Pete Brown

It only goes away if device manufacturers add unique serial numbers to their devices. All the operating systems have to work around this, and we'll continue to do so. MIDI 2.0 has in-protocol mechanisms to get device unique IDs, but if a device can do that, it likely would be able to have an iSerialNumber anyway. Also, those don't show up upon connection (we're not doing any in-protocol stuff right when we enumerate a device, or else Windows would take forever to start up) so they wouldn't change how Windows itself would see the device.

Oops. I just realized Noel had already posted this here:

Not sure if ok to post here or not, but Vin just uploaded the podcast with @Noel Borthwickfrom Cakewalk. We talk history of Cakewalk, and how Noel got into music development (it's an interesting genesis). https://dawbench.libsyn.com/episode-09-daw-evolution-ii-cakewalk-past-present-future Pete

Noel and I experimented with Game Mode a few years back, because it could be potentially useful for DAWs. Noel found that Cakewalk performed worse under Game Mode. This is consistent with what some other DAW companies have told me. Your mileage may vary, especially as core counts go up, so it's worth experimenting with. But for DAWs, optimizing for graphics FPS often comes at a cost for real-time audio. (This is also why gaming PCs aren't always the best base for DAW building) Pete

Not quite sure what you're saying there. I don't generally disagree with the pros. But the DAW builders I know and work with have very specific configurations of hardware and software that they support. In at least one case, the PCs are locked down like appliances, and the customers are not allowed to install anything else on them other than plugins. The tweaks they do for that aren't necessarily ones that should be up on a general list. Pete

Thanks Craig I'll buy you a drink the next time we have an in-person NAMM or MIDI meeting. Pete

Got it. I don't agree with the decision to disable Defender, but I get where you're coming from. What you don't end up protected from, however, are drive-by malware installs that use browser exploits to install software on your PC, Mac, Phone, etc. The owners of the sites often don't even know that the malware distribution is happening there, because it comes through compromised ad networks, hacked sites, posted comments, etc. You can still manage a lot of that by being careful and aware, but some of these things can be tricky. I still use Defender, but I've also done a few other things in this house to help keep all the PCs safe (I have a 12yo and 15yo, each with their own PCs since they were 6, and my wife also has her own PC) Ad-block. I felt guilty at first, but ad networks were a primary distributor of drive-by malware, so I gave up, That, and the ads that were pushing content all over the page were so distracting that I just couldn't function anymore. Pi-Hole. I have a pi-hole for the house. Originally, I installed it so I could actually surf the web with my iPad Air. It was otherwise choking due to all the supplemental ad/tracking/scripting going on on pages. It really made a huge difference. I've unblocked the domains for xbox achievements, and some telemetry, but otherwise, it blocks a ton. Before it was mandated, uninstalled and disabled Flash on all the PCs in the house. Way too many exploits Way back, completely disabled Java on all browsers on all PCs. Hot mess of exploits that was. The only reason Java was on any of the PCs was (is) for Minecraft. Since then, there's only been one instance of malware in the house, from when my son was trying to download a Minecraft texture pack, and clicked the wrong download button (I hate those sites). He learned a valuable lesson that day, and no one has had problems since. There's a person on Gearslutz who PM'd me about malware they got. The vector there was their router, which has apparently been compromised. Again, didn't require any bad behavior on the part of the user, other than not making sure the router was up to date (and even then, not sure that would have stopped it). One thing I did recently enable is Windows Defender Controlled Folder Access. The first time you enable this, it's a bit of a pain as file access starts silently failing for some apps. But once you let them through, it's all good. Given the massive rise in ransomware, this seemed prudent. Defender is pretty low-touch and low resource usage. Worth a try if you ever decide to give it another shot. Pete

FWIW the group policy editor is not actually supported on Windows 10 Home, but I figure anyone doing the above knows that. Also, be careful with DISM, as it's really easy to hose your drive with that. DISM does a lot of things, including provision an empty drive. It's the deployment image servicing tool. The way the batch file is written, that's not going to happen, but should anyone get curious about the tool, this is important to know. Which group policy settings would you apply to a DAW? I have some for controlling updates linked to from the post, but I haven't found any others that are essential, myself. Pete

FWIW, I just tried it in IE11 and it worked there. So not sure what's up. Sorry you're running into a block here. Pete

The "prefer background processes" bit can actually hurt you. During the investigation for my tweak list, I looked this one up, because it comes up often. That setting is primarily for servers with background processes (think Database or web server) which need to be prioritized over the interactive applications. Normally, foreground apps get a boost to keep them responsive. Setting it to prefer background services puts foreground and background on a fairly equal footing, with some caveats. For DAW use, when using an ASIO driver setting it to "background services" : If the driver is loaded by a process other than the DAW (like a service), and doesn't use MMCSS threads, this setting could potentially keep the audio driver from being starved by a faster interactive application. If the driver is loaded in-process with the DAW, this will not have any positive effect because the audio driver is part of the foreground application process. If the driver is loaded by another process (like a service), and DOES use MMCSS threads, this setting will not have any positive effect. In all cases, when you set this to prefer background processes, you are causing all those other services that folks put in tweak lists as "robbing" processor cycles, on an equal footing with your DAW app, causing them to potentially use more CPU than you may want. If you are using WASAPI, the calculus is a bit different because there are more moving parts. And, again, if the bit running in the background process is using MMCSS threads (many do now), this will not have any impact because those have a different scheduling algorithm applied. As I mention in my on tweak list, the key is to measure measure measure. And be sure to do so both before and after the change, and in isolation from other changes. In most scenarios, this setting is not going to help performance of the DAW. In some cases, it could make it perform worse. Pete

I tested in in Firefox as well. Maybe you're blocking something with an ad blocker, firewall, or DNS black hole? The blog site does check to see if you're signed into it when it first loads up, but it's not required unless you want to comment. If you go to just aka.ms without the rest of it, that's our page for managing short links. You have to have Microsoft employee credentials to log in there. Totally separate thing. Pete

Ok. I'll stand down on this for now. LMK how it goes. Pete

Hi All Noel let me know about this issue. (Thanks @Noel Borthwick ) @Marcos Kleine which OS and version are you running? (If Windows 10, go to Settings->System->About to get that info). @Johnbee58 same Q for you. I'm curious to know why it works for you and not Marcos. Have you tried Noel's approach and found it to still work? Before I can get this in front of the team, I need to figure out if this is an issue that was always there vs. something new, so if anyone else can repro on older versions of Windows 10 and/or 8.x and/or 7, that would be incredibly helpful. To be frank, the GS wavetable synth isn't the best thing to use to make music with. It's in the OS mainly for compatibility, but the sounds are super dated and the latency is pretty high. Personally, I'd like to see it go away, but we have this thing about backwards compatibility. :) Pete

Hi Jim Stock 1903 has an issue with kernel code that causes high DPC latency on some PCs. The updates available for it should include the kernel patch we released last month, including KB4505903 (which I believe is in another roll-up with a different KB number). If you still have high DPC latency after that (and rebooting), please do a trace per the blog post above, and provide the link to me. Note that tools that measure DPC latency aren't always accurate -- the team needs to hear the glitch in the audio that is recorded as part of the trace. Finally, a common cause of DPC spikes is power settings: both the PC and the video card. There are LOTS of variables here, but with nvidia GPUs, make sure to set it to prefer maximum performance: (NVIDIA control panel -> Manage 3D settings -> Global Settings). Folks on other forums have found that that setting alone appears to have a big impact in DPC latency. It's not something I've measured, myself. Pete

Noel ping me about this thread. We released a fix for the ntoskrnl 1903 very high DPC latency issue late last month. Not all of these things make it into announcement posts, so follow me on Twitter if you want info earlier. If after installing that (or the roll-up that contains it), you still get high latency spikes, it's likely something else. Best way to diagnose that is to take a glitch trace and make us aware of it by sending me a link to the Feedback Hub entry. Instructions are on Matthew's blog. Make sure you can hear the glitch when taking the log/trace. Sometimes we get traces with no audio, and that doesn't help. :) https://matthewvaneerde.wordpress.com/2016/09/26/report-problems-with-logs-and-suggest-features-with-the-feedback-hub/