Solved - Suttering Playback - Problem was Windows Driver

[ant_in_wales]

Happy Easter, Y'all

I'm using Windows 10, and I was wondering how people stop their machine glitching and stuttering when they're playing back with plenty of VST plugins.
I record on low latency with no plugins, but even pushing my buffer up to 2048 samples when mixing I'm getting stutter.

When I look at what's happening in Task Manager, hardly anything is going on. CPU, RAM & disk use are low.
I use Task Manager to increase Cakewalk's Priority to High.
Two solid state hard disks,  32GB RAM, HP Z620 workstation with a Xeon E5-2690 (10 cores at 3GHz).

Cakewalk is up to date.
I wonder if there are any  Windows settings I could profitably tweak.

All suggestions gratefully received, thank you

Tony

Edited April 12, 2023 by ant_in_wales

[msmcleod]

First, download and run LatencyMon - this should tell you if there are any bottlenecks in your system configuration.

Beyond that, freezing tracks can help to free up resources.

[Alan Tubbs]

Freeze some of your midi tracks and convolution reverbs.

[ant_in_wales]

Thanks both.
LatencyMon seemed very relaxed, and I'm already freezing more than a polar bear, so I guess I just need to use less VST.
Thank you for your suggestions.

[Terry Kelley]

It would help if you could tell us the instruments (VSTs) and plugins. There are plugins that inhale the processor but don't really show up in the performance monitor. Lots of experienced people here might be able to point them out.

[Isaiah]

I just replied to another post as I also had stutters, but have you tried unselecting Use MMCSS? 

[Kalle Rantaaho]

What  audio interface and drivers are you using?

[ant_in_wales]

8 hours ago, Kalle Rantaaho said:

What  audio interface and drivers are you using?

I'm using Behringer UMC404HD with latest drivers (5.30).
Thanks in advance.

[ant_in_wales]

13 hours ago, Isaiah said:

I just replied to another post as I also had stutters, but have you tried unselecting Use MMCSS? 

It was enabled. I've turned off, but no change.

[ant_in_wales]

13 hours ago, Terry Kelley said:

It would help if you could tell us the instruments (VSTs) and plugins. There are plugins that inhale the processor but don't really show up in the performance monitor. Lots of experienced people here might be able to point them out.

I'm using four instances each of (Waves) J37 tape sim, Magma BB Tubes sim & Neutron  on drum, bass, vocals bus and guitar bus.
Master bus clean. Buffer 2048.
No resource issues in Task Manager - system barely ticking over.

Video editing software works like a dream - system seems fine.

Thanks for thoughts in advance.

Not being able to freeze buses is a pain - I'd be fine then!

 

[gustabo]

9 minutes ago, ant_in_wales said:

I'm using four instances each of (Waves) J37 tape sim, Magma BB Tubes sim & Neutron  on drum, bass, vocals bus and guitar bus.
Master bus clean. Buffer 2048.
No resource issues in Task Manager - system barely ticking over.

Video editing software works like a dream - system seems fine.

Thanks for thoughts in advance.

Not being able to freeze buses is a pain - I'd be fine then!

 

Neutron consumes a lot of cpu cycles!

[Starship Krupa]

Microsoft Developer Pete Brown (a Cakewalk user) has a guide for tuning Windows 10/11 workstations for audio work.

A system with those specs should be able to handle the load you're putting on it. Neutron is certainly a devourer of resources, but not that bad.

Make sure you have hyperthreading enabled in your BIOS, that you're using the High Performance power plan, and use Task Manager to make sure there aren't any unnecessary processes running. Exclude your Cakewalk Projects folder from realtime Defender scanning.

[msmcleod]

11 hours ago, ant_in_wales said:

Not being able to freeze buses is a pain - I'd be fine then!

Freezing is really just a short-cut to a bounce, so you can always bounce the buses to new tracks using "Bounce to Track(s)"

Alternatively, as @gustabo has mentioned, Neutron can be very CPU hungry.  Bypass each "family" of FX individually to see if you can narrow down the one that is causing the most CPU hit, and consider putting in an intermediate bus between your existing buses and the master bus, putting a single instance of  the problem plugin on that bus.

Other things to try:

1. Make sure your Cakewalk projects directory and global audio directory are excluded from any virus scanner or cloud sync app.
2. Try disabling your network interface - this may not actually be an issue, but I've been caught out 3 times wasting hours trying to troubleshoot performance issues only to find Microsoft was downloading an update in the background.
3. Double check your audio settings, and systematically try different configurations - by systematically, I mean:

a) Write down your current settings
b) Either change the settings one at a time and compare, or write out a table of the various settings going through the combinations.

The settings to try:

Audio->Playback & Recording:
Plug-In Load Balancing  on/off
Use MMCSS / Enable MMCSS for ASIO Driver (try all three combinations)

Audio->Configuration File:
ThreadSchedulingModel - try models 1,2 and 3   (click "Reload Config Settings" after changing this)

There are 12 different combinations of the above - you could try each one, and see which one performs best:

[ant_in_wales]

18 hours ago, gustabo said:

Neutron consumes a lot of cpu cycles!

That is true, but the CPU barely gets into double figures.

Presumably Neutron runs as a separate Process in Task Manager.  Does making Cakewalk's priority Higher mean Neutron isn't getting the clock cycles it deserves?

[ant_in_wales]

7 hours ago, msmcleod said:

Freezing is really just a short-cut to a bounce, so you can always bounce the buses to new tracks using "Bounce to Track(s)"


 

Thank you for your suggestions, @msmcleod but I'd tried most already.

I don't understand what you mean by bouncing buses to a new track.
Do you mean like this - https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR X3&language=3&help=Mixing.45.html

I don't suppose you could explain what this means, or suggest a nice tutorial please?

[Matthew Carr]

47 minutes ago, ant_in_wales said:

That is true, but the CPU barely gets into double figures.

Real Time Performance is not the same as processor performance - so a vst (or hardware) can still cause issues even if the CPU monitor looks fine

Video below is rather long winded, but explains the concept if you're not familiar

 

[giovannibuchelli]

Try with an older version of the Behringer drivers.

For some reason, versions 5x don't work well in Windows 10. V 4.59 is the last one that works perfectly fine for me.

 

 

 

Edited April 12, 2023 by giovannibuchelli

[ant_in_wales]

2 hours ago, giovannibuchelli said:

Try with an older version of the Behringer drivers.

For some reason, versions 5x don't work well in Windows 10. V 4.59 is the last one that works perfectly fine for me.

 

 

 

Ha ha ha!!!
And dramatic music!

That has fixed it!

Behringer still has that old driver on there (suspicious, non?).
I've put 4.59 back on, and it's now fine! It doesn't care about latency at all.

What is strange is that performance has only gone terrible recently. I wonder why that is?

However, I'm not a thoughtful or reflective man - I like what I am seeing and that is enough for me!!

Thank you very much @giovannibuchelli !

[Stephen Power]

On 4/10/2023 at 2:33 PM, ant_in_wales said:

I'm already freezing more than a polar bear...

Interestingly, due to their black skin, that absorbs the suns rays and two layers of thick fur, Polar Bears are more likely to suffer from over-heating than feeling the cold.