Low latency Reason on 5th gen i3 laptop, ...

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avasopht
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Posts: 3932
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

10 Apr 2018

I'm getting frequent clicks with a buffer size of 256 on my i3-5005U laptop with Digidesign MBox, 8GB RAM and 1TB HDD, even when just playing Radical Piano on its own. Clicks go through the roof when playing the default patch in Halion Sonic.

I've got the laptop on high power mode when plugged in, disabled antivirus and Spectre patch, etc.

Reaper is fine at the same samplerate when playing the default Halion Sonic patch.

Am I missing something?

WongoTheSane
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Location: Paris, France

10 Apr 2018

Have you tried LatencyMon to check for possible sources of interrupts?

http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

It might point you in the right direction...

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Psuper
Posts: 524
Joined: 29 May 2016

10 Apr 2018

avasopht wrote:
10 Apr 2018
I'm getting frequent clicks with a buffer size of 256 on my i3-5005U laptop with Digidesign MBox, 8GB RAM and 1TB HDD, even when just playing Radical Piano on its own. Clicks go through the roof when playing the default patch in Halion Sonic.

I've got the laptop on high power mode when plugged in, disabled antivirus and Spectre patch, etc.

Reaper is fine at the same samplerate when playing the default Halion Sonic patch.

Am I missing something?
Take out the battery.
Reason needs to DAW.viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7504985

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Oquasec
Posts: 2849
Joined: 05 Mar 2017

10 Apr 2018

oh yeah if you take the battery out with the cable plugged in that's almost like using a desktop.
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Reason, FLS and Cubase NFR user.

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Psuper
Posts: 524
Joined: 29 May 2016

10 Apr 2018

Oquasec wrote:
10 Apr 2018
oh yeah if you take the battery out with the cable plugged in that's almost like using a desktop.
Its a common problem but not common knowledge - just have to have had a lot of laptops to experience it with.

No guarantee that's the cause, but its the first thing I'd do in his situation.
Reason needs to DAW.viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7504985

househoppin09
Posts: 536
Joined: 03 Aug 2016

10 Apr 2018

Interesting, I wasn't aware of that solution. I'm on a laptop and generally run with both AC power and the battery connected. I seem to be getting perfectly good performance for the most part, not too many issues with drop-outs or anything. Given that, is switching to running without the battery something likely to be worth bothering with for me? What specific problem does it solve, and how?

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Psuper
Posts: 524
Joined: 29 May 2016

10 Apr 2018

househoppin09 wrote:
10 Apr 2018
Interesting, I wasn't aware of that solution. I'm on a laptop and generally run with both AC power and the battery connected. I seem to be getting perfectly good performance for the most part, not too many issues with drop-outs or anything. Given that, is switching to running without the battery something likely to be worth bothering with for me? What specific problem does it solve, and how?
No idea how or why it causes problems, but it happens, several times in my case. You have to take the battery physically out though to eliminate it (easy to do on laptops just pop them out with a switch on the base usually). The first time I used a laptop for music production was about 15 years ago or so, and took me days to figure it out the problem through trial and error. Happened on several laptops over the years, however I don't really use them anymore.

If you aren't having any issues I wouldn't bother taking it out, however I personally would just due to my experience with them.
Reason needs to DAW.viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7504985

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moneykube
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10 Apr 2018

interesting :lightbulb: :lightbulb: :lightbulb: thanx
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kuhliloach
Posts: 880
Joined: 09 Dec 2015

10 Apr 2018

You might want to try the ASIO4ALL driver either set to use the MBOX or even possibly set it to use the laptop's internal audio for when you don't need the inputs on the MBOX. With my Line6 UX2 using ASIO4ALL instead of Line6's drivers allows for lower latency.

http://www.asio4all.org

sot
Posts: 88
Joined: 03 May 2015

11 Apr 2018

if you increase the buffer size to 512 it's ok?
:reason: 10

avasopht
Competition Winner
Posts: 3932
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

12 Apr 2018

Well 512 is much much better, but man, I was happily running 256 (sometimes 128) samples on my 2009 Core 2 Duo Mac without any problem, and I've been having issues with 256 samples for a while now on a CPU that is 60% more powerful.

I tried latencymon and unless I am actively browsing the net it's fine, though even when not I am still getting ~400us of DPC from Network Driver Interface Specifications. Is that even an issue?

I am examining the advice given here to see if there's anything I can learn from it, but I think a full reinstall or an upgrade might be in order. I could probably do with an SSD as well.

That being said, it's a lot less of an issue in Reaper or when using Halion Sonic standalone.

WongoTheSane
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Location: Paris, France

12 Apr 2018

avasopht wrote:
12 Apr 2018
That being said, it's a lot less of an issue in Reaper or when using Halion Sonic standalone.
If I understand correctly normen's recent video about DSP and CPU (viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7505661), it's because Reason has a fixed buffer size internally, which implies that interrupts "eat" more time within each frame, proportionally, than they would if the buffer was bigger, hence increase the chances of clicks (buffer not ready). Just pointing this out to save you from diagnosing specific Reason issues: your system may have an interrupt problem, but it's not specific to Reason, even though the effects are more pronounced there...

BTW, do you have an NVidia graphics card?

avasopht
Competition Winner
Posts: 3932
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

12 Apr 2018

WongoTheSane wrote:
12 Apr 2018
avasopht wrote:
12 Apr 2018
That being said, it's a lot less of an issue in Reaper or when using Halion Sonic standalone.
If I understand correctly normen's recent video about DSP and CPU (viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7505661), it's because Reason has a fixed buffer size internally, which implies that interrupts "eat" more time within each frame, proportionally, than they would if the buffer was bigger, hence increase the chances of clicks (buffer not ready). Just pointing this out to save you from diagnosing specific Reason issues: your system may have an interrupt problem, but it's not specific to Reason, even though the effects are more pronounced there...

BTW, do you have an NVidia graphics card?
Yes, I had considered that, though I didn't have any issue like this on my old 2009 Core 2 Duo in Reason, so I do have hope it can be resolved. Having multithreaded audio processing can also throw in a few curveballs with synchronization.

I've been having this problem for a few months now. Can't remember if I got this same issue with the Mackie Onyx Blackjack, but that was with a different laptop entirely and using a Win7 driver on Windows 10 so even if there were issues I might have ignored its severity.

Main reason why I'm bringing it up now is because of the Absolute 3 50% off promotion ending today. I don't want to get it for use in Reason if it's going to be barely playable. Instruments eat up 2-5% CPU in Reaper. I'm considering spending $750 on a new PC to handle this smoothly if I do get it.

But there's got to be something I'm doing wrong if other people are having no issues with Reason at that buffer size in Windows 10.

I'll also give asio4all a spin for good luck.

Edit: In the end I just purchased Absolute and will run at 512 samples.

WongoTheSane
Moderator
Posts: 1851
Joined: 14 Sep 2015
Location: Paris, France

13 Apr 2018

avasopht wrote:
12 Apr 2018
WongoTheSane wrote:
12 Apr 2018


If I understand correctly normen's recent video about DSP and CPU (viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7505661), it's because Reason has a fixed buffer size internally, which implies that interrupts "eat" more time within each frame, proportionally, than they would if the buffer was bigger, hence increase the chances of clicks (buffer not ready). Just pointing this out to save you from diagnosing specific Reason issues: your system may have an interrupt problem, but it's not specific to Reason, even though the effects are more pronounced there...

BTW, do you have an NVidia graphics card?
Yes, I had considered that, though I didn't have any issue like this on my old 2009 Core 2 Duo in Reason, so I do have hope it can be resolved. Having multithreaded audio processing can also throw in a few curveballs with synchronization.

I've been having this problem for a few months now. Can't remember if I got this same issue with the Mackie Onyx Blackjack, but that was with a different laptop entirely and using a Win7 driver on Windows 10 so even if there were issues I might have ignored its severity.

Main reason why I'm bringing it up now is because of the Absolute 3 50% off promotion ending today. I don't want to get it for use in Reason if it's going to be barely playable. Instruments eat up 2-5% CPU in Reaper. I'm considering spending $750 on a new PC to handle this smoothly if I do get it.

But there's got to be something I'm doing wrong if other people are having no issues with Reason at that buffer size in Windows 10.

I'll also give asio4all a spin for good luck.

Edit: In the end I just purchased Absolute and will run at 512 samples.
I've asked about NVidia because they now install an "HD Audio Driver" together with their drivers, which does its own interrupts whether it's in use or not. It's hard to diagnose because who would suspect a graphics card driver to mess with audio? To make sure, check in Device Manager whether you have something called "NVidia High Definition Audio" (in Sound, video and game controllers). If you do, right-click and disable (do NOT remove, it will reinstall itself automatically). If there are other "High Definition Audio" drivers in there, disable them as well. Worth a try...

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Lempface
Posts: 183
Joined: 27 Jan 2018

14 Apr 2018

Try disabling your network adapter and WiFi. Like someone else suggested LatencyMon can help identify which component is bothering your performance but network devices and especially WiFi can often cause issues with DSP.
Reason 11 Suite | Bitwig Studio 3 | Native Instruments Komplete 13 Ultimate Collector's | Komplete Kontrol M32 | Maschine Mikro MK2 | Maschine Jam

S1GNL
Posts: 83
Joined: 31 Jan 2018

16 Apr 2018

Lempface wrote:
14 Apr 2018
Try disabling your network adapter and WiFi. Like someone else suggested LatencyMon can help identify which component is bothering your performance but network devices and especially WiFi can often cause issues with DSP.
How can the Latency Mon help with identifying the troublemaker?

I'm having some constant and unusual high latency but that's all the info I get from that piece of software.
I've deactivated everything I don't need (network controller, audio, ...) but there is still this constant latency happening (yellow).

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Lempface
Posts: 183
Joined: 27 Jan 2018

18 Apr 2018

S1GNL wrote:
16 Apr 2018
Lempface wrote:
14 Apr 2018
Try disabling your network adapter and WiFi. Like someone else suggested LatencyMon can help identify which component is bothering your performance but network devices and especially WiFi can often cause issues with DSP.
How can the Latency Mon help with identifying the troublemaker?

I'm having some constant and unusual high latency but that's all the info I get from that piece of software.
I've deactivated everything I don't need (network controller, audio, ...) but there is still this constant latency happening (yellow).
It's a bit tricky. The readout will usually show the .SYS file associated with the device and you kind of have to back into it. I usually review the highest DPC and ISR and try disabling those devices if they are not mission critical.
Reason 11 Suite | Bitwig Studio 3 | Native Instruments Komplete 13 Ultimate Collector's | Komplete Kontrol M32 | Maschine Mikro MK2 | Maschine Jam

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