# Higher end PC + audio buffer size - what's your experience



## raindog21 (May 4, 2021)

Hi - I'm on a ryzen 7 3700x, 64GB ram, 3 SSDs (two m.2 one for OS and one for sample libraries, one SATA for projects), and RTX 2070 super GPU, so pretty high-end home built PC.

Interface is a focusrite clarett 4pre USB

Software is VE Pro 7 + multiple DAW (primarily DP or Cubase) on the same PC. I personally find that setup to be stable and performs well even on a single machine. 

The best I can do for ASIO buffer size is 64 samples when just using the focusrite driver. When using ASIO link pro to stream audio over zoom, OBS etc. I can *usually* also have it a 64 samples but sometimes the cracks and pops show up due to the extra overhead of ASIO link pro so I sometimes have to change it to 128 samples.

Does this sound about right? I have never been able to get 32 sample buffers working on a PC although I hear that RME may be able to do it given their reputation is that their drivers are the best in the industry / their devs have windows driver superpowers.

Does all this sound pretty normal or do I have more optimizing to do on my PC / windows settings? I've followed the usual tutorials for adjusting for best DAW performance.

One other question - what are you using for inter-application audio / sharing asio? I've tried a number of options with mixed success, so far asio link pro is the most stable in spite of having the most mind-numbing setup / user interface.

Thanks!


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## Pictus (May 5, 2021)

USB is not the best performance, but RME USB is good and HDSPe AIO Pro is the *KING!*








Gearspace.com - View Single Post - Audio Interface - Low Latency Performance Data Base


Post 15205348 -Forum for professional and amateur recording engineers to share techniques and advice.



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Also check this 





Nvidia Driver, no latency anymore?


Hi all! We all know that AMD drivers have from far, less latency than Nvidia drivers, and for that reason we all recommand an AMD graphic card for audio working. But recently i have dealt with a new install on a PC with an Nvidia graphic card. And when i updated to the latest driver i saw an...




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## raindog21 (May 5, 2021)

Thank you for the tips re: the nvidia drivers. Also - one of these days I may finally pull the trigger on an RME PCI card. I need enough I/O though which makes the USB interfaces attractive. At least 8 analog ins or I guess I can go the mixer route again but I really like not having to have one.


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## Anthony Roberts (May 5, 2021)

I've had high end pc's since Pentium pro days...I've always struggled with buffers using half a dozen different usb sound cards. Recently I upgraded my computer again and went with a motherboard with a thunderbolt 3 interface...Ive switched to a thunderbolt sound card and finally everything works to perfection. I cant believe how low I can go with buffers and how small the latency is. I wish I could have done this years ago...so much time wasted time...


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## José Herring (May 5, 2021)

Anthony Roberts said:


> I've had high end pc's since Pentium pro days...I've always struggled with buffers using half a dozen different usb sound cards. Recently I upgraded my computer again and went with a motherboard with a thunderbolt 3 interface...Ive switched to a thunderbolt sound card and finally everything works to perfection. I cant believe how low I can go with buffers and how small the latency is. I wish I could have done this years ago...so much time wasted time...


How low can you go running sample library plugins?

Curious as I just switched PC and upgrade my audio interface to what is consider the lowest latency TB3 interface and the decrease in settings was negligible.


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## vitocorleone123 (May 5, 2021)

raindog21 said:


> Hi - I'm on a ryzen 7 3700x, 64GB ram, 3 SSDs (two m.2 one for OS and one for sample libraries, one SATA for projects), and RTX 2070 super GPU, so pretty high-end home built PC.
> 
> Interface is a focusrite clarett 4pre USB
> 
> ...


64 is about as low as it’ll go in my experience, as well. Mine is set for 256 at 96khz - low but not trying for lowest possible. If I’m just playing:recording audio like a hardware synth I can get it to 64 at 96khz.

Getting equivalent I/O in RME as the 4pre requires $1200+ of not $1600+ new. That Babyface thing is a horrid form factor for my needs and lacks I/O for the price. RME isn’t the holy grail - I’ve read plenty of people who dislike them, including for their drivers. But probably better overall, as they should be, given the price.

Claretts are a balance of good features and quality for a good price. I’d be curious about the new MOTU ultralite if I was in the market now.


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## mscp (May 5, 2021)

José Herring said:


> How low can you go running sample library plugins?


There's no absolute answer to it as a lot of factors are involved. :(



José Herring said:


> Curious as I just switched PC and upgrade my audio interface to what is consider the lowest latency TB3 interface and the decrease in settings was negligible.


What machine do you have (+ peripherals), audio interface, OS (version too), DAW(s), ..?


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## mscp (May 5, 2021)

I'm using a Babyface Pro with my AD/DA converter of choice via ADAT, and it's been beautiful. Reason for the setup? When I'm not in the studio, I bring my Babyface with me and leave the converter behind since I don't usually do surround nor need lots of IOs when travelling.


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## José Herring (May 5, 2021)

Phil81 said:


> There's no absolute answer to it as a lot of factors are involved. :(
> 
> 
> What machine do you have (+ peripherals), audio interface, OS (version too), DAW(s), ..?


Everything is fairly solid. 

I'm using a PC running Windows 10. The chip is i7 10700k I believe. I use VEPRO on the host machine as well as the slave. Slave is an AMD Ryzen 7 3700x. Kind of like a year old now. I'm thinking of bumping up the cpu on both machines to the max. I9 and Ryzen 5900 respectively. Plenty of Ram on both machines. 

Using a Quatum 2020 TB3 interface. I run it at 24bit 44.1k but I hear it's a little more snappy at 96k but it would require that I seriously redo many, many audio files over the last 15 years. But, I'm might give it a shot and see if I can run better latencies.


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## mscp (May 5, 2021)

José Herring said:


> Everything is fairly solid.
> 
> I'm using a PC running Windows 10. The chip is i7 10700k I believe. I use VEPRO on the host machine as well as the slave. Slave is an AMD Ryzen 7 3700x. Kind of like a year old now. I'm thinking of bumping up the cpu on both machines to the max. I9 and Ryzen 5900 respectively. Plenty of Ram on both machines.
> 
> Using a Quatum 2020 TB3 interface. I run it at 24bit 44.1k but I hear it's a little more snappy at 96k but it would require that I seriously redo many, many audio files over the last 15 years. But, I'm might give it a shot and see if I can run better latencies.



If you don't do live audio tracking (audio recording), you should be able to do wonders with Cubase/Nuendo's ASIO midi latency feature. When my projects get heavy, I always make sure to turn that on. It's genius.


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## José Herring (May 5, 2021)

Phil81 said:


> If you don't do live audio tracking (audio recording), you should be able to do wonders with Cubase/Nuendo's ASIO midi latency feature.


I'll check it out. I wrote it off because in past versions it's done nothing but cause me headaches. But I haven't tried it on my new setup.


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## raindog21 (May 5, 2021)

Anthony Roberts said:


> I've had high end pc's since Pentium pro days...I've always struggled with buffers using half a dozen different usb sound cards. Recently I upgraded my computer again and went with a motherboard with a thunderbolt 3 interface...Ive switched to a thunderbolt sound card and finally everything works to perfection. I cant believe how low I can go with buffers and how small the latency is. I wish I could have done this years ago...so much time wasted time...


The only problem right now is that it's only intel motherboards that have the wider TB adoption. There's a couple of oddball AMD boards that implemented it but there's not much selection. I've been an intel fan for many many years but AMD has really upped their game. My Ryzen 7 is a beast.


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## raindog21 (May 5, 2021)

Phil81 said:


> If you don't do live audio tracking (audio recording), you should be able to do wonders with Cubase/Nuendo's ASIO midi latency feature. When my projects get heavy, I always make sure to turn that on. It's genius.


Thank you for that tip - I'll try it


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## fakemaxwell (May 5, 2021)

I can get to 32 samples on an i9900k with an RME UFX+, but I generally hang out on 64. I've tamed most of it but it seems like on Windows there's a lot of background stuff that can pop up and cause a glitch in the audio, and it's more noticeable at 32.

The difference in actual latency between the two is negligible, so I wouldn't chase it.


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## colony nofi (May 5, 2021)

64 buffers in so incredibly low - why are you wanting / needing it to be lower? Running lower buffers means your machine needs to run much harder / you'll have much much lower headroom for plugin processing etc. I understand it for tracking - but even then, its very possible to use (next to) zero latency monitoring using an interface (RME does it extremely well) or by using a very simple external mixer. 

I don't know any TV/Film composers who try and run below 128. Most run at 256 or 512. 128 or 256 if using VEP (VEP introduces extra buffers - so 128 is acting more like 256 or even 384 - i can't remember if it doubles or triples and i don't have it on my system right now to check). Sure - 512 is not ideal, but most people adjust to it over time if they're not used to it. 128 or 256 is entirely possible on most decent systems - and even if you are extremely sensitive to it, you can alter how you play in / learn how to play with the buffer to the point that you no longer notice it / it doesn't effect your "feeling" while composing.

Why would you settle for that? Because the film/tv guys I know (self included) rather the ability to run cues that are mixed while you are working / need the ability to change things even once things are mixed / have a tonne of plugins. This is for the "middle" tier of work. Of course there's the higher tier where things are replaced with live recordings later - but even then you often need to go back to the mockups / re-edit or even re-write with the recordings you have - all needing tonnes of processing power. (At that point, you're often at 5.1 or 7.1...)

This long winded post is more - well - a little proposition. Do you NEED to chase the dragon in this instance? Running 64 buffers with plenty of headroom for plugins etc is awesome. There are potentially ways you can get down to 32, but one needs to weigh up the headaches / thoughts / technicals of doing that with what you might loose creatively. Do you have the time to chase it? The money? What are you actually loosing out on by staying at 64? 

You have a nice computer. If you have the time to spare and just want to chase that extra goal - well, more power to you. But just know there are a tonne of us working every day composing on much higher buffer settings and doing just fine


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## Anthony Roberts (May 5, 2021)

Im usually running 64 at 3.4 in studio one 5 and 64 at 4.0 in samplitude pro x5 with about 20 tracks...I have played around with 32 at 1.5 and 16 at 0.7 but I usually dont bother going below 64. In stand alone I get about 1.4 to 1.6 at 64 in Kontakt 6...Omnisphere and Neural Dsp... Im using a presonus quantum 2626 with an intel i7 10700 with 64ram...nvme and ssd drives...amd graphic card


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## colony nofi (May 6, 2021)

@Anthony Roberts 
Take a look at expected performance here vs other chips. There's good info about other little pitfalls around the zen 2 chips (which mostly seem cleared up with Zen 3). http://www.scanproaudio.info/2020/02/27/2020-q1-cpus-in-the-studio-overview/


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## Dietz (May 6, 2021)

vitocorleone123 said:


> RME isn’t the holy grail - I’ve read plenty of people who dislike them,* including for their drivers.*


Really? I haven't met one yet.


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## Hans-Peter (May 6, 2021)

Dietz said:


> Really? I haven't met one yet.


Well, in fact, you have .


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## Pictus (May 6, 2021)

raindog21 said:


> Thank you for the tips re: the nvidia drivers. Also - one of these days I may finally pull the trigger on an RME PCI card. I need enough I/O though which makes the USB interfaces attractive. At least 8 analog ins or I guess I can go the mixer route again but I really like not having to have one.


Excellent, when you have the RME, please report back your experience.


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## kitekrazy (May 6, 2021)

colony nofi said:


> 64 buffers in so incredibly low - why are you wanting / needing it to be lower? Running lower buffers means your machine needs to run much harder / you'll have much much lower headroom for plugin processing etc. I understand it for tracking - but even then, its very possible to use (next to) zero latency monitoring using an interface (RME does it extremely well) or by using a very simple external mixer.
> 
> I don't know any TV/Film composers who try and run below 128. Most run at 256 or 512. 128 or 256 if using VEP (VEP introduces extra buffers - so 128 is acting more like 256 or even 384 - i can't remember if it doubles or triples and i don't have it on my system right now to check). Sure - 512 is not ideal, but most people adjust to it over time if they're not used to it. 128 or 256 is entirely possible on most decent systems - and even if you are extremely sensitive to it, you can alter how you play in / learn how to play with the buffer to the point that you no longer notice it / it doesn't effect your "feeling" while composing.
> 
> ...


Great point. Too me low buffer sizes are needed for live performance or recording. I think for some it's about bragging rights. I remember back when it was single core processors mixing at 100 ms was recommended.


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