Steve Moddelmog

I asked Google Bard for help with this issue. Here's what I got - unfortunately nothing helpful: How can I keep acpi.sys from causing latency in music production software? View other drafts The acpi.sys driver is responsible for managing power consumption on your computer. It can sometimes cause latency in music production software, which can lead to clicks, pops, and other audio problems. There are a few things you can do to keep acpi.sys from causing latency: Update your drivers. Make sure you have the latest drivers for your computer's motherboard, processor, and graphics card. You can usually find these drivers on the manufacturer's website. Disable power management. Go to Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Device Manager. Expand the "System Devices" category and right-click on "ACPI-Compliant System". Select "Properties" and go to the "Power Management" tab. Uncheck the box next to "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power". Use a dedicated audio interface. A dedicated audio interface will give you much lower latency than your computer's built-in sound card. This will help to prevent acpi.sys from causing problems with your music production software. If you are still experiencing latency problems after trying these steps, you may need to contact your computer manufacturer or audio interface manufacturer for further assistance. Here are some additional tips for reducing DPC latency: Use a high-quality power supply. A poor-quality power supply can cause all sorts of problems with your computer's performance, including DPC latency. Keep your computer cool. Heat can also cause DPC latency, so make sure your computer has good ventilation. Close unnecessary programs. Any programs that are running in the background can contribute to DPC latency. Close any programs that you are not using. Defragment your hard drive. A fragmented hard drive can also cause DPC latency. Defragment your hard drive regularly to improve performance. By following these tips, you can help to reduce DPC latency and improve the performance of your music production software.

Power settings are all at their most "generous." USB not allowed to turn off to save power. I have never used sleep, and the first thing I do when i get a new computer is disable hibernate. At your suggestion, I looked at BIOS settings but I didn't see anything there that seemed to relate to power settings, other than an optimize battery setting which I didn't think would make a difference but I disabled it anyway (it was enabled). I do let Windows turn my screen off after X minutes of inactivity. Wouldn't think that would be problematic, would it?

No, it's an HP.

I downloaded the tool and have run it numerous times. Every time, all looks fine at first, but it eventually (from 30 seconds to 2 minutes in) gives me the message about "having trouble handling real-time audio" and simultaneously (I think) flags ACPI.sys as having the highest reported ISR and DPC routine execution times. It makes suggestions about Power Management (I'm really about 100% sure I have power settings at their most "generous" for every component) and tells me to check for BIOS updates (BIOS just updated less than a month ago). Any insights or suggestions are welcome. Incidentally (or maybe not so incidental), the sound is not always affected (to my ears, anyway) when the max engine load exceeds 100% and there are a few late buffers). But when the sound is poor, the max load is always reported at >100% and there are more than a few late buffers. Thanks to all who have offered their thoughts and ideas.

Thanks for your thorough answer. I figured RAM would not be part of the equation. Anyway, I have 32 Gb which seems ample, though my prior system had 48. Hard drive is SSD, though not a particularly fast one. Not using large sample libraries, so I think it's probably adequate. My processor is an i7-1165G7 - not spectacular, but seems like it should be up to the job. I just replaced my 3rd gen 2i2 with Zoom's new UAC-232. I have been running Sonar / Cakewalk for more than 20 years and have read about / done every tweak imaginable to optimize for music production. The reason I posted my question is that lately several projects have been stuttering during playback (and occasionally stop playing altogether until restarting CW or the computer). No dropout message, but I see max engine load as high as 180% and sometimes a lot of late buffers. All this has happened probably more or less simultaneously with trading out the 2i2 for the UAC-232. So I thought that might be the problem, it being a new product. But the same projects that are problematic sometimes play with no problem and max out at, say, 55% max load with no late buffers. I have an Apogee Duet (the model that was bundled with ProTools and was their first with Windows drivers). I tried swapping out the UAC-232 for the Apogee and I would say the engine load is generally maybe 10 percentage points lower, but there's so much variability that it's hard to say for sure. Once or twice it has also gone to >100% max engine load and a lot of late buffers. Also wondering if some particular plugins are to blame. I recently started using NI's RC 24 or RC 48 reverbs in virtually every project, and some of those recent projects also have NI's Replika or Replika XT (on not more than one track per project). Replika has always seemed like a resource hog. But if the plugins aren't to blame, I guess that leads me back to the CPU? By the way, one of the first projects I noticed the issue on only had 2 vsti tracks and one audio track. Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated.

Haha, no problem!

Yes, I did read that, but if it answers my question, I don't understand how. I always look for answers in various places (manual, previous posts, general Googling) before asking questions o a forum.

What hardware component is the principal driver of the performance measure "engine load?" CPU? Sound interface? Both? I am maxing it out a lot and trying to figure out what my weak link might be.

Can you de-authorize the installation on the old computer using iLok License Manager on the new computer and then activate it? Well, I just answered my own question. I have an unbootable computer that has used some iLok activations, and when I try to deactivate them on that computer (fortunately they all had remaining activations available), I get a message that says: Source location is not accessible Please run iLok License Manager on "UPSTAIRS" if you want to perform any operations on this location. If you can no longer access this machine and would like to have your licenses back, please contact the appropriate publishers for a machine activation reset. So how about trying what they suggest and contacting the plugin publisher?

Hey, I do it the way you are trying to do it all the time, and it works even if, as some have noted, there is no data in Track 15. On the other hand, I have tried using ripple / edit all and I never seem to be able to get it to delete a measure (or other selection) in the entire project, so I have just continued to do what you were doing. Wondering why it didn't work for you here.

I keep every version of Kontakt installed on my machine for this very reason. Obviously the data on everything is embedded somewhere in the Cakewalk / Sonar file. I would love for there to be a way to view this data. But as someone mentioned above, I am carefully keeping notes on each VST used on every project now - wish I had done it all along.

Whenever I need to uninstall something that's misbehaving, I always use Revo Pro to uninstall. It almost finds stuff in the registry that the program's uninstaller doesn't find and gives you the ability to delete those orphan entries (or not if you don't want to for some reason.: So you might try that and see if you can then get a cleaner install.

Thanks for the all the suggestions about using a video editor. I don't have one of the premium ones, but I have Cyberlink Power Director and it was able to do what I wanted perfectly.

I have Sonar Platinum (64-bit) installed on my computer, and I am just not seeing this plugin. I understand that it's not viewable with other FX , but when I right click my clip and select "Process Effect / Audio Effects," I can't find it anywhere. I do see the Pitch Shifter plugin, and maybe I could use that in conjunction with stretching the time, but I want the pitch and time to change in tandem with each other. Can you post a screen shot of the clip as the effect is selected? Thanks.

Thanks everyone for the replies. I thought it would be easier - seems like it used to be difficult to keep the pitch the same, now it's difficult to make it change with the speed. Am I just remembering that incorrectly? ps, if anyone can recall a version of Sonar that does what I want, please let me know - I have all back to the first product branded with the Sonar name.

I want to change the speed of an audio track and have the pitch change correspondingly. The only options I can see are to keep the pitch the same - very clever, but not what I need in this case. Can it be done? Thanks for help.

I got Dreamstation working in CbB with the help of dxishell. Google it if you don't know about it. I thought I wasn't going to be able to make it work, but the trick was only to put the 32-bit dxishell file in the VST folder, not both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

I would love for there to be a way to find out what patches / presets / libraries are used by plugins in Cakewalk. Seems whenever I migrate to a new computer, there are always some Cakewalk files that have something that fails to load. I have finally wised up and started adding the name of the preset used to each track's notes, but I probably have 50 old projects that I'd like to pick up again that have a "missing" preset.

Yes, I have both versions installed, but suddenly none of my VSTs are available in 32-bit Sonar. So if I have a "mixed" project (say, FM8 dxi plugin but Absynth VST plugin) the VST will fail to load in 32-bit Sonar. This is new behavior - I'm certain I could do this with no problem as of March 15.

As I've said, the purpose is solely to open older projects that used dxi plugins. Everything new I do is in 64-bit CBB. I'm surprised that nobody else seems to want / need to do this. In many cases, all I want is to see what preset I used in a plugin that also has a VST version, for example FM8. I then replace the dxi with the VST version, load the preset, save, and then reopen in CBB.

Thanks for the responses, but I think I wasn't very clear. First of all, as of March 15 I was doing exactly what I want to do - load old projects with dxi's in 32-bit Sonar, which I have had installed on my computer alongside CBB ever since CBB was released. All of my 32-bit VSTs have been visible in 32-bit Sonar as have all of my dxi plugins - until I tried it today. The dxi plugins are still visible - that's not the problem. The problem is that the 32-bit VSTs, which I am absolutely certain were available in 32-bit Sonar on March 15, are all gone, and all of the options for scanning them in Plugin Manager are grayed out. I'm not trying to load VST3 plugins or 64-bit VST2 plugins in 32-bit Sonar - I know that is not possible. I'm only trying to do what I have done ever since CBB was released - use 32-bit Sonar to load old projects since I cannot load the dxi plugins that many of them used in CBB. Any thoughts? Thanks.

I have been running CBB since it first became available, but I have kept a 32-bit version on SPLAT on my computer to be able to load old projects that used dxi's. I have done that as recently as 2 months ago. Today when I loaded 32-bit Sonar all my VSTs were gone all all VST configuration options were grayed out. What might have happened?

I think I mentioned somewhere earlier that I was able to boot into Win 10 once after doing an Acronis restore AND then rolling back (in recovery) the Win 10 update that happened the day before the Acronis backup was made. Then it crashed again and that sequence didn't work a second time. I'm not sure whether Acronis is to blame for that or the drive(s) were just too screwed up.

It was a refurbished machine I bought on Amazon. I'll never do that again.

The RAID configuration was to double the drive size, not to backup. Not what I would have done, but that's how it came out of the box. I did manage to restore a March 9 Acronis image which initially didn't help, but when I then selected the repair option of uninstalling last quality update (having little expectation that it would fix the problem), I was able to load Windows 10. Since March 8 was a patch Tuesday, I guess there was something in the update that caused my problem, the problem would have existed in the March 9 Acronis image, but the repair to remove the update did the trick. I was able to get information about a few projects, but then I noticed that my wifi adapter wasn't working, and when I tried to fix that and did a re-boot, I hung at the Windows 10 logo again. I guess I will do another restore to see if I can keep it running long enough to get some more of the file and information I wanted.