Hunh, I think that little tweak may have done me some good. I was running at 128 buffers (6ms round trip time) on a moderately sized project...70-ish tracks, softsynths, amp sims, 18 different hardware outputs in use. Did the tweak, dropped my buffers to 64 (3.13ms round trip time) and the project plays without a hitch. Nice!
 
Now if I could just get down to 32 buffers for a 1.79ms round trip time. I tried it and it plays but gets pops and crackles.
 
Also probably helpful would be to get quixotic quests for ever-lower but in my case ultimately meaningless (and probably imperceptible) latency times out of my head 
 
Dean

'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.'

I'd like to know who says that....
Plenty of good tweaks you can do, and plenty or bad ones as well.

Anderton

YouDontHasToCallMeJohnson
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.

Well actually, this isn't really so much an OS tweak as a "things that a manufacturer adds to the OS" tweak. I do leave Windows itself pretty much alone. Based on Noel's feedback and subsequent testing, apparently the only reason I had to go into System Devices was to deal with a problem with the AMD driver, not something inherent in Windows. 
 
If I think about this any more, my head may explode 

Sorry for your frustrations!
 
 
Are we learning the truth yet People?...We have to tweak the PC and MS OS...(dependant on user/build/and function)...it is The best way to improve Performance, and the age old issue...."conflicting ""SHARED IRQs"" , and interruption of the single multi core cpu"....
 
My Jibber Jab jibberish rants, should resolve your head exploding syndrome, by Not thinking any further into code!...because it is not truthfully the code, or coders...it is the motherboard's, and lack of what I said before!....IRQs of a physical nature implemented properly for all exclusivity of supplied slots, ports,and devices onboard!!..., and a second or third or even fourth cpu to help resolve over 200? virtual IRQs MS recent OSes use, and calls on one signal cpu to perform!
 
Tweaking with a setup as such, with those limitations still in use today, as was yesterday, and seems to be ongoing!... has to be tweaked....Period!...until the motherboard makers make the change to light speed!.....Wink.
 
Have a
Nothing more to think about, great day!
Cheers!
 
Sir Les

I need to run YouTube (for instructional videos) and Sonar X3 or another DAW at the same time with audio functioning.
 
I was able to disable the Sound Video and Game controllers all 4 HD Audio. after reboot they are no longer visible on the list. Is this odd?
 
Also disabled the System Devices  both HD audio Controllers. But had to enable one to get YouTube to work again. For YouTube to work I also need to keep the Realtek HD Audio enabled.
 
Does this seem releasable?  I am not good at audio techy stuff.
 
 
 

Its been years since i every time i get a new DAW i will spend months trying to run perfect on low buffers, always aiming for that almost real-time dream.
My experience tells me it all comes down to one thing, DPC latency, the lower it gets the smaller buffers i can use and the less chance i have of pops and clicks.
 
Its not a matter of disabling HD Audio, its a matter of DISABLE EVERYTHING not related to your Audio work.
-ACPI Battery
-LAN
-Car Readers
-WIFI
-On board audio
-Printers
... EVERYTHING!
 
Lock everything that uses energy management, stuff that makes clocks go up and down to save energy (speedstep, turboboost, nvidia powermizer, etc etc).
Test the hardware, for instance, new laptops with NVIDIA will make 600ms DPC- REALLY BAD, same laptop with a AMD M290X you get perfect DPC, my top DPC is the actual audio card, nothing goes above it! Bad Firewire cards (not TI) will make you life really hard. I have the chance to test every piece before assemble, unfortunately not everyone has the same chance so the solution is replace if it causes high DPC.
 
As for those who need their PC/laptop for more than audio you can have both, you can make Two batch files like "AUDIO MODE" and "REGULAR MODE" and with one click it will disable everything you dont need for audio and with other click re-enable it.
Same with clocks, for CPU you can use ThrotleStop to set profiles for the CPU and have a "AUDIO MODE" with fixed multiplier and no C1/Turboboost/etc a "POWERSAVE MODE" (name says it all) and so on...
 
Should i start making guides in this forum? 

johnkeel...yes please do make guides.
 

Well i just started a personal website so i already intended to write such guide... I can simply copy them to a post i think.
Is there any appropriate place in the fórum for that?

This worked well for me as well. I went from 256 to 64.

This tip alone deserves its own sticky!

CakeAlexS
wrong reply
 

Steve_Karl

NOT CakeAlexS
wrong reply

 
?
And a made up quote ;).

Unfortunately Andertons fix didn't help me (that I know...) and I went back to 96 samples or so as my soundcard didn't like 48....sound got bad and died later.
 
But someone posted a comment to always close sonar through by 'File-Menu-Exit' rather than just click on the red cross up on the right......haven't had a crash ever since while before it would crash a lot when changing sample rates.... 
So 1 happy caker here....

The tweek didn't work on my system, but I've learned much from reading this thread and am in the process of figuring out why I have to run such high latency. Something is amiss! lol
 
Following the links posted here and exploring other options.
 
Thanks for reviving this thread Dana.

I know this has caused some problems for a few people but I regularly use my HD audio driver with anything windows through 2 different speaker sets (one of which is via HDMI) without any problems whatsoever. Using HDMI through a connected monitor with speakers is also considered as causing problems.

I can run my system with very heavy loads using buffers of 48 samples, which is the lowest allowed by the driver.

It would be really interesting to know what makes the difference between one system and another causing this instability.

mudgel
I regularly use my HD audio driver with anything windows through 2 different speaker sets (one of which is via HDMI) without any problems whatsoever.

Because I want to record from web browsers and other non-asio programs I have the wave device routed through my sound card, and I have the motherboard, and video card sound devices disabled.
 
And I have the windows sounds disabled.
 
I do not understand using a second output.  Please enlighten me.

I'm quite impressed that I have no problems in Sonar Platinum with the Tascam FW-1884, which is quite an old audio firewire interface, on Windows 8.1 64 bit.
 
I have to stay away from Wasapi however, or I have no chance with my second audio interface, the Roland Quad Capture: Sonar somehow always complains about (non - existing) problems with frequency/bit rate combos and forces me to use one frequency/rate for my projects. So Asio it is.
 
I have neither disabled the Realtek nor the nvidia audio drivers.
 
However I rarely have huge projects.
 
If someone uploads a project that regularly cause trouble, even with garbled audio, I'd be glad to test it on my setup. It's as easy as uploading a zip file or a CWB on OneDrive, Google Drive, DropBox or whatever and sharing a link.
 
Or tell me how to complexify for comparable tests purposes the Sonar X3 Producer demo - Javier Colon, which it seems to me is one of the only way too rare publicly available Sonar project, I'll be glad to test and measure.