Sluggish performance (not clicking and popping)

[Cool7s_Dad]

Has anyone else experienced sluggish response to MIDI? I\'m running a PIII 733 with 512MB RAM, UltraSCSI 160 controller, two Quantum 10k 4.3ms drives, Echo Gina card w/5.02 drivers.

I have no problem getting the full 160 voice polyphony. I never have clicks or pops... but on some very simple parts I experience a sluggish response. For example, sometimes some of the drum fills will sound crammed together like GSt is having a hard time catching up.

I have a separate PII 266 machine I use for sequencing. I\'ve never had this behavior with any of the hardware synths I have using that sequencer machine.

Could it be that I\'ve got too much going on with a particular *port* in GSt? I know I\'ve read somewhere on here that there\'s a 64 voice limit per port. Could there also be MIDI latency issues on a per port basis?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Peace,
Tim

[LHong]

============================================
but on some very simple parts I experience a sluggish response. For example, sometimes some of the drum fills will sound crammed together like GSt is having a hard time catching up.
============================================
Which MIDI-Audio-Seq do you use? Check the MIDI in/out option like in cakewalk (Cubase/Logic might be similar) \"echo mode\" set to NONE, \"send MIDI sync\" check start/stop continue, uncheck the zero controller when play stop...Giga doesn\'t like these, I guess.
One more thing, if you have the audio track in your MIDI-SEQ make sure you set Sync clock source to audio (Logic-Audio doesn\'t have this option), in the audio option you might uncheck \"use wave out position timing\"
Good lucks
LHong

[killerbobjr]

You have to first determine where the bottleneck is occuring. You\'ve already eliminated the first possible point in the sequencer machine. The other two points are: 1. MIDI input, or 2. the wave output in GSt. You can eliminate the second one by using a audio capture WAV driver that outputs to a file rather than a device. Something like Virtual Audio Cable would work. And no, GSt capture just parallels the WAV driver, so that doesn\'t work as a test if you are paralleling the Gina.

If the sluggishness goes away, then that would indicate GSt is having a problem with your Gina drivers. If they remain, the bottleneck is at your MIDI input. Set all your GSt MIDI Inputs to none, in Window\'s Multimedia Properties, set MIDI Out to Nemesys MidiOut Port 1, then load a MIDIFile in Mediaplayer and play it. If there\'s no sluggishness, then your MIDI Input port is at fault. If you still experience the problem, then something is interfering with Gigastudio\'s ability to process the MIDI input.

You could have background processes running, other apps grabbing the shared ports, or lots of swap file activity as possible culprits. Check the above possible areas first before we go further though.

[killerbobjr]

Another possibiliity is shared IRQ\'s. If your soundcard is sharing an IRQ with another PCI card, or if your MIDI card is PCI and sharing an IRQ, this could cause the reported sluggishness. Click on \"Properties\" for Computer in Device Manager. It will show you a list of in use IRQ\'s. If your sound card or MIDI card shows up as sharing an IRQ, turn off your computer and move the card to a different PCI slot. This will force the PCI bus to change IRQ\'s.

There isn\'t a way in Windows to force a change of the IRQ, but your BIOS may manually allow user selectable settings. If you do that, make sure you use the BIOS for device enumeration by going into Device Manager, System devices, click Properties, Settings tab, check \"Use Bios\", okay.

[Ben Chase]

I get this choking to, at low polyphony. I have been through everything inculuding fresh installs and I am baffled. My business is at a stand still.
My config
ABIT BX6r2, PII400, 256MB ram, 2 ATA33 large drives at 7200rpm.
Joytech Apollo 5465 AGP
Win98SE, win98lite - dual boot (happens on both sys)
Winman ISA 2x2 midi i/o
ADAPTEC 1520b ISA SCSI cont.
Mixtreme for GSt
Pulsar (tried with and without)
USB disabled. totally optimised according to forum tips etc.

[Ben Chase]

Believe me I have tried everything. Now I am very IRQ savy. Everything is running on its own IRQ and memory addresses. My midi i/o is ISA on its own IRQ. I initially tried forcing IRQs with PCI steering off and device enum by bios etc no success.
What motherboard do you use?
Is there any problems with Cirrus Logic video chips?


[QUOTE]Originally posted by killerbobjr:
[B]Another possibiliity is shared IRQ\'s. If your soundcard is sharing an IRQ with another PCI card, or if your MIDI card is PCI and sharing an IRQ, this could cause the reported sluggishness.

[Chadwick]

This may or may not help.
I found this article on a Cubase user forum. It relates to Graphics cards occasionally locking up the PCI bus in order to get better performance. I suppose it could affect midi on the PCI bus as well as it does audio.
There\'s no mention of Cirrus Logic video chips, but that doesn\'t mean they\'ve been good boys either.
http://www.studio201.com/cwu/editorials/vga_kills_audio.html (\"http://www.studio201.com/cwu/editorials/vga_kills_audio.html\")

[killerbobjr]

>>>>
Is there any problems with Cirrus Logic video chips?
<<<<

If it uses bus mastering, it could potentially cause chokeups on the bus. If your video driver software has a setting for using bus mastering, turn it off.

[Ben Chase]

My video card is AGP and I have ALL performance features off incl. bus mastering 3D etc.
Anyhow I just borrowed a matrox G400 today and it STILL happened.
Have tried taking all other cards out.
All optimising tricks.
I have a mixtreme and a pulsar and tried both cards and it occurs on both.
I\'m beginning to think it\'s my MB
ABIT BX6r2 (iBX440 chipset@100mhz)
It seems to happen even at low cpu/polyphony.

ATTN Tim (original post)
What do we have in common here Tim. You didn\'t mention your motherboard, OS, video card, ram.

I was told by a technichian that if it was my ram it would be a lot more obvious.
I have a pair of 64MB elite 9908s and one 128MB seimens 9920s. Any sugestions?

The ATA66 of my segate baracuder ST330630A isn\'t supported by the BX6r2 but it supports ATA33 and there is a utility to switch the drive to 33 plus the avail settings in the bios are pio mode 1-4.

ATTN PAPA CHALK
What ABIT boards have you had success with?

[killerbobjr]

Ben, are you running both a sequencer and GSt on your Abit machine?

[Cool7s_Dad]

Good news gang:

The problem is resolved on my machine, and I suspect that this solution will help you as well. I finally received this from Nemesys Tech Support:

>Hello Timothy,
>
>You will want to disable these MIDI devices, as they will conflict or slow down
>response time in general.
>
>MidiOut devices (13):
> Device 0 - Creative S/W Synth
> Device 1 - A: SB Live! MIDI Synth
> Device 2 - B: SB Live! MIDI Synth
>

Once I disabled these devices completely, the sluggish performance went away. In addition to the Gina Card I use for Giga stuff, I also have an SB Live!. Since I have a dual boot config (one for Giga, one for general purpose computing), this solution fits nicely for me.

Another poster asked me my hardware config (sorry I don\'t remember which one of you at the moment). With credit due to killerbobjr, I have:


Asus P3B-F mobo (with UDMA 33, not UDMA 66)

512 MB Micron PC-100 RAM

Pentium III 700mhz CuMine processor overclocked to 733Mhz

Adaptec 19160 Ultra 160 SCSI controller

Two 18GB Quantum Atlas 10k Ultra 160 SCSI hard drives (10,000 RPM, 4.3ms access time)

Echo Gina card (20-bit version) running at 48khz, 20-bit depth

Matrox Millennium AGP 2X video card

Toshiba 40X CD drive

Kingston 10-base-T NIC

MidiMan 4X4 external 4 port MIDI interface

I don\'t run my sequencer on this machine. That\'s done using ProAudio and Overture on my old Pentium II 266mhz machine. It outputs to an Opcode Studio 128x 8 port external MIDI interface. Four of those ports drive the Giga machine and the other 4 drive a Kurzweil K2000, Emu Proteus 2000, Korg 05/RW, and a MidiVerb 4 FX module.

Also, on the 266 machine, I use an Emu APS card for additional FX, recording, and SoundFonts. I go out from the digital output of the Gina straight into the APS card. The master MIDI takes are recorded that way. Then the ProAudio BUN file is moved to the 733mhz machine and live overdubs are done.

Now that my latency problem is solved, I think I\'ve got one helluva project studio going here.

Peace,
Tim
http://www.elithic.com (\"http://www.elithic.com\")

[Simon Ravn]

I just have a question regarding samplerates. I too am using a Gina 20-bit, but I am running 44.1khz - is there any advantage in running 48khz or are you sure it\'s not really a disadvantage? I can understand it might be good to convert all audio to 24- or 32-bit and mix/DX/VST from there, and then do a final 16-bit mix. But having do to a 48khz to 44khz conversion doesn\'t that detract more from the result than working on 48khz from the beginning adds?

Regards,
Simon

[Cool7s_Dad]

Hi Simon:

The Gina card is really designed to work best at 48khz. And you\'ll ultimately have slightly better results if you work in 48khz and do a sample conversion on the final mix. Then at least all the mixing, interaction of sounds, overtones, and original sampling are at the highest possible quality. But, you are right to be concerned. It could be that part of my performance problems stem from forcing the Gina to do all the sample rate conversions from 44.1khz, which represents most GigaSamples, to 48khz on the fly. If I experience any more sluggishness, I may change to 44.1khz.

Peace,
Tim