can cakewalk use a graphics card?

[Oscar Garzon]

3 minutes ago, martsave martin s said:

from the gif(video) you have put above,the audio-drop out..

you can try 44100 (but onboard soundcard are "stuck" to 48000 ..

i changed my sampling rate in driver settings to 44100 but i still get the same problem

[martsave martin s]

3 minutes ago, Oscar Garzon said:

i changed my sampling rate in driver settings to 44100 but i still get the same problem

you can try ASIO4all,this might improve the perfomance with it

 

http://www.asio4all.org/

[Oscar Garzon]

2 minutes ago, martsave martin s said:

you can try ASIO4all,this might improve the perfomance with it

 

http://www.asio4all.org/

already tried it. wasn't compatible with my sound card

[martsave martin s]

Just now, Oscar Garzon said:

already tried it. wasn't compatible with my sound card

you may start to think about buying a real-sound card..this would fix all your problems

[Oscar Garzon]

1 minute ago, martsave martin s said:

you may start to think about buying a real-sound card..this would fix all your problems

yeah but they are expensive. like $100+. dont have that amount of money. i guess not all instruments can get added notes with mouse click and hold in paino roll. i can still play a lot of instruments no problem with click and hold mouse button to quickly add music. so i guess its no problem

[martsave martin s]

2 minutes ago, Oscar Garzon said:

yeah but they are expensive. like $100+. dont have that amount of money. i guess not all instruments can get added notes with mouse click and hold in paino roll. i can still play a lot of instruments no problem with click and hold mouse button to quickly add music. so i guess its no problem

you will get more help by others members,right now im out of idea for you

have a nice day

[aidan o driscoll]

5 hours ago, Oscar Garzon said:

yeah but they are expensive. like $100+. dont have that amount of money. i guess not all instruments can get added notes with mouse click and hold in paino roll. i can still play a lot of instruments no problem with click and hold mouse button to quickly add music. so i guess its no problem

@Oscar Garzon Unfortunately you cannot get away from this one.

If you are serious about your music .. You will need to get a decent Audio I/F and get away from that basic soundcard you have on the graphics board. No 2 ways about this TBH.

Have a look at this thread I setup a while back about Audio interfaces. I was hunting for one myself because my old M-audio Firewire I/F was getting real long in the tooth. I finally settled on the AUDIENT EVO which comes in at around $100. Its an external Audio I/F connected via USB.

There are a few decent Audio I/Fs which would be better than what you have and in some cases well under $100. The oldest but still very good if on a budget is the Presonus AudioBox USB 96 which I have seen for about ST£80. Another range that does get a battering both good and bad is the Behringer Audio I/Fs .. eg the UMC22 comes in at ST£56 or the UMC202HD comes in at ST£87 ( both would be well better than that card you are using at the moment ).  One of the top makes is Focusrite and the Scarlett Solo 3rd gen comes in at ST£92. All these prices available on AMAZON UK, convert to your own currency.

Read that thread above. You cannot as they say make a silk purse out of a sows ear no matter which way you cut it. Nothing you do will make that "audio I/F" you have any better in my opinion and all you will be doing is frustrating yourself no end ... my 2 cents!

The two i finally settled on were the Komplete Audio 1 or the Audient EVO. I went for the latter simply because it was available and the Komplete was not. I also went for the Audient EVO because i play guitar for eons and saw many good reviews about its inputs for Guitar and vocals etc. All that info and reviews is available at that thread above to save you the bother of repeating the same thing & once you come around to stop fooling yourself with that graphics I/F you have  

Edited August 17, 2020 by aidan o driscoll

[JonD]

Oscar, you've only mentioned the nVideo onboard sound (from your video card), but what about the one on your motherboard?  That one would certainly be worth testing too, with all the various driver types.  Some people manage to get decent performance from their generic/realtek onboard sound.

[Hillmy]

14 hours ago, Oscar Garzon said:

I thought i could use the gpu to help me with this "cinematic braams" orchestral instrument from Msoundfactory but when i try to edit in piano roll and hold down my mouse button to drag out music, i get an audio engine dropout. 

its a audio engine dropout (1) and it said i should increase the buffer size which i did. I did to the max. i still can't fix it. So you can't hold down mouse button and quickly make notes on cakewalk with any instrument or you can?

here's a preview. maybe lower down volume when you watch video.

NOW I know why you say graphics card! Looking at the video, it all makes sense now! The audio portion of graphics cards (including Nvidia's) is primarily used for HDMI output and not as a main audio driver. That would be the job of your sound card and it's drivers. So since it shows LG TV that you have as your driver settings, are you running Cakewalk on a Laptop or a Desktop? Are you using your TV as a monitor? can you choose anything besides LG TV in the audio driver settings of Cakewalk? is the sound coming out of your TV? What are you using exactly? Seems like you have a very unusual set-up. To me that looks like the main problem. Not a graphics card problem and not a sound card problem either, because it doesn't even seem like you are using your sound card to begin with. And I am sure if you are using windows that your PC does have a sound card (if it is a normal PC that is).

[Teegarden]

1 hour ago, Hillmy said:

NOW I know why you say graphics card! Looking at the video, it all makes sense now! The audio portion of graphics cards (including Nvidia's) is primarily used for HDMI output and not as a main audio driver. That would be the job of your sound card and it's drivers. So since it shows LG TV that you have as your driver settings, are you running Cakewalk on a Laptop or a Desktop? Are you using your TV as a monitor? can you choose anything besides LG TV in the audio driver settings of Cakewalk? is the sound coming out of your TV? What are you using exactly? Seems like you have a very unusual set-up. To me that looks like the main problem. Not a graphics card problem and not a sound card problem either, because it doesn't even seem like you are using your sound card to begin with. And I am sure if you are using windows that your PC does have a sound card (if it is a normal PC that is).

It is certainly possible to render audio on a GPU. Cuda cores are being used for many different computing tasks and there were already a long time ago initiatives to use GPUs to offset the CPU:
using-your-graphics-card-process-plug-ins (published 2008)

Have You Heard What a GPU Can Do? - A Revolution in Audio Processing (published 2009)

GPU DSP — When You Can’t Have Enough Cores (published 2019)

I'm surprised no one referred to this, maybe its not so well known. Still hope that (especially now that PCIe busses and other communication parts are getting much faster) in the near future it will be possible to use CUDA cores in CbB.

[Hillmy]

1 hour ago, Teegarden said:

It is certainly possible to render audio on a GPU. Cuda cores are being used for many different computing tasks and there were already a long time ago initiatives to use GPUs to offset the CPU:
using-your-graphics-card-process-plug-ins (published 2008)

Have You Heard What a GPU Can Do? - A Revolution in Audio Processing (published 2009)

GPU DSP — When You Can’t Have Enough Cores (published 2019)

I'm surprised no one referred to this, maybe its not so well known. Still hope that (especially now that PCIe busses and other communication parts are getting much faster) in the near future it will be possible to use CUDA cores in CbB.

You can theoretically run your whole PC from a graphics card now days. But that's not the point! Why render audio from your GPU when you already have a very capable SOUND card that is made to do just that! It's like rendering all graphics on your CPU when you already have a high end GPU. ESPECIALLY if you have problems with rendering audio in the first place (hence this thread)!

Edited August 17, 2020 by Hillmy

[Teegarden]

The question was if a geforce gtx 960 could help render audio in cakewalk or help improve the program in some way. 
Your answer was: "You want a "graphics" card to render audio? o_O"

I tried to point out that the question of OP was a logical and very valid one while your reaction seemed to suggest the opposite.

Did you even read the hyperlinks in my post? Here's another one: Why The Future Of Real-time Audio Processing Could Be In Graphics Cards  (article on Pro Tools Expert).

To get back to your last reaction: if you look at the forum you'll find plenty of questions about performance issues, latency and how to get a project run smoother, so apparently that "very capable sound card" is not enough in many cases (and yes, many other factors like CPU, settings in CbB like thread scheduling etc. could be the culprit, but my own machine which is fast with RME PCIe sound card (low latency), 32 GB RAM and fast SSDs also regularly runs into problems with bigger CbB projects with many FX plugins).

Great if your sound card is all you need, but others have different projects and needs. The point is that it doesn't matter that a sound card is made to process sound. Of course it is. The point is that performance is depending on several different hardware components and that in this example a GPU might eventually help projects run better.

Ergo, the sound card alone is not always sufficient and any help from other hardware is welcome if that would make projects run smoother. Unfortunately the CUDA development is not there yet, but there are several indications that in the (near?) future GPUs might play a role in audio processing. I would love to have it and would make good use of it.

[Hillmy]

24 minutes ago, Teegarden said:

The question was if a geforce gtx 960 could help render audio in cakewalk or help improve the program in some way. 
Your answer was: "You want a "graphics" card to render audio? o_O"

I tried to point out that the question of OP was a logical and very valid one while your reaction seemed to suggest the opposite.

Did you even read the hyperlinks in my post? Here's another one: Why The Future Of Real-time Audio Processing Could Be In Graphics Cards  (article on Pro Tools Expert).

To get back to your last reaction: if you look at the forum you'll find plenty of questions about performance issues, latency and how to get a project run smoother, so apparently that "very capable sound card" is not enough in many cases (and yes, many other factors like CPU, settings in CbB like thread scheduling etc. could be the culprit, but my own machine which is fast with RME PCIe sound card (low latency), 32 GB RAM and fast SSDs also regularly runs into problems with bigger CbB projects with many FX plugins).

Great if your sound card is all you need, but others have different projects and needs. The point is that it doesn't matter that a sound card is made to process sound. Of course it is. The point is that performance is depending on several different hardware components and that in this example a GPU might eventually help projects run better.

Ergo, the sound card alone is not always sufficient and any help from other hardware is welcome if that would make projects run smoother. Unfortunately the CUDA development is not there yet, but there are several indications that in the (near?) future GPUs might play a role in audio processing. I would love to have it and would make good use of it.

OK. Since you are all for GPUs for sound. Help this guy out with his Geforce GTX 960 and LG TV sound driver. It's not an RTX 2080 Ti with all the CUDA improvements and not the latest high quality Nvidia High Definition Audio hardware or whatever. It's 5 years old. But hey, something is better than nothing right? For all we know his sound card is probably worse....that's if he even has one. He will have reply and let us know. Help him run Cakewalk through HDMI on his TV (which is what the setup looks like) so there are no audio dropouts. Then we can call this a day. And he can continue using his graphics card for ALL his audio needs. ?

[Teegarden]

Hillmy, you're right, let's try to help more?

On 8/17/2020 at 10:56 AM, Oscar Garzon said:

i changed my sampling rate in driver settings to 44100 but i still get the same problem

Oscar,

I would not expect too much from your system as far as can be concluded from the information you provided so far. However, its a nice challenge to see if it can be improved. 

Could you give a  list of your hardware and software. It would help figuring out where the main bottlenecks are and what can or cannot be done about it.

Do you have any budget? (I understood 100 USD is too much) On Ebay you can find FOCUSRITE Scarlett 2i2 Audio Interfaces in the 40-50 USD range. These are quite good. There are plenty of other options and second hand sites as well.

On a slow PC all tuning might make a difference. So I advice you to also have a look at this thread with  pc optimisation software links. 

Some handy free tools to check your PC harware and software status:

• HWinfo, gives full details on your hardware
• DUMo, gives a list of installed hardware device drivers, and of the available updates. Don't use this program to update, just use the info to find the driver on the manufacturer's site if it needs to be updated
• SUMo, gives a list of installed software incl. version and what updates are available
• You might find some other free utilities on the same KC Softwares website that could be usefull, like HDD/SSD status, RAM status + upgrade capability indication, based on motherboard empty slots, etc.
• ProcessKO, I use it to make a list of background processes like the ones from adobe, printer etc. Whenever I want maximum power I can quickly stop these processes from running in the background. You can also easily restart them with it. 

 

[mettelus]

+1 to getting your system specs listed. 

The NVidia HD audio driver has been problematic in the past for some people since it can conflict with other drivers.

For audio playback only, the onboard Realtek chip should suffice, but would need speakers/headphones connected to use it. WASAPI mode would probably be the best mode to try first.

You could actually check that even without speakers by shifting sound playback in Windows to the Realtek, run CbB (won't hear it without speakers/headphones) and see if the mouse motion causes the same dropout in the video. 

Since you do not intend to record audio, an interface may be overkill (most output through 1/4" jacks, so you might also need cables/speakers to use properly). I use the Realtek quite often without issues.

[Per Westin]

I thought the idea of using GPU-power for sound was considered more or less dead since most CPU´s (apart from the really cheap ones) today can handle more than most DAW-users need, whether GPU's can be used for audio is however still a valid question IMO.
There´s a whole lot of 3D processing power just sitting there during normal DAW-use, even if the GPU is considered a modest one by todays standards - so why not make use of it if possible?

Maybe GPU-handling of VST´s/FX is something for Bandlab/Cakewalk to look into?
Theoretically it could turn a modest gaming rig into a monster DAW.

Thanks for the newer links @Teegarden?

 

[Teegarden]

On 8/17/2020 at 12:08 AM, Oscar Garzon said:

I have a geforce gtx 960 and i was wondering if it could help render audio in cakewalk or help improve the program in some way.

If your graphics card with the latest Geforce driver supports the WDDM graphics driver and you have installed the latest Windows 2004 update you can switch on "Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling". It is turned off by default, so in order to make use of it you need to switch it on.

This feature is introduced in order for Windows to be able to offload most of GPU scheduling to a dedicated GPU-based scheduling processor.

It can be enabled on the Advanced Graphics Settings page. The settings page can be accessed via Settings -> System -> Display -> Graphics settings. 

I just installed both latest updates and my already fast system feels much snappier?. The way I understand how it works it must free some CPU capacity which now can be used for other tasks like your DAW.

 

[lmu202]

It would be great though, graphics card computing audio plugins. There's tons of muscle idling when working with audio/music like Per Westin just stated above.

I would seriously consider a second hand sound card. You can get a decent one if you skip one night out with the boys and save the money for a soundcard. Actually very decent if you compare to the integrated ones which are meant to playback just simple stereo sound.

[StudioNSFW]

Graphics card = GPU =Floating point processor = (old school) Math Co-processor.

It will generally help with more "analog math" like audio and video, and if you have the card, why not?  An application has to be written to REALLY take advantage of any kind of floating point offload, but it certainly will not HURT performance.

(edit) - then I read the thread...

Yeah, an good Audio card would be a much better upgrade than the graphics card...

Edited August 19, 2020 by StudioNSFW

[Starship Krupa]

Oh man, thank you @Teegarden for speaking up in this thread.

First off, to @Oscar Garzon, the OP, I hope you've checked with the Meldaproduction support forum on this matter. You may get an answer from Vojtech himself. Not so much on whether he is interested in using GPU cores to process audio, but rather your issue specifically.

The advice you've gotten to switch to onboard Realtek sound, and especially WASAPI, is the best step toward helping your issue. There are many who will disparage Realtek's hardware CODEC's. They have been around for a long, long time, and have come a long, long way. People who cut them down probably haven't tried giving them a serious, critical listen in the past 15 years, and given how fast computer audio technology changes, well, that's kind of odd. It's like giving Behringer a blanket condemnation, IMO. Or, uh, SONAR.

My opinion: with WASAPI, Realtek's hardware CODEC's are fine for monitoring and listening. If you aren't recording live audio, an external interface is a waste of money.

To the topic in general, it is not an outlandish idea, as Teegarden has stated, for developers to use GPU resources to process audio. Anyone who thinks that just because CISC CPU's have gotten so fast they can do it all and that shifting the load to other processors doesn't matter, well, there are a lot of people giving UAD a lot of money for their dedicated processors who think otherwise.

My video NLE's come with a variety of A/V rendering CODEC's, some of which can greatly speed the process of final rendering of projects depending on whether your system has an AMD card, an nVidia card, how many cores it has, etc. I can't say for 100% certain that those CODEC's are only using those cores to do the video part of the crunching, but it's not outlandish to imagine audio-only bounces benefiting from this technology.

I say "bounces," because for whatever reason, even my video programs only use those GPU's in any meaningful way when it's time to render. Why they don't in realtime, I don't know, maybe because that would make the code less portable? There's an issue when you make your plug-in dependent on CUDA GPU processing, which is what of the user who doesn't have an nVidia GPU because they have a notebook with a Ryzen in it? Maybe they don't do it because it's too big a can of worms.

The Bakers would have to chime in on this, but Cakewalk is a Windows program, and Windows runs programs better with video cards that have faster 2-D performance. Unfortunately, video card sales are driven by the gaming market, so development is driven by 3-D performance. Frustratingly, published specs and benchmarks are all about 3-D performance. I would love to upgrade my video card to a more recent one with better performance, but I won't do it unless I can rest assured that I'm going to see an improvement. But you ask on any DAW or NLE forum and the response is always along the lines of "you need yada yada yada yada yada to do decent gaming, but pretty much anything you get that will do decent gaming will handle DAW and NLE work." But the thing is, I don't care about gaming at all on this computer or at this point in my life. Maybe later. Other hobbies right now.

I've observed noticeable differences between using the onboard HD4000 GPU, my nVidia card, and my AMD card. Things like palette flashes, zip noise (which is similar to what Oscar is getting), pops when I click on certain screen elements, responsiveness, draw times, all depending on which card I have installed.

Another thing, in case anyone has the wrong idea: except for ones like UAD and others that are explicitly made that way, audio interfaces don't have processors in them that crunch numbers in plug-ins. What audio interfaces do is convert digital streams to analog audio and sometimes convert analog audio to digital data. They don't know anything about plug-ins and plug-ins don't know anything about them, except in the cases of UAD and similar.