Audiophile 2496 and latency

  • Thread starter Thread starter Middleman
  • Start date Start date
Middleman

Middleman

Professional Amateur
I am not sure I understand the need for low latency. Any assistance would be appreciated.

I have a P4 2.26MHz machine with 256K Ram. I use to have a PIII Celeron 566Mhz overclocked to 811MhZ. I thought I would be able to get down to 1 msec latency with the faster processor. I still only get about 5 seconds of play before Sonar stalls out.

I have the Delta Control panel set for 384K DMA Buffer, the default. In Sonar my buffers are 2. I am getting 8.7msec latency. Everything is fairly good on this setting. I get lots of tracks with multiple plugins. I get an occassional stutter when adding or adjusting plugins about once every 20 miinutes.

When I drop the Delta setting to 64 DMA Buffer I can get 1ms but it is useless because of the stalled play.

Is the Audipohile limited in its abililty to use the lower latency? Is anyone else getting better results using the WDM drivers? Do I even need to be concerned about this? I mean as long as its working fine without stutters can't I just ignore latency figures and plow ahead. Thoughts?
 
You've been lied to and over hyped - everybody has. True low latency is something that very few systems can provide, like Protools, etc. In the real world, soundcards provide a workaround called "zero latency monitoring", which means that when you're recording, your inputs are routed to your outputs before they are processed, thereby you won't hear any delay while recording (normally). The audiophile supports this concept.

If you're doing processing of the input stream (e.g. applying effects to a guitar as you're playing it), then you need to get under 10ms so that you won't really hear the delay. You'll only be able to get that low if you've only got a few tracks going. If you get up there towards 10 to 16 tracks you'll have to increase your buffers into the 50ms range. Live input processing is the only time that latency has any impact on RECORDING. Typically, latency is only an issue, and not a very big one, when mixing.

If you're just doing standard recording and mixing, 50-100ms is just fine, and it's what you should expect when you get into the 16-24 track range (24bit).

BTW, you might check out the Delta WDM thread a few topics down since you're doing WDM with the audiophile. There is an issue with track offset (which is not latency).

Slackmaster 2000
 
Wow, I hate when I type an incredibly insighful mind expanding response with incredible enlightenment for all and then end up deleting it just before I post. That said, let me try again.

Gidge,

I thought there was a downside to using ASIO vs. WDM. Maybe this is a myth too. What next, Santa Claus?

Slackmaster2K,

Checked out the other thread but won't have time to do the test before next weekend.
 
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