Anderton
Another update...
 
I'm curious to see what the results are with various nVidia-based setups.
 
 

Hi Craig. Thanks for this. I have an NVidia 8400 GS driving dual monitors. After reading your post I thought I would revisit this issue. I had previously disabled, and also uninstalled the NVidia HD drivers. This time, I experimented a bit and (re-)discovered that NVidia reinstalls/re-enables the drivers on each re-boot. After doing some reading, I thought I would do a new clean installation of the most current drivers, omitting (de-selecting) installation of the high def audio drivers altogether. Even choosing this setup, It appears that the drivers re-install, and re-enable themselves on each restart, even though I selected to not install the drivers at all. I suspect I need to do a registry clean, in conjunction with a clean install. In any case I experimented a bit with disabling the NVidia audio drivers (4 are installed) and it's effect on latency in SONAR. Similar for disabling and uninstalling prior to running SONAR. For me at least, there is no noticeable improvement. I similarly see no improvement in disabling or eliminating the motherboard's Realtek high def audio driver, which I use for windows sounds. I'll try the reg clean / clean NVidia driver install, but wouldn't expect it to change anything based on what I've seen.
I am using a USB based Presonus 1818 VSL at 18 ms round trip latency. Works great but wouldn't mind a boost. Alas, not the case here.

Thanks for taking the time to check this out. I re-booted after making those kinds of changes so that they would "stick"...didn't seem to work otherwise. And again, the only way I could disable the ATI driver so it wouldn't show up every time I booted up was to do that song and dance with the HD Host Controller in System Devices. Sometimes it's all a mystery to me...

@Brando - I too use a Presonus 1818 VSL, and actually use the on-board graphics I have, and my round trip latency reported by Sonar is 9.7 milliseconds - using 48 K sample rate and ASIO Buffer Size of 128, for tracking.
 
What ASIO Buffer Size do you have it set for?
 
Bob Bone
 

@Brando, I guess I differ slightly here, latency monitor V6 does show an improvement for me. For stability I have to use the NVidia 332.21 drivers, and I make sure that only the drivers are installed and uninstall/remove from windows startup/disable in services, anything to do with NVidia. It really does help.
 
Cheers....

robert_e_bone
@Brando - I too use a Presonus 1818 VSL, and actually use the on-board graphics I have, and my round trip latency reported by Sonar is 9.7 milliseconds - using 48 K sample rate and ASIO Buffer Size of 128, for tracking.
 
What ASIO Buffer Size do you have it set for?
 
Bob Bone
 
 

Hi Bob: 
256. 128 gives me major crackles and pops. 256 is great. I am also running 48 khz sample rate.
i put this down to system specs (older quad core, only 8 GB.) However my old PCI soundcard could do 6-8 ms before i updated my OS.
thanks though!
 

CakeAlexS
@Brando, I guess I differ slightly here, latency monitor V6 does show an improvement for me. For stability I have to use the NVidia 332.21 drivers, and I make sure that only the drivers are installed and uninstall/remove from windows startup/disable in services, anything to do with NVidia. It really does help.
 
Cheers....

Hi Alex
using the 340.xx drivers here. I think i agree actually (craig note- not being fickle here), that my dpc latency is better when/after disabling the nvidia drivers. But it was always "ok" -my system is pretty clean, and daw dedicated,  and, at least in my case, the improvement in dpc latency (havent tried to quantify it) wasn't  enough to manifest itself in the form of better performance enabling a reduction in asio buffer size/latency

The amount of improvement will depend on many things. As you and Alex are using different drivers, who knows...I suspect, though, that given the amount of improvement with my system the driver I disabled was, uh, maybe less than ideal in terms of not interfering with the "good" audio driver.

Anderton
The amount of improvement will depend on many things. As you and Alex are using different drivers, who knows...I suspect, though, that given the amount of improvement with my system the driver I disabled was, uh, maybe less than ideal in terms of not interfering with the "good" audio driver.

Just had a thought - are you using hdmi? I wonder if the performance of the audio driver (designed to transmit audio over hdmi) differs depending on which video port is used?

Yo Craig
 
You have helped put to rest the notion that W8 does not need optimizing for audio. The last few years we have constantly been told that it is not necessary to tweak as we were inclined to do with XP, and before.
 
Your comment about how we are not usually inclined to review installed drivers, device listings, scheduled tasks,... after installing a new driver, or a program, should inspire us to adopt such attention as standard procedure for dedicated machines.
 
Because of this topic I have re-read suggestions from hardware and software vendors, reviewed my list of "tweaks" and many of the items I have installed but do not use.
 
Presonus still has a link to a tweaks file that recommends setting the page/swap file limits. This was disproved by RME at least 10 years ago. Best to let windows do what it needs.
 
The file did compel me to disable the FW item listed in device manager, as I never use it. And subsequently reviewed all the device listings, and services, and startup items, and scheduled tasks.
 
(Last year having the defrag service start a 1 am during a session was most disconcerting.)
 
The video card currently in the music computer does not have an HDMI output. The one I purchased recently does. I am now on-guard!
 
In the past I have assumed I should not expect my old and wrinkled pci based EMU 1820m to perform well and have had the asio settings to 20ms and greater to avoid dropouts, and crashes.  I have assumed the crashes that were attributed to the windows part of the emu driver were reflective of it being abandoned. (Being pci based, windows does load wdm drivers for windows stuff.)
 
Today, after the past few days of reading, testing and,... I get to here:
 
  Working on a 15 minute project:
  96 tracks   about 1/2 midi   (nothing frozen)
     (about 1/4 of the tracks take turns: trk 20 5 minutes, 22: 5 minutes 23: 5 minutes
         so about 50 tracks with data playing at any point.) 
      17 effects 
      14 synths
   15 buses
     43 effects    some are low level stuff like Panipulator.
 
Today I tested with the 6ms setting. The project will play without dropouts.  If I attempt to move too much too fast I may get a drop out and sonar will stop. And I can restart. Only happened once.   No crashes.
 
Tomorrow more testing.
 
So, thank you for starting this topic. And being adamant about your righteousness.
 

 
(Yo Alex: let Ghandi use your hat.)

Brando

robert_e_bone
@Brando - I too use a Presonus 1818 VSL, and actually use the on-board graphics I have, and my round trip latency reported by Sonar is 9.7 milliseconds - using 48 K sample rate and ASIO Buffer Size of 128, for tracking.
 
What ASIO Buffer Size do you have it set for?
 
Bob Bone
 

Hi Bob: 
256. 128 gives me major crackles and pops. 256 is great. I am also running 48 khz sample rate.
i put this down to system specs (older quad core, only 8 GB.) However my old PCI soundcard could do 6-8 ms before i updated my OS.
thanks though!
 

I would tend to think you have some processes running in the background that are interfering with your ability to lower your ASIO Buffer Size.
 
Perhaps you are running antivirus software that is a bit of a hog - try excluding Sonar's paths from what it scans - lots of folks do that and report benefits from doing so.
 
And, take a gander at what else is running as processes - services, and you may find some that you could suspend or stop while running Sonar, and that would let you drop your ASIO Buffer Size to 128.
 
Wi-Fi adapter?  Those can wreak havoc on DPC Latency.  If one is present, temporarily shut it off or disable it just prior to launching Sonar, and turn it back on after you are done with your Sonar session.
 
Bob Bone