Helpful ReplySomething you tweaked and it worked !

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taccess
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2017/06/30 02:21:08 (permalink)

Something you tweaked and it worked !

I am doing some work re arranging the AUD.ini in alphabetical order as well as trying to source out the missing documentation for some of the current settings inside it.
 
Through some of the forum threads i have read, there has been lots of Advice/Tips regarding different AUD.ini settings.
 
I realize the values of these settings are all different as per setup.Although the setting/s itself should relate to something valuable you can add to your fellow user/s.
 
I would like to include a ( Tips: Section ) at the bottom of each "What it Does " AUD.ini Alphabetical Manual which will help understand possible connections to problems or interaction with other settings.
 
No ones asking for you to hand over your secret signal flow with those perfect chains that probably don't exist anyway.
( If they do you can hand them over by the way ! Just Saying! )
No just some very short tips linked to a AUD.ini settings, maybe something you tweaked and it worked or some super technical advice relating to buffer starvation ! Anything That you know will relate to or help a particular setting !
Just keep in mind that this is for everyone to reference from including you and helping to tie settings together with user experienced tips will make a huge difference !
 
The Main thing is the missing documentation for the remaining undocumented settings but i thought  hearing what (other people think of other peoples tips)< try saying that 3 times really fast !  before i add them will be fair and most importantly more correct.
 
Thanks

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    taccess
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    Re: Something you tweaked and it worked ! 2017/07/01 03:34:36 (permalink)
    FlushMultiple=<0 or 1>(Default:1)
     
    This variable determines how SONAR performs writes to disk in cases where multiple inputs are being recorded simultaneously. The default setting causes SONAR to write all the data for all inputs all at once, and then wait for the entire set of writes to complete. Overriding this value by setting it to 0 causes SONAR to perform each input’s write separately, and wait for each individual write to complete before proceeding to the next one.


    Has Anyone changed this to (0) ?
    or
    Does anyone have advice on whether write all data for all inputs at once is better than write each input separately ?

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    taccess
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    Re: Something you tweaked and it worked ! 2017/07/01 03:42:32 (permalink) ☄ Helpfulby Steve_Karl 2017/07/06 06:35:38
    DropoutMsec=<num>(Default:250)
     
    Under high system load conditions, the SONAR audio
    pump mechanism may become starved. When this
    condition is detected, SONAR drops out. The
    DropoutMsec variable allows you to configure the
    tolerance time in milliseconds. This variable applies to all driver modes.
    Setting DropoutMsec to a positive value > 0 specifies the actual time in milliseconds to tolerate before dropping out due to starvation.
    Setting DropoutMsec to a negative value < 0 means we use a multiple of the audio buffer size as the tolerance.
    i.e. -2 means we use twice the audio buffer size.
    Note that setting this value too low (e.g. 0) can result in more frequent dropouts in the program. If you notice too many dropouts, try raising it in buffer multiples or by explicitly specifying a millisecond value.


     
    Has anyone used the negative value for this setting ?
    or
    Can someone explain any benifits / differences between choosing (Positive : time in miiliseconds) or (Negative:multiplying the buffers) ?
    Is one of these a "Better" Tolerance than the other.
     
     

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    arachnaut
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    Re: Something you tweaked and it worked ! 2017/07/01 04:13:19 (permalink)
    I use DropoutMsec set to 500.
     
    (By the way, it would be great if the preferences in Sonar window could sort these for us alphabetically by clicking on the column header, right now they are random.)
     
    I made that change when I was beta testing Kaleidoscope. In the early phases it used a huge amount of CPU and the testers were all trying different things to improve it performance.
     
    I made this change and modified some VST buffer sizes and stuff like that and got some benefit.
     
    I just left things that way after that.
     
    By the way, as I interpret this, it will have no affect on the typical glitches one might hear when the audio drivers buffer size is too short. That will not stop Sonar. Increasing this just tells Sonar to try a little longer before halting with a dropout message.
     

    - Jim Hurley -
    SONAR Platinum - x64  - Windows 10 Pro 
    ASUS P8P67 PRO Rev 3.0;  Core i7-2600K@4.4GHz; 16 GB G.SKILL Ripjaws X;
    GeForce GT 740; Saffire Pro14 MixControl 3.7; Axiom 61
    64-Bit audio, SR: 48kHz, ASIO 256 samples latency, Rec/Play I/O Buffers 512k, Total Round Trip Latency 13 ms, Pow-r 3 dither 
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    taccess
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    Re: Something you tweaked and it worked ! 2017/07/01 06:50:52 (permalink)
    arachnaut
    I use DropoutMsec set to 500.
     
    (By the way, it would be great if the preferences in Sonar window could sort these for us alphabetically by clicking on the column header, right now they are random.)
     
    I made that change when I was beta testing Kaleidoscope. In the early phases it used a huge amount of CPU and the testers were all trying different things to improve it performance.
     
    I made this change and modified some VST buffer sizes and stuff like that and got some benefit.
     
    I just left things that way after that.
     
    By the way, as I interpret this, it will have no affect on the typical glitches one might hear when the audio drivers buffer size is too short. That will not stop Sonar. Increasing this just tells Sonar to try a little longer before halting with a dropout message.
     


    Can you elaborate on why did you decided to go for a " positive "increase of 500 milliseconds and not a "  negative" -2 which i believe if i am correct with a current audio buffer size lets say of 2048 would give you a tolerance of 4096 i believe.
    I am only trying to find out if there are any benefits or reasons behind going ( positive = milliseconds ) or (negative = Buffer increase ) when making the decision for this tolerance setting .
     
    Also does anyone know if you did use a negative say  -2 for this tolerance setting if this would add any Latency !I assume not but i am sure many would ask !
     
     
     

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    arachnaut
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    Re: Something you tweaked and it worked ! 2017/07/01 15:44:25 (permalink)
    taccess
     
    Can you elaborate on why did you decided to go for a " positive "increase of 500 milliseconds and not a "  negative" -2 which i believe if i am correct with a current audio buffer size lets say of 2048 would give you a tolerance of 4096 i believe.
    I am only trying to find out if there are any benefits or reasons behind going ( positive = milliseconds ) or (negative = Buffer increase ) when making the decision for this tolerance setting .
     
    Also does anyone know if you did use a negative say  -2 for this tolerance setting if this would add any Latency !I assume not but i am sure many would ask !
     

     
    I have no reason, I just tried a bunch of things that might seem reasonable and left things when it seemed like I was starting to make things worse.
     
    It might not even have made things better as I don't think I reverted back to 250 to see if it made a difference - that was some time ago.
     
    I just followed this methodology: make a test case, then adjust one (or two) things, repeat test, repeat with another change. Stop when you get exhausted, bored, or seem to be regressing.
     
    I've honestly given up believing just about anything anyone says about optimization. I want to see it for myself. 
     
     

    - Jim Hurley -
    SONAR Platinum - x64  - Windows 10 Pro 
    ASUS P8P67 PRO Rev 3.0;  Core i7-2600K@4.4GHz; 16 GB G.SKILL Ripjaws X;
    GeForce GT 740; Saffire Pro14 MixControl 3.7; Axiom 61
    64-Bit audio, SR: 48kHz, ASIO 256 samples latency, Rec/Play I/O Buffers 512k, Total Round Trip Latency 13 ms, Pow-r 3 dither 
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    arachnaut
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    Re: Something you tweaked and it worked ! 2017/07/01 15:53:00 (permalink)
    If it is any help to you, here are my AUD.INI settings sorted with the device-specific parts eliminated:
    AllowOfflineRenderMixThreads=1
    AlwaysOpenAllDevices=0
    AlwaysStreamAudioThroughFx=1
    AutomationDecimationMsec=50
    BitsPerSample=24
    BounceBufSizeMsec=0
    ComputePicturesWhilePlaying=1
    CopyOnImport=1
    CSUseSpin=1
    DataDir=K:\Sonar Platinum\Cakewalk Projects\Audio Data
    DefaultAudSnapOfflineStretchMethod=3
    DefaultAudSnapOnlineStretchMethod=1
    DefaultEqPosition=0
    DefaultSampleRate=48000
    DefaultVocalSyncOfflineStretchMethod=7
    DefaultVocalSyncOnlineStretchMethod=1
    DisableIMDuringPlay=0
    DiskBufSize=512
    DiskRecBufSize=512
    DitherAlgorithm=4
    DriverID=0
    DropoutMsec=500
    EnableAsioBufferSwitchTimeInfo=1
    EnableCacheWriteThru=1
    EnableDeviceOutputLatencyCompensation=1
    EnableLiveADCRecalc=1
    EnableMixThreads=1
    EnablePicCacheThreads=1
    EnablePluginLoadBalancing=0
    EnableSetThreadIdealProcessor=1
    EnableSSEMixing=1
    EnableWasapiDSP=1
    ExtraDiskBuffers=2
    ExtraPluginBufs=2048
    FileBitDepth=64
    FlushMultiple=1
    FlushOnStop=0
    FlushWriteBeforeRead=0
    FreeMemOnUnload=1
    GapDezipperUsec=500
    ImportBitDepth=0
    KsUseInputEvent=0
    LatencyMsec=21
    LinkPFSendMute=0
    LinkSendPan=0
    ManageASIOThreadPriority=1
    MaxInputChannels=16
    MaxOutputChannels=16
    MaxPreviewMsec=300000
    MeterFrameSizeMS=40
    MinimizeDriverStateChanges=1
    MinPluginLoadBalancingBufferSamples=128
    MixDezipperUsec=50
    MixThreadCount=0
    MMCSSTaskKey=Pro Audio
    MMCSSThreadPriority=2
    OpenInputFirst=0
    PanLaw=1
    PanLawCompatMode=0
    PanMethod=1
    PicCacheLevels=2
    PicCacheMB=500
    PicCacheZoom=128
    PictureDir=K:\Sonar Platinum\Cakewalk Projects\Picture Cache
    ProfiledKS=1
    ProfiledMME=1
    ProfiledWASAPI=1
    RadiusStretchingPhaseCoherence=50
    RadiusStretchingPitchCoherence=50
    ReadCache=0
    RealtimePreroll=0
    RecordPreAllocSeconds=3
    RemoveDCOffset=0
    RenderBitDepth=64
    ShowMultiChannelInputs=1
    ShowMultiChannelOutputs=1
    SmpteMode=1
    StartFadeMsec=0
    StopFadeMsec=0
    StopOnEmptyPlayQueue=0
    SuspendPluginsOnBounce=1
    SyncDivisor=8
    SyncMaxDriftMsec=2
    ThreadSchedulingModel=2
    ThumbnailCacheSize=100
    TimingOffsetBuffers=0
    TimingOffsetMsec=0.000000
    TransDetectorModel=1
    UseAlias=1
    UseHardwareSamplePosition=1
    UseMMCSS=1
    UseWDMDmaForWASAPI=1
    VolMethod=1
    WaveInBuffers=8
    WaveInID=0
    WaveOutBuffersKS=2
    WaveOutBuffersMME=4
    WaveOutExtraBuffers=1
    WriteCache=0
    ZeroFillDB=300
    ZeroFillMethod=2

     

    - Jim Hurley -
    SONAR Platinum - x64  - Windows 10 Pro 
    ASUS P8P67 PRO Rev 3.0;  Core i7-2600K@4.4GHz; 16 GB G.SKILL Ripjaws X;
    GeForce GT 740; Saffire Pro14 MixControl 3.7; Axiom 61
    64-Bit audio, SR: 48kHz, ASIO 256 samples latency, Rec/Play I/O Buffers 512k, Total Round Trip Latency 13 ms, Pow-r 3 dither 
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    taccess
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    Re: Something you tweaked and it worked ! 2017/07/01 23:50:25 (permalink)
    arachnaut

    I've honestly given up believing just about anything anyone says about optimization. I want to see it for myself. 
     
     


    Yeah, it's hard sifting through a lot of advice, particularly when advice may seem to help on some rigs and not others. But never the less, advice it's similar to music in the way that you start with something that leads somewhere else that changes places and eventually makes you get to the place you wanted,

    Hopefully someone who has used the negative dropMsec setting comes along because it would be enlighting to hear a point of view on a setting no one seems to have used and i agree that a positive 500 does the job and probably should be the default instead of the current 250, my ideas with this thread was to try chat about the documented settings and get people's perspective on these particular settings so users 100% understand what each setting is best applied to tweak/troubleshoot, and then add some of those tips to the aud.ini alphabetical manual and tidy it up with some even more relevant information.
    Sometimes when we ask something someone's not around and eventually they and the answer comes along. What I have noticed sifting through .ini threads is if you have all those tips and if we all added our best advice here they could all be added under each .ini setting as a huge head start .

    Thanks for your input arachnaut it's appreciated

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    arachnaut
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    Re: Something you tweaked and it worked ! 2017/07/02 01:33:15 (permalink)
    I do understand, and I'm all for reducing the misunderstandings and myths that get propagated.
    This is a great thread and I'll put in my two cents plus inflation if I can offer any advice.
    Since Sonar is so 'old' (or mature, or whatever - she's a lady, I'll be nice!) it has a lot of inherited stuff from DOS, Win 3.1, XP, etc. Lots of fixes and kludges and workarounds for older problems. Just like Windows.
    Or at least I imagine that is true - I don't want to start a new myth!
     
    So some of these may just be relics and not so useful going forward.
     
    I think it would be great to split them in two or more parts - not so useful or old, somewhat useful in general, and brand new setting or updated recently.
     
     
     

    - Jim Hurley -
    SONAR Platinum - x64  - Windows 10 Pro 
    ASUS P8P67 PRO Rev 3.0;  Core i7-2600K@4.4GHz; 16 GB G.SKILL Ripjaws X;
    GeForce GT 740; Saffire Pro14 MixControl 3.7; Axiom 61
    64-Bit audio, SR: 48kHz, ASIO 256 samples latency, Rec/Play I/O Buffers 512k, Total Round Trip Latency 13 ms, Pow-r 3 dither 
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    arachnaut
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    Re: Something you tweaked and it worked ! 2017/07/02 01:38:30 (permalink)
    Right now I am tweaking overclocking, SpeedStep, TurboBoost, Hyperthreading, PCI clocks and stuff like that.
    But that's not the tweaks you want.
     
    I don't like the performance I get with HT off, SpeedStep off, TurboBoost On compared with what I got with these in opposite states like I had before.
     
    Even if I increase overclocking considerably, I had better results before I descended down this path of madness.
     
    The ASUS motherboard BIOS I use is a dream and a nightmare - I have pages and pages of stuff I can screw with.
     
    I wish I had a documented ASUS.INI file to work from. The BIOS help is not always a help.
     
     

    - Jim Hurley -
    SONAR Platinum - x64  - Windows 10 Pro 
    ASUS P8P67 PRO Rev 3.0;  Core i7-2600K@4.4GHz; 16 GB G.SKILL Ripjaws X;
    GeForce GT 740; Saffire Pro14 MixControl 3.7; Axiom 61
    64-Bit audio, SR: 48kHz, ASIO 256 samples latency, Rec/Play I/O Buffers 512k, Total Round Trip Latency 13 ms, Pow-r 3 dither 
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    taccess
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    Re: Something you tweaked and it worked ! 2017/07/05 06:27:10 (permalink)
    StopOnEmptyPlayQueue= Originally Called StopStarved variable :
     

    Determines whether the audio engine should completely shut-down and put up a "dropout" indicator if the audio output queue becomes empty. Note that a dropout will still occur if the input queue becomes empty, or if other exceptional MIDI or disk I/O starvation scenarios occur. Setting this value to 0 yields engine behavior where the audio never will never stop during input monitor, but may click or pop instead.
     

    Interesting
    Has anyone changed this variable to 1 ?

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    stxx
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    Re: Something you tweaked and it worked ! 2017/07/05 16:46:34 (permalink)
    Personally.... not sure why anyone would screw with this file...  Often these are parameters that are there for developers to help test, debug and tweak but usually not really for user modifications.   I would be really careful as many of these parms are likely related to one another in ways users can't know because we didn't write the code. if you are having issues running sonar, I'd look elsewhere before messing with these parameters

    Sonar Platinum, RME UFX, UAD 2, Waves, Soundtoys, Fronteir Alphatrack, X-Touch as Contl Srfc,  , Console 1, Sweetwater Creation Station Quad Core Win 8.1, Mackie 824, KRK RP5, AKG 240 MKII, Samson C-Control, Sennheiser, Blue,  AKG, RODE,  UA, Grace, Focusrite, Audient, Midas, ART
     
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    interpolated
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    Re: Something you tweaked and it worked ! 2017/07/05 19:33:33 (permalink)
    I reinstalled Sonar today. Updated the driver for my Focusrite and tweaked a couple of settings until I was happy it was going to play ball.
     
    Not sure if it has improved any performance issues however I at least know now any problems I am having with files are down to corrupted FX bins or routing paths. At least I never had to reinstall any plug-ins......or maybe I still have to....hmmm.....
     

    I have computer stuff.
     
    https://soundcloud.com/sigmadelta
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    taccess
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    Re: Something you tweaked and it worked ! 2017/07/06 00:53:16 (permalink)
    stxx
    Personally.... not sure why anyone would screw with this file...  Often these are parameters that are there for developers to help test, debug and tweak but usually not really for user modifications.   I would be really careful as many of these parms are likely related to one another in ways users can't know because we didn't write the code. if you are having issues running sonar, I'd look elsewhere before messing with these parameters


     
    This file is there for the User to make Advanced settings.
    Every single parameter in the file should be documented and should not be screwed with but rather understood and used if necessary.
    These settings are not just for the developers they are there for users to make modifications responsibly understanding the parameters beforehand.
     
    I cant tell you how many forum posts i have gone through over and over again (" recently searching for the missing documentation" ) of users asking about certain  AUD.ini settings because they have problems and no documentation "Years and Years  worth", and even though a few setting may not read the code anymore, or relate to legacy products, or not suit people who do understand them, i want to know what every setting represents and i am sure you would read through that documentation to. It is important to understand all of these settings, it is important to have documentation on all of them. It is important to use them if you need to.
     
    There is a AUD.ini "Undocumented "thread for this discussion( which seems to be in the bin at the present moment because i edited/Removed from the UNDOCUMENTED List a setting i recently found documentation on,  which happens it should be back thanks to scook!).
     
     
    This thread was started for "Documented "settings, it is for Advanced users to hopefully discuss a/these setting/s  they adjusted that helped a problem or suited there system more, so novice users can have a better understanding of what the advance settings could help or be used for.
     
    example :ThreadSchedulingModel=
    I had this setting on the default :1, have a system with more than 4 cores and after reading the documentation i decided this could benefit me, Before rushing in i opened a big project and took note of the platinum CPU meters which looked balanced except my first core was a lot higher, i then changed this setting to 2 and instantly that first core disappeared (lower than the rest ), also the rest of the cores were more stable and even.
    So :2 is my default setting for this, not the developers default:1! Now lets remember that windows operating system loves the first core, so this defiantly relates to other parameters ( windows/Sonar) in a "Good" way that we may never know exactly about, but we know its better !
     
    Remember like a lot of things in life when you understand things they are easy and there is less frustration and you can quickly find and fall back on and change because you understand it fully, my point is it is the same with settings, when you know 1 of these settings properly/Fully then you know its there what it does and that's that, but when you don't know a setting it makes more problems than knowing.
     

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    Steve_Karl
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    Re: Something you tweaked and it worked ! 2017/07/14 18:00:46 (permalink)
    taccess
    DropoutMsec=<num>(Default:250)



    Good tip. Thanks!
    Changing mine to 500 stopped a lot of annoyances.
    Logical guess.
    the -2 thing isn't as intuitive.
     

    Steve Karl
    https://soundcloud.com/steve_karl
    SPLAT 2017.01
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