What Is Your Audio Interface's Roundtrip Latency?

  • Thread starter Thread starter engine joe
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thanks guitarboi89. you mean centrance won't let you test at buffer settings other than 64?
 
Delta TDIF with Tascan Mixer using Maudio Delta ASIO @ 24/44.1

64 Samples: 3.20 ms
128 Samples: 6.10 ms
256 Samples: 11.88 ms

how much does your computer processor play into it? im using a tascam 2488 right now, but am about to go back to computer recording using firewire. got a new computer a month ago w/ 2 gigs of ram and the intel core2duo processor thingy.

someone mentioned that on ableton live you can set the buffer time? i think i had heard this before - so ideally, w/ live and a little patience one could get your settings reasonably latency free?

it might be a month or so, but when i get my new setup purchased and going ill definitely do a test.
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Click to expand...

Quite a bit actually, I used the same hardware on my old machine (P4 3.4 Prescott, now running E6600) and on the old box, I could only run a couple of tracks at the lowest buffer, now I can comfortably run all 10
 
internal with total mix routing .4ms

Use total mix to set up monitoring

Round trip 5.7ms if i go end to end through Tracktion.

Using firewire 400 on a RME Fireface 800
 
OK, I used the little program. It won't let me pick a channel, so it sends a pulse out of all channels - don't know where it's coming back in on, so there may be some hardware slowdowns as well.

I have a PCI Interface (hammerfalls) to Apogee converters, but also have a KSP8, an Eclipse, and a Lexicon hooked up via digi connections as well.

I got 3.27ms round trip. Lowest buffer setting.
 
you guys are kicking ass! A thread like this cant be ignored by those that have the power to make (or break) the drivers themselves
 
Type of interface: Echo Audiofire 12 (firewire)
Sample rate:44100
ASIO Control Panel Buffer size: 256 samples
Reported round trip latency:24.54 ms
Drift after ten testruns?: No

Sample rate:44100
ASIO Control Panel Buffer size: 128 samples
Reported round trip latency:15.46 ms
Drift after ten testruns?: No

Sample rate:44100
ASIO Control Panel Buffer size: 64 samples
Reported round trip latency:12.56 ms
Drift after ten testruns?: No

Sample rate:96000
ASIO Control Panel Buffer size: 256 samples
Reported round trip latency:12.34 ms
Drift after ten testruns?: No

Sample rate:96000
ASIO Control Panel Buffer size: 128 samples
Reported round trip latency:7.51 ms
Drift after ten testruns?: No

Sample rate:96000
ASIO Control Panel Buffer size: 64 samples
Reported round trip latency:5.51 ms
Drift after ten testruns?: No
 
Cpu Pentium 4 2.8ghz

Interface (don't laff) Egosys Wami Rack pci
Drivers: Asio Wami for XP

64 samples @44.1 = 7.35ms
64 @96 = 3.39ms
128 @44.1 = 13.15ms
128 @96 = 6.09ms
**256 @44.1 = 24.76ms
256 @96 = 11.44ms
512 @44.1 = 48.07ms
512 @96 = 22.09ms

**When I run the Centrance program, it shows me one option only (after I've set up the Wami Config) of 256 samples(5.80ms)@44.100mhz. Then I click "measure" and get "Measurement results: 1092 samples / 24.76 ms"

Can anyone tell me exactly what that means?
 
ha, ha, ha!















































just kidding. i don't know what your issue means but thanks for posting the specs. it looks like centrance has some problems with some cards. isn't this the second one that couldn't be measured at multiple buffer settings? thanks mike.
 
Very cool program!
Edit, it might be a good idea for you guys to set the software in your card's control panel to the same as the program but I don't understand it myself.

I got Measurement results: 135 samples / 3.06 ms
-Sample Rate 44.1
-Buffer 64 samples

M-Audio Delta66 (PCI) Omni Studio
Note: test utility only lets you choose 64 samples, is that how it is supose to work?
Utillity v3.7

By the way, Doses anyone know how high the perceivable amount of latency in ms would need to be for a human to sense it?
 
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Starstreams said:
Very cool program!
Edit, it might be a good idea for you guys to set the software in your card's control panel to the same as the program but I don't understand it myself.

I got Measurement results: 135 samples / 3.06 ms
-Sample Rate 44.1
-Buffer 64 samples

M-Audio Delta66 (PCI) Omni Studio
Note: test utility only lets you choose 64 samples, is that how it is supose to work?
Utillity v3.7

By the way, Doses anyone know how high the perceivable amount of latency in ms would need to be for a human to sense it?
Click to expand...

thanks starstreams. i don't know the answer to your question but i can feel the latency when using a di guitar with an amp sim plugin, like the guitarsuite stuff, at 20 ms round trip latency. it's very perceivable and i'd bet that i could detect half of that.
 
I think that fireface-800 looks sweet, but I’m still worried about switching from PCI to Firewire.

Although according to a sound engineer I know as well as RME technicians, the only time that firewire latency is noticeable from PCI speeds, is when you increase the number of inputs beyond a certain amount. The actual audio going from the AD converter through the system and out the DA happens very fast, or not so fast as a result of your system. In other words it’s not the firewire connection that’s the bottle neck, but the computers processor and hard drive speed.
Because if you think about it, even though your looking at 30 or 50 tracks of audio on your screen, the information is going out two tracks, Left and Right.
So it’s the computers ability to process all the tracks, and effects on the screen but when it goes out, it goes out 1-2. So it’s almost impossible to saturate a firewire cable unless however you have too many inputs attached to your I/O. So it’s the number of inputs that drags down the firewire.

I think the only reason big studios need PCI is because they need lots of inputs.
Than again, I don’t know how much of the CPU gets eaten up by the firewire protocal? I know USB takes a good amount of CPU, Firewire takes much less. PCI might not take any CPU resources but I could be wrong.
I think it's more about the load that the Protocal puts on the CPU rather then the 1394 cable not being fast enough.
Now take a look at RME's solution
http://www.rme-audio.de/en_products_hdsp_pci_interface.php

but someone at guitar center just told me that his friend has this card going through his FF800 and he has latency issue so I don't know.
also, look at this place for bad luck.
http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=1082208
 
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Bumping with a MOTU 896

Type of interface: Firewire
Sample rate:44khz
ASIO Control Panel Buffer size:256/128/64/32
Reported round trip latency:13.95 msec/8.14 msec/5.24 msec/3.79 msec
Drift after ten testruns?: no/no/no/no
 
guitarboi89, mikemorgan, and Starstreams, I emailed Centrance about your issues with the LTU. Maybe we'll get an answer to the buffer setting thing in the LTU.
 
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