I need of help with PC, Profire, Reaper, buffer size

[bryan_kilco]

I may have posted about this before, but couldn't find the thread nor an answer.

Trying to resolve this once and for all.

A friend built me a PC. I can't recall all the exact specs but, basically, it's pretty fucking boss.

In Reaper, let's say I have 4 guitar tracks. Each track has a chain of TSE 808, X50, LeCab, and ReaEQ.

Other than that, there's barely any FX on any of the other tracks besides ReaComp, W1, etc.

My CPU isn't peaking high at all, maybe around 20%. If I bypass all the FX except 1 guitar chain for tracking, I can barely track with Buffer at 128.

This has been killing me. I just hate trying to record anything over 128 buffer size and not sure what to do. Someone here told me there must be a problem with my PC/firewire somewhere because with a machine like I have, I shouldn't be running into any problems.

If it means anything, right when I first got the computer, I slapped like 14 instances of SSD4 on 14 different tracks, duplicated some midi 14 times, and it barely started to bog. Now THAT seems like it would be way more CPU suckage than a few guitar sim chains.

This just doesn't seem right. I could freeze each track for a work-around, but I feel that I just shouldn't have to worry about that. Or is it just that I'm running too many VST's? Anytime I try sending 2 guitars to a bus with a single chain on it, I can't get it to work properly.

Anyone? Anything? Any advice?

 

[RiF]

I might be helpful to give us more specs about your system.
What CPU is in your PC (like in "Core i7 3770K")? How much RAM (like in "16 GB DDR3-1600")? What's your drive configuration (like in "250 GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD for system and 1 TB Seagate 7200 rpm for audio")?
What's happening if you reduce the buffer size down to 64 samples?
Are you using the Task Manager or Reaper's own system meter to measure the CPU usage?

 

[deLuther]

All CPU throtling features (on Intel it is C-states, EIST, Turbo Boost) can seriously impact audio performance, better to turn them off in BIOS.

 

[[Prime]]

Check the CPU throttle dealy.

Also hit CTRL-ALT-DEL, bring up task manger , look in performance tab. You should see multiple graphs. Do this while you are running reaper. Are the graphs equal. You are checking to see if reaper is using all of the cores in your cpu and if they are being used equally. Report back.

Additionally, ampsims can be a lot more stressfull on the CPU than a drum plugin...just my experience.

What oversampling are you running on the multiple ampsims? Are you runing them in stereo...that uses more resources. Are you running seperate ampsims for each track L/R. You can send a Left and Right guitar track to one stereo ampsim.

As you can see there are a lot of variables.

And finally, if your machine seems to be running slower than it used to...what has changed. That is always a big thing in troubleshooting problems....what has changed.

Are you running AISO drivers in your DAW. I could go on and on....my god. The list is never ending....so I am going to stop there.

 

[Nuno Filipe]

I got somehow the same problem, not as bad as you. Because I can record with with 2.5ms of latency but my old PC did the same, a pentium 4 with only 2gb of ram without noises, audio clicks from time to time.

Now with my i7, I try the same buffer settings and I have noises. Its a bit frustranting indeed. As I said before, it´s not so bad but from time to time the audio clicks appear and sometimes it´s when I am doing my BEST GUITAR TAKES! FUCK!lol

deLuther thanks for the info, gonna look into that.

 

[Nuno Filipe]

All CPU throtling features (on Intel it is C-states, EIST, Turbo Boost) can seriously impact audio performance, better to turn them off in BIOS.

Tell me on more thing, should be turned off only when recording or always?

 

[AD Chaos]

Firewire can be tricky to setup right when it wants to; not as straightforward as USB, definitely.

Some other things you can check: Whether your firewire card has a TI chip (afaik this is the recommended, stable one); also couldn't hurt (well, it can, if you interrupt the procedure) to perform a BIOS update on your mobo.
That last thing solved the problems for me, I had similar issues to yours once.

 

[deLuther]

Tell me on more thing, should be turned off only when recording or always?

You will need reboot each time when you want on or off this. Sometimes you can not listen to music alone, not just recording, without this features off.
Recently one buddy have problem with AVID Fast Track Solo, he can not listen to music, constant dropouts etc. DPC Latency Checker or Latency Monitor displayed no problems with latency (DPC Latency Checker works wrong in Win >=7). But I`m sugessted running Prime95 on all cores and... dropouts disappered, with CPU working at 100%. Also I`m noticed that in "normal" mode CPU frequency is higher than nominal (due to Turbo Boost). With all throtling features off all works fine, you can leave C1E and thermal monitoring on.

 

[MarcusGHedwig]

I've had similar issues with otherwise high-spec PC's, and I'm pretty sure the issue is with the chipset on the Firewire card, so as mentioned you're best bet is to get a PCIe Firewire card with a TI chipset, namely this bad boy:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/FWCardPCIe/

(says it has the TI chipset on the manufacturer page)

 

[bryan_kilco]

Just some quick specs:

Win 7 Professional
AMD FX 6300 Six-Core 3.50 GHz
16 GB RAM
128 GB SSD
500 GB HDD
and off the top of my head I can't recall info on other stuff.

I'll have to check into the bios setup as well.

 

[deLuther]

For AMD look for Cool`n`Quiet settings.

 

[cobhc]

I've had similar issues with otherwise high-spec PC's, and I'm pretty sure the issue is with the chipset on the Firewire card, so as mentioned you're best bet is to get a PCIe Firewire card with a TI chipset, namely this bad boy:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/FWCardPCIe/

(says it has the TI chipset on the manufacturer page)

I'll have to put my TI FireWire card back in my PC as I moved to the onboard FireWire when I built my current system and I've been having some performance issues. Thanks man!

 

[MarcusGHedwig]

I'll have to put my TI FireWire card back in my PC as I moved to the onboard FireWire when I built my current system and I've been having some performance issues. Thanks man!

No prob dude, good to see you back!

 

[bryan_kilco]

For AMD look for Cool`n`Quiet settings.

This would be in BIOS? The machine has a nifty little "control center" type program which lets me see internal temperatures and fan speeds, etc. I actually only have 1(?) fan in there...damn I forget now, but I bought extra stuff after the build so I have 2 more fans to install and a bigger heat sink. I'm just going to wait till after vocal tracking to even mess with any of that.

 

[deLuther]

Yes, in BIOS. Maybe some CPU utility can provide access to it.

 

[cobhc]

No prob dude, good to see you back!

Thanks man. But I've been sort of back for a while

 

[Nuno Filipe]

Thanks again deLuther. Right now I not recording anything so I cant test those settings but I will try them for sure. Because it´s indeed weird that a powerfull machine cant handle low buffer settings.

 

[NickLAudio]

These are just my guesses but....

- Are you using an external hard drive to save your sessions/audio to? If not, it can be extremely taxing on the cpu to be streaming audio from the internal drive AND dealing with all the DAW processing. Especially using multiple instances of an amp sim.

- Is your DAW using all of your computer's core processors? If so, it's a good idea to designate at least one processor for the system, and the rest for your DAW.


I use ALOT of amp sims on some sessions. Anywhere from 5-10 in one session. So I totally know your frustration. I'll usually take the guitars in pairs (L+R) and record them down with the amp sim to a stereo audio track. So in the end, you have one stereo track with rhythms, one with leads, a mono for solos, and a mono for bass, and no amp sims running.