Sound Cards - definitive answers

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wils
Posts: 44
Joined: 04 Dec 2017

14 Dec 2017

Looking for a definitive answer here to an (apparently) simple question or two: Does a soundcard help with DAW VST performance?

I've read conflicting information on various forums and the answer falls into two camps:

NO it won't, because a soundcard only eases the load when it comes to audio processing (not digital or computational processing as performed within most DAWs), and the other answer which is:

YES it will, because the DAW and all the VSTs within it are creating audio.

So basically if I'm playing Reason tracks and the audio is cutting out or I'm experiencing latency (with no actual audio tracks, just midi), will a soundcard help?

Cheers folks

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Ahornberg
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14 Dec 2017

As far as I know, audio processing of VSTs is done on the CPU, so a faster/better CPU should help.

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normen
Posts: 3431
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

14 Dec 2017

If you can live with setting the buffer size relatively high (i.e. 256 - 512 samples) then NO, it won't matter. At lower latencies the answer becomes a bit more complicated and the interface can indeed change the DSP load to the worse or better. But USB interfaces all won't give you much of an advantage there, PCI or thunderbolt ones might.

chaosroyale
Posts: 728
Joined: 05 Sep 2017

14 Dec 2017

Specifically to improve VST performance? No.

To improve general latency issues, yes: but your CPU, RAM and a good ASIO driver will be overwhelmingly more important to the point where it is almost always better to add CPU and RAM.

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sublunar
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14 Dec 2017

The definitive answer to this question relies completely upon the specifications of the computer in question.

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fotizimo
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14 Dec 2017

sublunar wrote:
14 Dec 2017
The definitive answer to this question relies completely upon the specifications of the computer in question.
See, this is the answer no one asking this question wants.

I have asked this a few times in a few different ways as I struggle to understand the relationship between my my software, the operating system, the hardware and the drivers in-between them all.
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QVprod
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14 Dec 2017

fotizimo wrote:
14 Dec 2017
sublunar wrote:
14 Dec 2017
The definitive answer to this question relies completely upon the specifications of the computer in question.
See, this is the answer no one asking this question wants.

I have asked this a few times in a few different ways as I struggle to understand the relationship between my my software, the operating system, the hardware and the drivers in-between them all.
That's the thing. It's all connected. They all affect each other. The main thing for what you listed above is you want them all to be compatible with each other. That's the simple part.

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