Well, the most of the set-up is done i.e. the ACER tablet was first set-up to be the office work horse (email, web admin, whatever, ...) including virus software (AntiVir) and active WiFi connection in the background. I will try my first tests using this standard configuration i.e. no fiddling with any win8 settings, anti virus remains active on
purpose - we'll see how far this let's me push the tablet as a DAW workhorse.
BTW, if anybody knows an anti virus software which is safe but puts less strain on the system, please let me know ... or if you know one that you can turn on/off easily by pushing a single button (AntiVir doesn't let you do that) Here's a brief update on the first observations when using the Cori Yarckin demo song, which you all know (36 track, 16 buses, lots of plugs) for a quick stress test:
a) minimum ASIO buffer size seems to be 96 samples (roundtrip of about 12ms with VS-100); anything lower thn that yields crackles, especially when screen needs to be redrawn or touch is used to adjust faders
b) at 96 samples buffer size the Sonar performance meters are all at about 50%, but I can start to work with the project, just getting the occasional little crack in the audio playback (e.g. when changing screen sets i.e. heavy instant load on graphic side)
c) at 128 samples buffer (18.5 ms roundtrip) performance load reduces to about 30% and you can do a lot without getting audio drop-outs (even work other apps that access WiFi); only jumping between screen sets causes one brief cracking noise in the audio playback ...
d) above observations look promising for my eventual goal: use the tablet as a matrix sample/loop machine plus providing click tracks; in fact for that application I could live with larger buffers and be safe, but at the moment I feel like pushing it; I want to see if the tablet can handle both tasks plus serve as guitar or bass FX machine (using Guitar Rig or Amplitube) - that would be awesome!!! I'd need to get stable performance at 96 sample buffers (for lowest latency), but that may be possible as matrix sample FX would be frozen, and matrix GUI should not put a lot of strain on the graphic engine
e) one not so great observation: in case of power out (unplugging power supply) play back continues with a few more crackles, BUT when power comes back on, playback halts showing the well-known audio drop-out message ... not something you'd want in a live Performance. Well, this I might be able to solve later on by adjusting the power scheme so that it doesn't throttle the system when on battery ... but if that persists, one might have to rely on the battery ???
So what's next? Install Amplitube Free, which got some decent bass and guitar models available, and create some matrix projects and get into serious testing. Fingers crossed.
Back in a while ...