Windows 11 compatibility

[Matt Dunn]

I installed the most recent Cakewalk update this week and also upgraded to Win11 two days ago. So far the only issue I've had is that Rapture Sessions tracks keep randomly dropping out throughout a project I started in Win10, with which I'd previously had no issues. Seems random in that it doesn't happen at the same points every time I play it through. I also added a new Rapture Sessions track to see if that resolved it, but the same thing happens. The dropouts are also present when the project is exported as wav, mp3 and so on. Never had this issue before. I'm using a 6 month old HP Omen laptop that's super fast and bug-free in every other respect. TBH I can't recall if I noticed these dropouts after the Cakewalk update or only since the Win11 upgrade. Any thoughts? Is this more likely to be down to Cakewalk than Win11?

Thanks!

 

Edit: Confirming I've just updated Cakewalk to 2021.11 Build 015 and the issue is still occurring. 

Edited November 6, 2021 by Matt Dunn

[abacab]

16 hours ago, Matt Dunn said:

So far the only issue I've had is that Rapture Sessions tracks keep randomly dropping out throughout a project I started in Win10, with which I'd previously had no issues. Seems random in that it doesn't happen at the same points every time I play it through. I also added a new Rapture Sessions track to see if that resolved it, but the same thing happens. The dropouts are also present when the project is exported as wav, mp3 and so on.

Did you try increasing your audio buffers?

You could also run LatencyMon and see if it reports that your PC is suitable for real-time audio. Even if it passes that test, your audio buffers may be set too low.

[Matt Dunn]

2 hours ago, abacab said:

Did you try increasing your audio buffers?

You could also run LatencyMon and see if it reports that your PC is suitable for real-time audio. Even if it passes that test, your audio buffers may be set too low.

@abacab thanks for the suggestions — I’ll give them a try and report back. But do you think it’s likely that upgrading the O/S would render previously sufficient audio buffers “too low”? I can’t imagine why this should be the case but, to be fair, I’m not overly tech-savvy either.

[abacab]

24 minutes ago, Matt Dunn said:

But do you think it’s likely that upgrading the O/S would render previously sufficient audio buffers “too low”? I can’t imagine why this should be the case but, to be fair, I’m not overly tech-savvy either.

The answer to that would be yes, if Win 11 lowered the performance of your PC. Imagine if maybe you were running close to the limit before and everything was fine. Then after the upgrade your performance might have slipped a few percent? Anyway it only takes a few seconds to resize your buffers to find out.

See the post above by Teegarden. He mentions that if Virtualization-Based Security (VBS) gets turned on, it has been known to tank gaming performance by 25%. Not sure how that would apply to audio, but it might not be good.

I am reluctant to enable VBS on my DAW, even though it is an apparent security enhancement. https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-11-has-advanced-hardware-security-heres-how-to-get-it-in-windows-10-today/

Quote

In Windows 10 and Windows 11, VBS, or Virtualization-based Security, uses Microsoft's Hyper-V to create and isolate a secure memory region from the OS. This protected region is used to run several security solutions that can protect legacy vulnerabilities in the operating system (such as from unmodernized application code) and stop exploits that attempt to defeat those protections.

 

[Noel Borthwick]

Interesting article on win11 performance with alder lake CPUs

https://ph.news.yahoo.com/intel-12th-gen-alder-lake-cpu-windows-10-11-streamers-multitasking-045701919.html

[Matt Dunn]

On 11/7/2021 at 8:26 AM, abacab said:

The answer to that would be yes, if Win 11 lowered the performance of your PC. Imagine if maybe you were running close to the limit before and everything was fine. Then after the upgrade your performance might have slipped a few percent? Anyway it only takes a few seconds to resize your buffers to find out.

See the post above by Teegarden. He mentions that if Virtualization-Based Security (VBS) gets turned on, it has been known to tank gaming performance by 25%. Not sure how that would apply to audio, but it might not be good.

I am reluctant to enable VBS on my DAW, even though it is an apparent security enhancement. https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-11-has-advanced-hardware-security-heres-how-to-get-it-in-windows-10-today/

 

@abacab just confirming that my VBS was already off. Also after I increased buffer size the exact same thing kept happening. Solution was to just replace with another instrument and try to achieve the same-ish sound, but not ideal. I'd prefer to know why it's happening and stop it. But I always seem to get somewhat 'unique' bugs that nobody else gets and no one knows how to resolve, so I guess I'm just special  

[abacab]

7 hours ago, Matt Dunn said:

@abacab just confirming that my VBS was already off. Also after I increased buffer size the exact same thing kept happening. Solution was to just replace with another instrument and try to achieve the same-ish sound, but not ideal. I'd prefer to know why it's happening and stop it. But I always seem to get somewhat 'unique' bugs that nobody else gets and no one knows how to resolve, so I guess I'm just special  

What were your results from LatencyMon?

[John Nelson]

One thing I am finding.  I *think* this may be related to the MS-Apple rivalry and also Apple deprecating the original ipod (not the ipod touch), but W11 and itunes are not playing nice vis-a-vis the ipod being recognized.  On one machine it is possible with kludges, to add new files to ipod.   The other... no go.

Not sure whether MS or Apple "broke" the functionality.  

[Jack Stoner]

I got an iTunes update last week.  Did you get it? Maybe a fix?   I don't have an iPod to test but my iPhone 12 works OK with iTunes.

 

[John Nelson]

On 11/15/2021 at 3:11 AM, Jack Stoner said:

I got an iTunes update last week.  Did you get it? Maybe a fix?   I don't have an iPod to test but my iPhone 12 works OK with iTunes.

 

All updates applied. Still no-go on one machine, hit or miss on the other.  Based on what I'm reading online, I think Apple wants to deprecate the original iPod (mine is actually a nano I believe) and force it into obsolescence. Guess I'll dig out my Walkman.....

[Matt Dunn]

On 11/11/2021 at 11:39 PM, abacab said:

What were your results from LatencyMon?

@abacab apols for delayed respone. Screenshot of LatencyMon results attached. Obviously there's an issue, but tbh I'm not tech savvy enough to understand this. I have literally zero idea how to do whatever it's telling me to do. Any assistance interpreting this in layman's terms would be hugely appreciated

 

[Matt Dunn]

On 11/6/2021 at 12:07 PM, Matt Dunn said:

I installed the most recent Cakewalk update this week and also upgraded to Win11 two days ago. So far the only issue I've had is that Rapture Sessions tracks keep randomly dropping out throughout a project I started in Win10, with which I'd previously had no issues. Seems random in that it doesn't happen at the same points every time I play it through. I also added a new Rapture Sessions track to see if that resolved it, but the same thing happens. The dropouts are also present when the project is exported as wav, mp3 and so on. Never had this issue before. I'm using a 6 month old HP Omen laptop that's super fast and bug-free in every other respect. TBH I can't recall if I noticed these dropouts after the Cakewalk update or only since the Win11 upgrade. Any thoughts? Is this more likely to be down to Cakewalk than Win11?

Thanks!

 

Edit: Confirming I've just updated Cakewalk to 2021.11 Build 015 and the issue is still occurring. 

Update: when I created a new project yesterday, upon adding a Rapture Session track I got a pop-up saying that it was running in trial mode (or something similar) and that, as a result of this, moments of silence would occur randomly during playback. I'd never seen this pop-up before yesterday. Creating another new project today, I haven't received the same pop-up, but the random silences are still happening. Makes me wonder if this was actually what was causing the 'drop outs' that I posted about on 6 Nov? Why would Rapture Session suddenly be running in a 'trial' mode? I thought it was a standard feature of Cakewalk. Thoughts?

Edited November 30, 2021 by Matt Dunn

[abacab]

38 minutes ago, Matt Dunn said:

@abacab apols for delayed respone. Screenshot of LatencyMon results attached. Obviously there's an issue, but tbh I'm not tech savvy enough to understand this. I have literally zero idea how to do whatever it's telling me to do. Any assistance interpreting this in layman's terms would be hugely appreciated

 

Well Matt, the bad news is that LatencyMon conclusion says that your PC (as currently configured) is not able to handle real-time audio. That in itself needs to be investigated and corrected. Until you do that and can get a clean test, you are likely to experience the same issues.

The buffer underruns mentioned here mean that for whatever reason (to be determined), the CPU is tied up with a DPC (Deferred Procedure Call) most likely from a driver. Whenever the CPU is locked up with a DPC for more than a brief moment, it cannot service the real-time audio buffer, and then you will get drop-outs in your audio output.

If you know somebody tech savvy that can help, there are some steps that can be taken to optimize a PC for real-time audio. Or you can Google for some step-by-step checklists on that topic. You stated that you just upgraded to Windows 11 back at the beginning of the month. That is new territory that I have not explored yet, and it's hard to say if that possibly tipped your PC over some invisible line into excessive DPC latency.

Each PC is unique, and laptops can offer additional challenges. They are designed and configured by default for power saving and CPU throttling. That runs up against real-time audio performance, which can actually be more demanding than gaming and video editing. Those use cases can buffer an unlimited amount of data, and do not run in real-time. So a PC that is very powerful in those other applications is not necessarily optimized for real-time audio.

So if anything, start checking your Windows settings for power and CPU settings that may have changed, and make sure you are set up for max performance.

Maybe with some thorough detective work it can be sorted out. But that LatencyMon report is just a starting point, as it doesn't actually tell you what you need to fix. Just that there is a real problem!

Edited November 30, 2021 by abacab

[Xoo]

On 11/9/2021 at 3:00 AM, Noel Borthwick said:

Interesting article on win11 performance with alder lake CPUs

https://ph.news.yahoo.com/intel-12th-gen-alder-lake-cpu-windows-10-11-streamers-multitasking-045701919.html

Interestingly, it breaks on Linux ?

https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/01/linux_5_16_alder_lake/

[Matt Dunn]

On 12/1/2021 at 10:37 AM, abacab said:

Well Matt, the bad news is that LatencyMon conclusion says that your PC (as currently configured) is not able to handle real-time audio. That in itself needs to be investigated and corrected. Until you do that and can get a clean test, you are likely to experience the same issues.

The buffer underruns mentioned here mean that for whatever reason (to be determined), the CPU is tied up with a DPC (Deferred Procedure Call) most likely from a driver. Whenever the CPU is locked up with a DPC for more than a brief moment, it cannot service the real-time audio buffer, and then you will get drop-outs in your audio output.

If you know somebody tech savvy that can help, there are some steps that can be taken to optimize a PC for real-time audio. Or you can Google for some step-by-step checklists on that topic. You stated that you just upgraded to Windows 11 back at the beginning of the month. That is new territory that I have not explored yet, and it's hard to say if that possibly tipped your PC over some invisible line into excessive DPC latency.

Each PC is unique, and laptops can offer additional challenges. They are designed and configured by default for power saving and CPU throttling. That runs up against real-time audio performance, which can actually be more demanding than gaming and video editing. Those use cases can buffer an unlimited amount of data, and do not run in real-time. So a PC that is very powerful in those other applications is not necessarily optimized for real-time audio.

So if anything, start checking your Windows settings for power and CPU settings that may have changed, and make sure you are set up for max performance.

Maybe with some thorough detective work it can be sorted out. But that LatencyMon report is just a starting point, as it doesn't actually tell you what you need to fix. Just that there is a real problem!

@abacab thank you *so much* for this. Quite a lot there for me to unpack and digest, but I'll do my best

 

[abacab]

27 minutes ago, Matt Dunn said:

@abacab thank you *so much* for this. Quite a lot there for me to unpack and digest, but I'll do my best

 

Good luck! For some examples of what others have tried, you might try searching the forum for other discussions of 'DPC latency' and/or 'LatencyMon. You are not the first to run into this issue. It my not be Windows 11 related. Since you do not have a LatencyMon report from your PC running on Windows 10 it's hard to say.

[John Nelson]

I highly doubt your probs are Win 11 related. IME win 11 is just reskinned 10.

[Jack Stoner]

7 hours ago, John Nelson said:

I highly doubt your probs are Win 11 related. IME win 11 is just reskinned 10.

I agree with John, IF your PC is fully Win 11 compatible.

 

[John Vere]

Thinking the W11 install unregistered  Rapture pro Just re install it using CCC. That’s drop out issue solved but still the Latency Monitor report needs attention. 
 

Question for everyone. Didn’t have time to read this whole thread. But what I gleaned was even though my 10 year old HP Pavilion tells me it isn’t compatible with W11 it would probably be fine. 
I just bought a 500 GB SSD to replace the 250 OS drive and thinking I might as well download  the W11 version to install fresh. 
Thoughts? 
Figure I have nothing to loose as will still have the original 250 W10 OS drive to fall back on. 

Edited December 9, 2021 by John Vere

[Matt Dunn]

On 12/8/2021 at 2:36 PM, John Nelson said:

I highly doubt your probs are Win 11 related. IME win 11 is just reskinned 10.

@John Nelson I tend to agree.