you're probably still OK. Once you get your drivers/hardware "good enough", driving the DPC latency even lower doesn't seem to provide much practical benefit.
Richard Ames Music Thanks for the reply! It's probably not worth it for me then to mess with the system as it is running quite stable now although sometimes I wish that I could squeeze a little more juice out of my i7 4790k!
Finally I’m getting somewhat close to an explanation of why my powerful CPU sits around yawning while I still can’t get my round trip latency as low as I’d need for playing guitar through amp sims. THANK YOU.
Here Here! most logical explanation on TH-cam of what kind of processing power a DAW requires
Thank you Richard! You have shared something very relevant to music producers of today. Sensible planning coupled with your knowledge can help folks like us spend wisely and have a system that we can count on.
Lo mejor que me pudo haber sugerido el algoritmo de TH-cam. Suscrito!!
I'm convinced this video is the most helpful & well explained source of information on this topic the internet has to offer. Thanks!
Fails to mention to turn your power profile settings to high performance, which has a huge impact on the lowest latency you can run without dropouts.
F**king eh!!! This is one of the most useful, concise and information packed videos I've ever come across....great piece of work!!! And yeh I've just started to investigate the best hardware for a music PC.....whoosh....jobs a goodn ;D
Thank you for this info because I can't afford to update anything. I can't wait to get home and start trouble shooting.
This was such an amazing revelation for me. I am planning to build a new PC for audio production and I'm happy I have this knowledge now. Thanks Richard!!!
I'm about to buy a new system that I am about to set up strictly for home recording, glad I saw this video first!!!
This is perfect and its 5 years old. GOOD STUFF!! THANK YOU :)
Thank you!!! This is the kind of information and knowledge you usually have to pay (and it's not cheap) for.
WOW. Thank you very much Richard. It was fantastic!!!! Now I understand what's the problem in my DAW. THANKS AGAIN
I chanced upon this video after spending days trawling through well intentioned, but mostly unhelpful and misleading information sources. I've just purchased a new desktop and I noticed that audio playback was full of pops, crackles and gaps, so this will help me get to the bottom of the issue. I've never experienced this before in the last 25 years of using a DAW. Thanks for an excellent and well thought out explanation!
I honestly wonder how many people bought new PCs or upgraded their PC because they run their DAW with the wrong settings, as you described. This info TOTALLY changed my DAW performance and all I had to do was raise the sample block size in my settings. I can’t tell you how much better everything runs now. Thanks good sir!
Finally - correct & useful explanations in full sentences! Thank you, thank you, thank you
One of the Best videos on the internet.Thank you Sir !
Well done! This should be required viewing for anyone who runs a DAW.
Wow!! If teachers in schools were as good at explaining things as you, one year could probably be cut down to a month or so....exelent video!!!!
Beautifully explained, simple but effective graphic depictions thank you so much Richard.
That was an incredibly useful video, thanks so much! Also, that shirt is off-the-hook awesome.
That's what I was hoping to learn going to RECW. 😀 Could've asked but didn't know how to form the question, thank you so so much!
This is probably the most informative video I’ve ever seen. Thanks so much!
This is a great video; an easy to understand, lucid presentation. While I did already know some of what was discussed, I did pick up a few new things, along with having a few of my previous “understanding” of certain facets corrected. Well done, Sir. 🙏
I’ve been waiting for this thorough, granular, and understandable discussion since I started using a DAW about 7 weeks ago. Thank you!!!
This is actually great news, it means that if your experiencing crackles in DAW's real time play back, you won't necessarily have them in your final mix-down. Good to know...
I was also wondering in the past, why my system lays down the mix on my hard-drive a lot faster then playback. Now I know. Great video, thanks for taking the time!
THANK YOU, thank you, thank you! Following your steps I have discovered that it was the WLAN adapter that was locking up my CPU. I just couldn't understand why my much more powerful machine with twice as much RAM was performing so poorly against my old laptop. Your straightforward approach and explanations really helped. Subscribed.
How did you find out it was the WLAN? How did you fixed it?
Thank you so much!!! For this video litteraly solved my problems of audio drop outs in cubase after having freshly assembled my new computer (10700k & 64GB RAM on Z490i MEG). And as it turned out, it was the LAN PCIe 2.5G controller that was the culprid. Before this video I spent 3 agonizing days or more thinking it was the CPU's features (like SpeedStep, SpeedShift or Turbo Boost) constantly turning them on or off. Thank you Richard Ames for sharing that crucial knowledge about realtime performance.
Hi Richard,
I'm an IT guy (well experienced with DAW) and knew all tese things, but I've never seen sombody explaining it a better way you do !!! Very good video!
Thank you Richard, you helped me a lot (and saved me money)
this is so true my playback pc came to life after i adjusted the ram timings they were too loose the pc wasn't responsive because of this after adjusting for a long time and a lot of reboots my pc sounds amazing thru coaxial to a receiver.
Wow. It is rare to have pleasent guy giving actual good information to the point in TH-cam. Subbin
Richard Ames, you were so difficult for me to find the first time I played Metal Gear Solid 2
One of the best and informative vids on this topics. THANKS !!!!
Great information. I think I need to watch again to answer this question: “If, when buying a new computer, I don’t look at CPU specs, what should I look for? How can I tell which computer has good real-time specs?
Single core performance and boost clock is what you’re going to want to look at. Turbo boost clocks and how long those boosts can be sustained, along with the thermals (cooling) of the cpu are the important pieces of info.
Nick K thanks Nick. I’ll keep that in mind with my next computer. These stats would be on benchmark test sites rather than the “specs” on the manufacturer’s site I’m guessing.
hmedia Because all modern CPUs are pretty much the same when it comes to real time audio processing. There’s really not much of a difference anymore... with that being said if you’re going to be doing other tasks while working in a DAW, then that does make a difference, like having 20 diff browser tabs open with five TH-cam videos going and a Spotify playlist also playing...
@@5urg3x so today all systems are okay to buy?
michi vanhalen Pretty much. There are still some plugins that are hit and miss and use an insane amount of processing power. But any modern system should be fine. I use a latest Gen Mac Mini with an i7 and I’ve never had any issues.
I was gonna subscribe but didn't want to ruin that epic 420 number of subscribers.
You are fine now :)
+sp pro yep, just subbed!
6 years ago -- still perfectly explained for nowadays! Thanks a lot! Thumbs up! :-)
Great video. A must watch if you have a DAW.
Thank you so much Richard, this video was a lifesaver! 💎
You have answered SO many of my questions! Thank you!
Thank you so much for this video. I have serched this kind of information aroud a year! And now I know what is a reason of clicks! Thank you thank you thank you!
An excellent explanation.
This might be seven years old now but the principles described are still current.
👍
Thanks so much Richard. You have opened my eyes! Great presentation on a seldom discussed topic! I look forward to diving in some more of your videos in the very near future..
Thank you very much, sir! Much valuable information!
Brilliant stuff, given me hope after woefully depressing system upgrade. Thanks
20:05 - Does the latency problem still exist on modern PCI Express 3.0 and 4.0 SSDs?
Thank you!
This is finally the explanation I have been looking for, and you explain it extremely well.
I love you so much Richard, you just answered the question that's been on my mind for the past 10 years. And in such an easy to grasp method too! Thank you!
I sort of had that hunch rambling my curious mind as to best narrow down the facts. Wow, yeah, super great info much needed, thanks!
Wow ... awesome doesnt quite say how fantastic this vid is.
WOW this video is exactly what ive been looking for forever thank you so much! still relevant in 2021!
Very nice I have been working with Windows pcs and pro tools for 18 years. I'm glad you made this video to clarify realtime system load. Which many don't understand.
Wow, this is good. It should be on all Cubase forums.
Thank for sharing, Richard.
Faaaaantastic!!!!! it solves my worse problem, I Always knew that i'm slow. Looks like the only thing I have to do is change the drivers!!!! or the video card, or the audio card, or most probably de hard drive!!!
Truly, a perfectly clear and better than that, a Really Usable Explanation.!!!!!
Very good explanation, much appreciated! Thanks a lot!
I think there needs to be a audio computer that's dedicated to audio production, it's annoying to really get top performance, no windows or Mac just a custom OS that on,y deals with audio when running our daw software
It already exists. It's called a console!!!
+einarabelc5 no I meant something that runs digital audio workstation, im not talking about basic analog mixing consoles, unless they are something that runs a digital audio workstation on its own
I'd buy that.
BeOS was meant to be that.
Ever heard of RADAR?
by far the best video explaining this subject. I have been trying to figure this particular bit before building my audio workstation and I've found little to no information on this subject. A few places like soundonsound and scan, all have this video linked to their articles anyway. Thank you for making this.
Listened to 'Abstract Melancholy' from your wesbite, and oh my can you compose. I imagined distorted guitars in place of the strings and you blow a lot of metal compositions out of the water. Excellent as a composer and producer. This is the most informative video i've seen on what to look for in a computer for audio production, thank you so much.
Richard Ames, R U a teacher? UR presentation is similar to me sitting in a university and listening to an instructor there. UR presentation is top-notch and info is masterful and extremely informative. Were u teaching in a school and u were giving an exam on ur presentation, I'd fail. Too deep and/or over-my-head for my simple brain. However, don't stop giving us ur teachings, as we who R serious about music, NEED what u have to offer. I feel for presenters like u, that has to put up with commenters to ur work with unnecessary, rude, offensive and illogical remarks. Do it for those of us who believe in what u do for us! Yay. Thanks again for ur excellent video, albeit, not for newbies like myself. lol
Richard ! what a great presentation and your ability to convey so much information so fluently on a deep pressing subject for us producers... I have to tip my cap to you. Professionally done.
This video is STILL important in 2024 with 14th gen and Mac Pros. Got a bud who spent 8k on a Mac Pro and still had problems with Maschine software randomly spiking. The only remedy is using Process Lasso for PCs and Macs you can use Glances, although it’s not as effective.
I cannot thank you enough o have put the time to create this video!
Richard, really nice video and very good insights.
Although, i disagree in some points...
1 - The main reason why audio rendering is a lot faster (we're talking about 50 to 70% faster sometimes) and has no problems compared to real time audio, is that when you are working with rendering the software can make a lot of task's completely parallel, thus using the full power of your processor instead of using just the physical cores (hyperthreading is not completely used in real time audio). The other point of other components putting your CPU on hold is true, but not necessarily a problem as at that time, Video and HDD streaming are also real time processes. The video feeding and audio reading and reading and writing from the HDD pass through the same buffering processes as the audio to the audio card passes, and they all benefit from more and faster cores.
Additionally the audio software, also has to compute and contribute to the visualization components (mixer and plugin meters and animation, sequencer animation, song following, and so forth). Most plugins do not "shut down" visualization tasks when on real time, but background modes are activated when rendering.
And as these aren't any complex rendering in a DAW, these 2D elements, do not benefit from most video accelerators.
2 - The second thing i also think is not totally addressed here is processor affinity.
A lot of the Deferred Procedure Call Latency problems are mitigated in multi core processors, as each thread, driver, or call is given to a different core, so instead of halting the full processor, you only halt a given core. So the more cores you have the less cores you halt at a time, for a given process, in relation to the amount of cores (so as far as you don't scale up to a multi processor multi core computer as the DMA's and architecture is a bit different) the more processing power and availability of processor you will have for any kind of task (may it be one of the apps threads, filling the audio buffer or video buffer, or any other thing).
This info can be useful outside of DAW workstations. I'm currently experiencing DPC issues related to my gaming and normal desktop use.
One of the most important videos that I have ever seen
This was the best video I've seen in a long time--really helped me understand what's going on with my system. Thank you so much for taking the time to explain all of this!
hardware architecture makes a huge difference too. xeons are designed for server applications and onboard audio chips are always optimized more for audio playback rather than capture/recording.