Andrew87
Replaced my Hercules Mk2 with the ESI U46SE thinking that I would be able to run VirtualDJ using the advanced scratch and master tempo algorithams, wrong. Just like with my Hercules, I can enable one or the other but not both. If I enable both, I get horrible distortions. There is so much CPU available as well.
What do you reckon, card not upto the task? Need a better laptop (FSB speed not fast enough?). I've tried the usual SpeedSwitch and disable usb power management options, didn't help one bit.
What do you reckon, card not upto the task? Need a better laptop (FSB speed not fast enough?). I've tried the usual SpeedSwitch and disable usb power management options, didn't help one bit.
Posté Tue 21 Aug 07 @ 11:44 pm
Andrew87
Just changed OS from XP to a fresh install of Vista Business. Still having this problem. Seeing as you either need one or the other, i.e. either advanced scratch or advanced master tempo at any one point, is there a way to assign a key to a macro to switch between modes?
Posté Wed 22 Aug 07 @ 4:05 am
Andrew87
Things I have tried: Disabling tons of services and processes. Disabling all my laptop features from the BIOS except USB. Setting Windows to allocate more cpu time with background services (as advised by Aposis (sp?) in another thread). Setting VirtualDJ to have realtime and high cpu usage. Using only one core with VirtualDJ. Attempting to replace the u46Asio1.dll driver with the U46 DJ version, that just didn't work. Using asio4all. Changing usb cable. Changing usb port. Making sure that no other usb devices are connected. Setting laptop screen to minimal brightness. Setting graphics card power consumption to its lowest. Disabling wdm sound ability. Disabling usb power savings (default in Vista). Removing laptop battery. Creating custom power profile. Changing soundcards buffers and size, sample rate etc (the obvious things).
Things I've not tried: Hitting or shouting at any equipment. Buying new equipment. Stealing new equipment.
I suppose either my CPU (1.83ghz Core Duo), the soundcard or both simply aren't good enough for the third slider in VirtualDJ, let alone the maximum setting. Maybe it's the famous IRQ sharing. I do have quite a bit of IRQ sharing going on, no conflicts. 512 is the largest buffer the U46 SE allows, I tried going further than that with asio4all but if anything, performance got worse. 256 works fine with either option as long as the machine isn't bogged down with loads of processes. Both options can be enabled and working ok using MME mode (2 soundcard config) at 512, obviously without timecode input.
Things I've not tried: Hitting or shouting at any equipment. Buying new equipment. Stealing new equipment.
I suppose either my CPU (1.83ghz Core Duo), the soundcard or both simply aren't good enough for the third slider in VirtualDJ, let alone the maximum setting. Maybe it's the famous IRQ sharing. I do have quite a bit of IRQ sharing going on, no conflicts. 512 is the largest buffer the U46 SE allows, I tried going further than that with asio4all but if anything, performance got worse. 256 works fine with either option as long as the machine isn't bogged down with loads of processes. Both options can be enabled and working ok using MME mode (2 soundcard config) at 512, obviously without timecode input.
Posté Thu 23 Aug 07 @ 4:44 am
apopsisdj
I suppose you tried to increase the latency (u46) and set vdj->performances->latency to "auto".
Hq MT algorithm is one of the best available and indeed, quite demanding.
I don't use MT at all, but i will try tonight with the maya.
Hq MT algorithm is one of the best available and indeed, quite demanding.
I don't use MT at all, but i will try tonight with the maya.
Posté Thu 23 Aug 07 @ 11:56 am
Andrew87
Yes I tried that. Although I discovered sound quality with the U46 SE is a lot more stable by setting VirtualDJ to the latency of the card rather than Auto. I don't need both, but I was under the impression that it would work with a new card, it seems I just wasted money in a sense as the Mk2 was doing 6ms fine at 48khz.
Posté Thu 23 Aug 07 @ 5:10 pm
Andrew87
I think this is an internal hardware related problem with the way windows handles sound rather than with the soundcard exclusively, although I can't be sure. I'm currently set at 128 (3ms) in VirtualDJ and the U46 control panel, with safe mode on, overclock off, master tempo activated although fast and scratch set to advanced quality at 35 with filter smooth. VirtualDJ is running at realtime performance setting. The scratch responsiveness is very impressive, the sound is great and there are no audio artifacts. In fact I would say it's running better like this than it did at 256 (6ms), possibly because I have safe mode enabled now.
Anyway, although things are working sweet in VirtualDJ, the moment you open up in instance of internet explorer, things are ok ish for the most part. But... the moment you move the scrollbar, ouch, the audio is so distorted. Even switching between tabs causes a click. Perhaps I need faster memory or something? I'll try doing an error check later.
However this post isn't all bad. Even with safe mode enabled and although a lot of the turntablists will call this a crime, the scratch sound absolutely smashes to pieces that offered by most (if not all) cd decks - even with keylock enabled. Very nice algoritham guys, very very nice.
Anyway, although things are working sweet in VirtualDJ, the moment you open up in instance of internet explorer, things are ok ish for the most part. But... the moment you move the scrollbar, ouch, the audio is so distorted. Even switching between tabs causes a click. Perhaps I need faster memory or something? I'll try doing an error check later.
However this post isn't all bad. Even with safe mode enabled and although a lot of the turntablists will call this a crime, the scratch sound absolutely smashes to pieces that offered by most (if not all) cd decks - even with keylock enabled. Very nice algoritham guys, very very nice.
Posté Thu 23 Aug 07 @ 6:32 pm
Andrew87
Hmm, an interesting additional problem to throw into the equation. I eliminated the possibility of IRQ sharing by disabling a variety of devices to ensure that there was no IRQ sharing existing. I also disabled all the other usb ports in the attempt that the soundcard one would get 100% bandwidth. I was left with I/O sharing and memory address sharing from:
Mobile Intel(R) 945GM/GU/PM/GMS/940GML/943GML and Intel(R) 945GT Express PCI Express Root Port - 27A1
ATI MOBILITY RADEON X1600
I wouldn't have thought that this would be a problem, how else is my PCI-E card going to function without its controller afterall. However, when trying to achieve very low latencies such as 64 and 128, this sharing plays a huge contribution. Sometimes Vista acts nicely and there is no problem. However, at other times, there is a crackling in one or both audio tracks and sometimes full distortion. The problem seems to disappear by eliminating the graphics cards requirement to paint anything on the screen, i.e. the moment you minimise VirtualDJ, the audio is clear again. I expect this is also why I was hearing artifacts when using Internet Explorer's scrollbar.
So how do I know that this sharing is the problem to audio quality suffering? I disabled the controller which eliminated the sharing, the sound quality was very clear. However, by doing so I also had a screen resolution of 640x480 (or 800x600?) on my native 1280x800 16:10 display, this made things impossible to use. Things are better with a latency of 256, as long as I stay in VirtualDJ and don't multitask, the audio remains clear even with the controller enabled. It's interesting to note that I have never experienced such issues with the Hercules console and XP.
Downloading the HP Vista Default Settings package from their support website (which adjusts some power settings) helped stabalise things better with a 256 latency. Essentially, it just sets the graphics card into power saving mode (like another member found out a few days ago) as well as a few other changes.
I also set up various counters using performance monitor to track usb, memory and cpu usage. I couldn't see anything out of the ordinary as to why I couldn't use both advanced settings together. But I did notice that if I disabled my usb2 controller which forces all devices to run at 1.1 speeds, that the external soundcard would not throw the usual complaint that this device could function faster. Is this the problem? Does the usb bandwidth need to be increased, I don't know how this sort of thing works but it would appear that the soundcard is always running at usb1.1 speed. Are calculations done on the soundcard, would more bandwidth (faster transfer) increase performance? I would have thought so, but don't know if this is how it works. Perhaps I should have gone with a firewire card.
So, I'm not really anywhere closer to getting a fully stable timecode setup; when I ordered the new soundcard I wanted both advanced modes to be enabled. Things are stable at 256 and using the advanced scratch mode with fast master tempo, but like I've mentioed elsewhere, I could do the same thing with the same latency with the Mk2 in 48khz mode; it's just that VirtualDJ doesn't accept such signals accurately. I think a brand new computer will be the be solution if I want to be entirely happy with the setup, i.e. get the full performance out of the programs offerings.
Mobile Intel(R) 945GM/GU/PM/GMS/940GML/943GML and Intel(R) 945GT Express PCI Express Root Port - 27A1
ATI MOBILITY RADEON X1600
I wouldn't have thought that this would be a problem, how else is my PCI-E card going to function without its controller afterall. However, when trying to achieve very low latencies such as 64 and 128, this sharing plays a huge contribution. Sometimes Vista acts nicely and there is no problem. However, at other times, there is a crackling in one or both audio tracks and sometimes full distortion. The problem seems to disappear by eliminating the graphics cards requirement to paint anything on the screen, i.e. the moment you minimise VirtualDJ, the audio is clear again. I expect this is also why I was hearing artifacts when using Internet Explorer's scrollbar.
So how do I know that this sharing is the problem to audio quality suffering? I disabled the controller which eliminated the sharing, the sound quality was very clear. However, by doing so I also had a screen resolution of 640x480 (or 800x600?) on my native 1280x800 16:10 display, this made things impossible to use. Things are better with a latency of 256, as long as I stay in VirtualDJ and don't multitask, the audio remains clear even with the controller enabled. It's interesting to note that I have never experienced such issues with the Hercules console and XP.
Downloading the HP Vista Default Settings package from their support website (which adjusts some power settings) helped stabalise things better with a 256 latency. Essentially, it just sets the graphics card into power saving mode (like another member found out a few days ago) as well as a few other changes.
I also set up various counters using performance monitor to track usb, memory and cpu usage. I couldn't see anything out of the ordinary as to why I couldn't use both advanced settings together. But I did notice that if I disabled my usb2 controller which forces all devices to run at 1.1 speeds, that the external soundcard would not throw the usual complaint that this device could function faster. Is this the problem? Does the usb bandwidth need to be increased, I don't know how this sort of thing works but it would appear that the soundcard is always running at usb1.1 speed. Are calculations done on the soundcard, would more bandwidth (faster transfer) increase performance? I would have thought so, but don't know if this is how it works. Perhaps I should have gone with a firewire card.
So, I'm not really anywhere closer to getting a fully stable timecode setup; when I ordered the new soundcard I wanted both advanced modes to be enabled. Things are stable at 256 and using the advanced scratch mode with fast master tempo, but like I've mentioed elsewhere, I could do the same thing with the same latency with the Mk2 in 48khz mode; it's just that VirtualDJ doesn't accept such signals accurately. I think a brand new computer will be the be solution if I want to be entirely happy with the setup, i.e. get the full performance out of the programs offerings.
Posté Sat 25 Aug 07 @ 1:21 am