I would have thought you'd get a bit better than what I am getting on the 3200+. Mine is a CLawhammer, but I would doubt that would make a difference. Infact the Newcastle runs faster and the cache should not make any difference as far as audio apps. Have you tried loading the Optimized defaults in the BIOS?

I thought you couldn't get yer board working..

On the MSI site people say "switch it to 1T immediately, the default 2T suxxors", but it hasn't made a big difference in mine.

I have yet to enable "optimized" however.. chortle chortle

ORIGINAL: Troels

ORIGINAL: feadhel

I thought you couldn't get yer board working..

I couldn't until this morning.....

On the MSI site people say "switch it to 1T immediately, the default 2T suxxors", but it hasn't made a big difference in mine.

Thanks, I'll try that imediately.

I have yet to enable "optimized" however.. chortle chortle

Allright, that brought it down to 69-78% @ 1.5ms, cool!
Can we get it any lower??

Echo Audio ASIO Driver

Multiprocessor
46.4 25%
23.2 28%
11.6 32%
5.8 40%
2.9 56%
1.5 N/A w/Layla ASIO Drivers

w/o Multiprocessor
46.4 28%
23.2 30%
11.6 35%
5.8 43%
2.9 60%
1.5 N/A w/Layla ASIO Drivers

Asus P4C800-E Deluxe
2GB Kingston KVR400X64C3AK2/2G 2GB Kit DDR400 PC3200 Memory
Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor Prescott 3.2GHz
2 Raid-0 Western Digital Raptor WD740GD 74GB Serial ATA 10,000RPM Drives
Echo Audio Mona

What is this 1T, 2T? Where in the BIOS?

Thanks,

My motherboard is an MSI K8N Neo Platinum.. if you have that, go into the Cell thingy in BIOS, first selection has to do with your RAM, in that list will be the timing, set as default at 2T, but if your chip(s) can handle it, do 1T.

If you don't have the same board, I don't know how to begin to help you!

Wow! I think I can speak for everyone hear in saying, thanks very much for going to all this trouble. This is excellent stuff.

Interestingly, this confirms my current thinking that

(a) If you want a laptop for music production, the Pentium M (Banias or Dothan) is clearly the superior choice, given that its performance is so good and power consumption so modest.

(b) The Athlon 2800XP makes a damn good cheap and cheerful workstation, when you look at how much cheaper a machine based around this CPU will be compared to the high-end Pentiums.

Wow. Almost 39,000 hits and around 365 Replies For Your post Scott. It's a big community here !

Okay, Hi and thanks to everyone's help here especially Scott Who makes me understand why my system keep producing POPs and Clicks while Recording, just 1 midi track (from out board gear) to audio trak. And also why the Audio is drop out ! Your contributions help me to build a better performance system in future to cope it with Sonar 3.

Here is my system

2x512 Mb DDR400 Memory (Pc 2700)
1x512 mb Corsair
Memory mode Dual Channel
NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400 (2 CHIPSET BASE) 32MB Ram
Samsung Syncmaster 21 GL (Monitor)
MSI K7N2 Delta L Mother Board.

System disk:
1- 112 GB 7200 Western Digital IDE
1 - 120 Gb 7200 Western Digital IDE (2 partitions)
Adaptec Firewire IEEE 1394 (PCI card)
mLan 1.51 driver

Yamaha 01X (Digital mixer)
Windows XP Pro SP1
Sonar 3.1.1.1
Project5

ASIO
Testing at 256 K I/O Buffer. Catches, Dither on, ( trigger and free wheel produce indentical

scores )

2.2 Dead meat
3.5 ms 70~73%
5.00 ms 58~62%
6.00 ms 54~56%
7.00 ms 50~51%
10.00 ms 45%
15.00 ms 39~47%
20.00 ms 37%
30.00 ms 34%
40.00 ms 32%

It's a little out of context here but I take this opportunity to ask any one if you see Sonar does (While recording a 1 midi track from out board gear) Suddenly just from 5 to 6 % CPU compsumtion, it spike up to Warning zone 80~85% CPU Then the audio drop out! - And this audio track got POPS and Clicks. (256 k I/O buffer, latency set at 15 ms. (Achived all other trak while recording) Do You have the same problem like me ?


Cheers
Michael V.

S3PE
AMD Athlon 1.33GHz
Gigabyte GA7DR Motherboard
768MB PC2100 DDR
32MB AGP Video
Maxtor 40GB 7200rpm ATA133 HD
WindowsXP Professional SP1
Audiophile 2496

46.4ms........no go
23.2ms........nowt
11.6ms........nada
5.8ms..........zip
2.9ms..........gar nichts
1.5ms..........you gotta be joking right

there must be something wrong with my pc - cheap RAM perhaps? still, it does what i want, and a vast improvement on a Porta-One

Athlon 64 3400+ Clawhammer speed 2.2ghz, L2 cache 1024 KB.
SONAR Test 3 score @ 1.5 ms: 57-63%.

Athlon 64 3400+ Newcastle speed 2.4ghz, L2 512KB
SONAR Test 3 score @ 1.5ms: 69-78%.

At 11.6ms the performance is identical. The Newcastle might have an
advantage at
higher latencies.

The processor is the only difference in hardware and settings.

The Clawhammer runs a couple of degrees Celsius hotter than the Newcastle.

Troels

HP/Compaq nw8000 with 1.8GHz Pentium M
1GB RAM
Dual 60GB mobile drives (slow)
M-Audio MobilePre w/ASIO drivers (WDM don't work well)

17.4 = 30%
5.8 = 37%
2.9 = 50%
1.8 = 66%

Pretty decent for a portable, I guess. Need a good audio interface and a firewire drive, what do you think?

After posting I noticed I have a similar system to sarcazm with similar results. Can't beat a portable studio like this. Haven't used it to do "real work" yet after upgrading from a lowly Pentium III portable and CWPA 8.x.

46.4ms........no go
23.2ms........nowt
11.6ms........nada
5.8ms..........zip
2.9ms..........gar nichts
1.5ms..........you gotta be joking right

there must be something wrong with my pc - cheap RAM perhaps? still, it does what i want, and a vast improvement on a Porta-One

I agree with you, there's something wrong with your system. My specs are similar to yours, except maybe the RAM, and I can go go as low as 5.8 ms... See by yourself:

-WinXP Home sp1 (dual-boot: one uncluttered and optimixed for DAW and the other for internet and Office)
-MSI K7T Turbo LE
-Athlon XP 1600+ (1.39 gHz)
-768 Mb of PC133 SDRAM
-Echo Mia with latest drivers (6.08)
-Maxtor 40 gigs 7200 rpm for system drive
-Maxtor 80 gigs for samples (on his own IDE)
-Matrox G450


This is on the Internet boot with WDM:

46.4ms.....56%
23.2ms.....58-60%
11.6ms.....69-73%
5.8ms.......91-92%
2.9ms.......Audio engine refuse to engage

Added: Same values on the DAW only boot...

Testing is simple...

Open Sonar... Set default sample rate to 44.1KHz (important to do this). Set latency to, say, 46.4ms (For consistency's sake, try to use ASIO drivers if you have them available... otherwise, WDM is okay)... and then open the test file. Make sure the audio engine is active, and note the CPU meter reading. Do the same at 23.2ms, 11.6ms, 5.8ms, 2.9ms, and 1.5ms. Keep in mind that on many systems, the audio engine may refuse to engage at the lower latencies. Make a note of that as well.

If you have a Dual-CPU system... or one with Hyperthreading... or both... post results with Sonar's Multiprocessor Engine both on and off.

Along with your results, post detailed system specs, and I'll try to put together some detailed charts mapping out the performance of various CPUs at various latencies.

Thanks ahead for all of your help with this!



Now... this is a nice bonus to having a web-based forum. I can update this top post at will in order to keep updated results readily available to all. Here's what we have so far (this will be updated as new data comes in):

CPU Chart
CPUs are listed in order of low-latency performance.
Blue Lines represent Intel systems.
Green Lines represent older-generation single-CPU AMD systems.
Red/Pink Lines represent new-generation single-CPU AMD systems.
Yellow Lines represent multi-CPU systems.
Dotted lines represent multi-CPU systems with Sonar's MP capabilities disabled.



-Scott


< Message edited by Scott Reams -- 1/20/2004 2:39:37 AM >

Report

Does the operton 248 perform as stated with one processor or was two identical processors used in that test?

3.06GhZ without HT turned on.

46.4 = 26%
23.2 = 28%
11.6 = 33%
5.8 = 42 - 43%
2.9 = 63%

Racked:
Gigabyte 8INXP (E7205 -- Granitebay) motherboard
P3.06Ghz HT
1 Gig DDR (2 dimms pc3200)
2x36Gig 10Krpm Western Digital (SATA) Raptors in 0Raid configuration
1x80Gig Maxtor 7200rpm UDMA 133Mhz HDD Storage
Gigabyte MAYA II R9700 Pro (128MB DDR SDRAM, 256-bit DDR 8xAGP)
Thermaltake Valcano7 CPU fan, 1x5" front rack fan / 2x2" rear rack fans
SONY DVD_RW (DRU510A),
External Que USB CD RW
Generic CD – ROM.

XP SP2
MOTU

Okay, I've now posted three different results with three different computers. My first post was with a 3.2ghz P4, the next was with a 3.2ghz P4 Extreme Edition and my new computer is as follows:

2) Opteron 250s
(2) Zalman 7000A coolers
Tyan S2885 dual-Opteron motherboard
4GB OCZ CAS2 PC3200 registered DDR (8x512MB)
ATI Radeon 64MB DH AGP Video
HighPoint 8-way SATA RAID controller
Plextor 712 series DVDRW
120GB 7200rpm 8MB system drive
(2) 160GB 7200rpm 8MB SATA samples/loops drives
(3) 160GB 7200rpm 8MB SATA audio drives in RAID5 array
(3) SATA drive sleds for audio drives
Antec 550W quiet power supply
4-space rack case (26” deep)
WinXP Pro

Here are the results:

46.4: 15%
23.2: 16-17%
11.6: 18-19%
5.8: 21-24%
2.9: 27-32%
1.5: 44-49%
0.7: CPU Warning, but will engage!

Scott Reams (Liquiddaw) built this system for me and as you can see, the performance is stellar!!