Audio Crackles & Distortion

[lee miran]

I have an EMU 0404 PCI soundcard. Recently I upgraded to a new PC with an Intel Quad Core and 8gb's of ram running Windows 7.

I'm having issues getting lower that 5-6ms of latency from the EMU ASIO driver. I tried ASIO4All with the same results. Below 5-6ms the audio randomly crackles and at the lowest setting of 2ms it is staticy and distorted. The project is moderate with regards to VST's used and I've tested in FL Studio and Reaper with similar results.

The CPU usage is light, at only about 20%, so it's not a matter of not having the power to run the project. I'm figuring that it's a driver issue, or hoping that it's something that can be fixed with an optimization tweak.

I know that 5-6ms is still pretty good, but I was expecting more from this PC. Any suggestions?

 

[Washburn100]

The EMU ASIO driver will be better than ASIO4ALL no matter what, because ASIO4ALL has another layer. Not sure technically, but something about it converting to WDM and back or something like this.

At 5ms and at 2ms, what is your sample rate and what bit depth are you using?

 

[lee miran]

The EMU ASIO driver will be better than ASIO4ALL no matter what, because ASIO4ALL has another layer. Not sure technically, but something about it converting to WDM and back or something like this.

I figured as much, but I wanted to make a comparison as I was troubleshooting.

At 5ms and at 2ms, what is your sample rate and what bit depth are you using?

Both at 44.1. Buffer lengths are:

5ms = 240 samples
2ms = 96 samples

I have tried different sample rates as well.

 

[sonicpsyops]

Just trying to eliminate the obvious and not insult your intelligence but when you upgraded your computer did you install the latest updates on your soundcard?

 

[lee miran]

Just trying to eliminate the obvious and not insult your intelligence but when you upgraded your computer did you install the latest updates on your soundcard?

Yup. I downloaded the most current driver. However, I will admit that they officially support 32/64bit Vista and XP, and I'm running a Win7 64bit box.