How much of a difference will an audio card make?

[Justus]

omg you know stuff and don't practice any BS false humility. NONE. Your lack of reticence to share knowlege is obviously indicative that you arrogantly fish for praise on THE INTERNET. If I don't stand up to this online menace WHO WILL?

Well, you see...

Anyway, done with this thread. I hope the OP got whatever answer he was looking for.

Oh, damn. Last word. I guess you win.

Who the unholy hell is "compyfox"? Sounds like a furry to me, and I don't roll like dat.

Oh well, everyone else here seems pretty chill so far anyways.

I can assure you that Justus is not Compyfox .

If you're the Yoozer I think you are, then what's up good sir? If you AREN'T the Yoozer I think you are...then what's up good sir?

EDIT: On-topic: It's true that there are more powerful CPUs out there, but as Zircon says, you shouldn't be getting crackling until the 90% range. I don't know for sure if it's an issue with your onboard sound, but it does seem likely. I'd also echo an 0404 for a pro interface on the cheap. I like it better than the M-audio 2496 (better sound AND better drivers, plus 1/4" balanced analog in/out, a HUGE plus when/if you decide to get decent monitor speakers or any outboard gear), but if you can find an Echo interface for that cheap (it happens sometimes), then that's even better! As you can see, there's more benefit to be had than simply "getting decent drivers".

I do think it's fair to mention that there IS a sizable performance difference for CPUs though. It's not going to help you right now, since the driver's your main bottleneck at the moment, but consider this. Not long ago, I went from a well-overclocked Athlon64 3200 (a chip that's easily more powerful than the one you use right now), to a non-overclocked dual-core Opteron 170, which I don't think benches nearly as high as most Core2 Duos (too lazy to double check). As soon as I did that (after enabling the multi-processor engine in Sonar), projects that HAD used up to 94% were now peaking at about 56%. A move from a 3.2 GHz P4 to a Core2Duo ought to be even more effective, assuming the rest of your system matches the upgrade.

[zircon]

Yeah, I agree that a processor upgrade from a 3.2ghz to a C2D will be amazing. I just basically did that myself and I love it. But then again, I was constantly hitting 99% CPU on all my projects. If you're not even using half yet, you have tons of room to grow. Not to mention when you DO hit 99% you can do optimizations like freezing + bouncing for at least a little while.

[Justus]

You know, it actually COULD be your hard drive choking on samples. Have you tried experimenting with building a project that uses tons of CPU power but few samples? Like take some less intensive digital synths and throw lots of serious mastering plug-ins on them, or just use tons of analog-modelled synths. Try to drive your CPU use up to 80% WITHOUT using lots of samples, just to see what happens. If it doesn't choke, then it's not your drivers, but your hard drive, in which case, you ought to put all your samples on a second physical hard drive (this actually makes an ENORMOUS difference if you use lots of big samples). If you don't already have one and need to buy one, try to get one that's 7200 rpm with at least 8 MB of cache (preferably 16MB though) using the fastest bus you can.

Something else to try on the unlikely off-chance that you haven't is increasing your audio buffer size, which will make latency worse, but take some load off your audio drivers/CPU. You might not need to buy something yet after all!

[zircon]

Err I already suggested all that to the OP - that it could be an HD issue. And he did say he runs at ~45ms latency which is pretty high.

[Justus]

Err I already suggested all that to the OP.

Oops, so you did. Props, sir.

Got carried away there. At least I gave him some things to try to help him diagnose so it added SOMETHING to the topic...unlike this post....OK, I'm quitting for today, see ya tomorrow. Good luck Smenelian!

[Smenelian]

I should mention that my CPU gets higher than 30%, just that particular example happened to be that amount. Some of my other stuff hovers around 70%-80%. I usually always get popping sounds around that range, even with the latency cranked up to around 100ms. I just keep it around 50ms in most cases, because it doesn't seem to make any difference the higher I go after that.

You know, it actually COULD be your hard drive choking on samples. Have you tried experimenting with building a project that uses tons of CPU power but few samples? Like take some less intensive digital synths and throw lots of serious mastering plug-ins on them, or just use tons of analog-modelled synths. Try to drive your CPU use up to 80% WITHOUT using lots of samples, just to see what happens. If it doesn't choke, then it's not your drivers, but your hard drive

Tons of CPU but few samples? Haven't been able to accomplish that. I don't remember all the specs of my HD, but I know it's 7200 rpm. zircon was saying something similar...

Then you'll also want to take a look at your disk streaming settings and hard drive speed. Even a fast computer w/ good drivers might choke on plugins that rely on disk streaming (QLSO might, depending on configuration).

I don't normally have any major trouble with QL silver. I think Sytrus and Sampletank are the biggest offenders. Dunno if ST relies on disk streaming or not.

[Justus]

Well Sytrus isn't sample based at all. I don't know if Sample Tank directly streams or not, as I only played with the free version a little bit in someone else's home studio, but I suspect it simply caches samples in memory considering its size. QLSO CAN stream if you download the optional direct-from-disk plug-in. I would assume you'd know if you had gotten that. The plug-in is VERY optional in Silver, and shouldn't really be used unless you're combining it with other synths and really need the memory, or unless you have very little RAM. Well, you're not complaining about running out of memory to load sounds anyways, so that's not your issue.

So, I think we can effectively rule out disk streaming as a culprit.

You mentioned Sytrus and Sampletank as being problems, and those are indeed more power-hungry than QLSO. QLSO is great, but it isn't much of an ENGINE compared to those other two. Sytrus is a complex hybrid synth with crazy oversampling, etc., and ST, while sample-based, has some crazy re-synthesis algorithms at work. Even QLSO becomes hungrier if you engage its (surprisingly OK) onboard digital effects.

So, should you get an audio interface, or a new CPU?

I'd say, BOTH! Wait, hear me out on this one. I think the fact that your engine is choking on less CPU usage sometimes, and sometimes on way more indicates that your current sound engine really is choking on the number of bits you're trying to crunch at once. It just depends on how much of which synths you're using at the time. In other words, you've effectively found the limits of BOTH your CPU and your sound card. So even if you get a new CPU, it might not fix your problems much unless you ALSO got a new sound card (which is fairly likely, given that you'd probably need to get a new motherboard too). While using a newer consumer sound card with more recent drivers might help (hey, when's the last time you updated your current sound's drivers, by the way), it sounds to me like you are eventually going to be pushing the boundaries of ANY consumer sound interface.

The flip side of the coin is that having a more efficient sound interface will help you conserve your CPU usage some. However, if you're getting up to 80s percentages, you're pushing it there too! If you plan on adding more complex synths and more effects to your arrangements, that will only get worse, and you'll need more power under the hood to compensate.

Now, seeing as you have a 3.2 GHz P4, I'd call it fairly likely that it's a Northwood P4 in a socket478. Unless your computer is somehow Prescott-ready, I'd say the only likely upgrade you could get for JUST the CPU is to a 3.4 GHz (and even that depends on if your MoBo was designed to handle it). Hence, a real CPU upgrade likely entails getting a new MoBo, which depending on what you're willing to settle for may also mean a new power supply, or even new RAM and/or video card...though maybe not.

Long and short of it: upgrading the CPU could get fairly expensive. I'd get an audio interface first and see where that takes you. I'll re-voice the earlier recommendation of an 0404, ESPECIALLY for you. I like the sound of Echo's interfaces better, but they are a tad more expensive, AND the 0404 has some onboard effects processing too, which can offload some of the CPU work for reverb and such, which makes it uniquely well-suited for you. You can get them secondhand for $80 easily, or less with a little legwork. If you REALLY wanna pinch pennies, I have seen M-audio 2496's go on Ebay for under $50 before, but not with buy-it-now.

[Smenelian]

Well, I am seriously considering building a new machine in a few months if I can find enough good deals on parts. I do a fair share of gaming and multi tasking, and my current system is chugging a bit too much for my liking in those areas too. My mobo doesn't support PCIe either...so yeah, won't be worth much for gaming in a few years. The audio issues are just another reason to do it. Does a motherboard specifically have to support a fancy audio device, or will anything with a PCI slot do the job?

I have the most recent drivers for my audio. My video card on the other hand...I should get on that.

About QLSO's effects...I happen to like the chorus quite a bit. Beats the one in FL anyway. Or maybe since I don't know what half the knobs do in the FL chorus, I shouldn't really be talking.

[Justus]

Does a motherboard specifically have to support a fancy audio device, or will anything with a PCI slot do the job?

I don't BELIEVE it should make a significant difference. Firewire, on the other hand, I've heard does...but I've also heard that's more if you buy a PCI firewire card. I just have a low-power consumption (and low noise) microfactor motherboard (Gigabyte brand) myself, and it has native firewire, and works perfectly. The only reason I bring it up is that if you're getting a whole new mobo, you should look for one that has firewire on it. Even if you decide to go with a PCI interface, it'll only open more options for you. Also, Core2Duo=luv. I'm loving my Opteron, but those are even sicker!

About QLSO's effects...I happen to like the chorus quite a bit. Beats the one in FL anyway. Or maybe since I don't know what half the knobs do in the FL chorus, I shouldn't really be talking.

Yeah, QLSO's chorus is a lot better sounding (shouldn't be surprising), but it comes at a price, because FL's doesn't require nearly as many resources.

I think Kjaerhus' Classic Chorus is a pretty decent compromise between quality and CPU usage, and the price is definitely right too. In fact, you can download the whole Classic Series for free. They're great friends if you don't have expensive plug-ins or outboard gear.

[Smenelian]

Alright, so it's a surefire that I'm getting a new computer. Parts are on the way as I type this. Getting an e6600 and will hopefully clock it up to 3.6GHz....but I'll have to see how that goes when the time comes.

So does the Emu 0404 come in firewire flavor? I looked around and only saw PCI and USB, so I'm assuming no.

Also, is it recommended to have a completely separate hard drive dedicated to samples and such, or can I just load them onto a 500 gig storage tanker and get similar results? I'm already getting three hard drives as it is, so another might be overkill. It's probably worth noting that two will be set up in RAID 0, which may aid in performance if I put samples in that setup.