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Getting rid of unneeded software that is running in the background is important.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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A word to the wise. I was using this latency tester quite extensively recently. I have got myself a Microsoft Surface Pro 7 (i5). It came with version 1909 of Windows 10 Home which I upgraded to Windows 10 Pro. I am using Blue Cats Patchwork to host some VSTi 3 instruments and play via midi live. I was noticing dropouts in the audio periodically. I checked the CPU meters and there is plenty of oomph in the i5 processor and it is not even breaking a sweat. That's when I ran DPClat.exe to check what I was dealing with. Sure enough some red spikes which I think caused the dropouts. I had been into the power and sleep settings and basically turned everything up to max. Still glitches. Did some mooching on Google and found out that there is an undocumented Ultimate Mode for power settings which can be called up by running a command prompt. (If you're interested just do a google search on 'Ultimate Mode'). So far so good. Using this Ultimate Mode also alters some settings which are not accessible in the power settings but manage at a micro level some devices and software. Sure enough re-running dpclat now shows a series of yellow (which I now take to be green) bars. More importantly the glitches in the audio have now gone and I can play my instruments nicely. Fast Forward 3 days ago, the Surface wanted to upgrade to 2004 version of Windows 10. So I let it. Then in due course I played the VSTi instruments and noticed the glitches are back. Sooo... back to Google. It turns out in Windows 10 2004 version the Ultimate Mode has been disabled by Microsoft with no way to re-enable it. I and others presume it is to let Microsoft make all portable devices operate the same with auto-power on/off, sleep mode and disabling unused USB devices (to name a few). So left with no choice I rolled back to Windows 10 version 1909. Glitches gone and Ultimate Mode is back. So it looks like music generation is very low level on Microsofts sights and their software now limits otherwise perfectly capable hardware. I wanted to use the Surface Pro with the Korg Triton, M1 and Wavestation VSTi's so as to provide the cheapest way of playing these old keyboards. I still can of course - but now I make sure there are no more updates until Microsoft changes things (if they will).  Kevin
Last edited by Kevin Woolley; 12/10/20 08:23 AM.
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To enable Ultimate Performance mode in Windows 10, follow these steps: 1. Search for Command Prompt in the Start menu. 2. Right-click the Command Prompt result. 3. Choose “Run As Administrator.” 4. In Command Prompt window, type the following command: powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb615. Press Enter. You now will have an Ultimate Mode in power & sleep settings which you should select. You can always switch back to Balanced if you don't need 100% horsepower. Note this only works with Windows 10 versions up to 1909. You can read more here with an explanation why they disabled it. What is Ultimate Performance Mode in Windows 10? Kevin
Last edited by Kevin Woolley; 12/10/20 08:39 AM.
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Fascinating, Kevin. I had not heard of this. Does Ultimate Mode have any effect on graphics, such as turning off Windows Aero, or is it just for power settings?
I've updated to 2004 for awhile now, so I apparently can't try your tip.
Irony: there was another recent thread here about how Microsoft was trying to work better with pro audio!
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Matt I would think it would give a general boost in performance to everything, graphics included as there is not so much background activity. After reading the link I posted above I want to try to put Ultimate Mode on my desktop if I can (it was upgraded to 2004). If the Uninstall data is still there you can roll back. P.S. I don't think Microsoft have the first clue about professional audio or graphics. I have just done the exercise on my desktop studio computer with an i7 processor and I was able to enable Ultimate Power Mode easily. I think it will only be on laptops and tablets you will suffer - unless you stay with ver 1909, Kevin
Last edited by Kevin Woolley; 12/10/20 09:31 AM.
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I tried it.
I'll see how it works on my older i7 desktop running 2004.
Thanks!
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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All of the above brings up the question of "what is the root cause of the issues to begin with".
My old machine ran normally for years. So what changed? Corruption in the system software due to use? That can and does happen. If that was the case doing a clean install of windows should solve the issue. In my case it did not solve the issue. Defective hard drive? Changed that. No results. Better heat control? Changed that no results. Defective power supply? Changed that. Shortly after the same issue occurred but has not returned again to date. Spend a good bit of money and build a new computer? So far that has worked without issue, for how long, who knows.
Windows updates that actually caused the problems? Yes, that is entirely possible. Poorly written application software? We have all seen that from time to time.
There is no permanent answer to computer problems. I have been highly successful in keeping my boats and airplanes running over the years, difficult but doable. Computers on the other hand have always been unpredictable both for home use and in the corporate business world.
Computers are wonderful things until they take control of the 737 you are flying and fly it into the ground.
Happy Holidays,
Billy
“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig?
“Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”
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You gotto get it the way you like it, then pour couple of quarts of crazy glue on it, so it maintains posture. I had good amount of success with CCleaner. It does a few things very well 1) it cleans most of leftovers from uninstalls and conflicts in registry, letting you make a copy of whole thing before it does it, so if something goes bananas you have a way home. 2)Lets you uninstall bunch of persistent apps that are not easily removable by normal means (add remove programs) 3)Selective service startup And whole bunch of other useful things, like duplicate finder for example. --------- The issue with programs like latencymon is that you find your "monster" and it turns out to be a system item and there is no way to stop it. Another approach that some DAWs had for years is called Load Balancing, where it tries to spread the load (of VSTs and such) through available CPU cores, but I hardly noticed difference when using it. Was experimenting with a few setups, monitoring CPU cores and it seems that when working in DAW only one core takes most of the heat and will spike if pushed slightly higher, instead of moving pressure to other cores. What I think another major factor when it comes to "clicks and pops" is a properly written interface ASIO driver. No matter how well you cut the fat of your PC, if the driver is a booger, you will definitely get your dose of clicks and pops. I see that a good number of people here use Focusrite. As far as I know, they have one of the best written drivers around... the newer ones. I was an inch from getting one, but than decided on a competitor, specifically because of distortion under load in one of my interfaces, which will go right out of the door when newborn interface arrives. Strangely, I tested 3 interfaces on the same project/same computer this is what I got with highest buffer on each: 10+ year old Yeti Pro, almost no pops (unfortunately it is not a true interface, but acts as an ASIO sound card) 5+ year old Arturia Audiofuse, my main interface. Excellent mic preamps.... Minor occasional pops. -1 year old Apogee One - Total nightmare. Would trip on just light VST load. Also has driver issues with BIAB. my reply turned out to be a lite version of War and Peace P.S. Kevin, nice find! Too bad Microsoft decided to block it. In general Mr. Nadella is long due for heavy spanking for ignoring music enthusiasts.
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I went to the command prompt and installed powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61. It came up on my old machine so I will give it a try. I have Norton 360 on the old machine which gives me three other power schemes. Now I have six options...lol I also have found CCleaner useful especially to remove some programs. I think Steve has the answer. Get a Mac truck style computer with two Xeon processors and two forty pound aluminum heat sinks and 128 gigs of RAM just for good measure! Then again if you want extreme...lol...only $45,000  Billy EDIT: I think I have the latest version of Windows 10 Pro on my old computer. So, the Ultimate power scheme loaded and worked.
Last edited by Planobilly; 12/10/20 05:24 PM.
“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig?
“Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”
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Yes, with all that extra power I can have a bunch of leaky applications and not even notice it.
 Steve BIAB/RB 2022, Pro Tools 2020, Korg N5, JBL LSR 4328 Powered Monitors, AKG/Shure Mics.
PC: Win11 PRO, 4 TB M2 SSD, 2 TB HD, 128 GB Memory
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well...we are all just messing around. Until you start talking petaflops you are not really doing much...lol A petaflop is a unit of computing speed equal to one thousand million million floating-point operations per second.
The Summit at OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY achieves an impressive 148.6 petaflops thanks to its 2.41 million cores. Got that? Over two million cores...lol
If you think in petaflops your brain will definitely self ignite and catch on fire...lol
IBM designed Summit. IBM stand for I Be Mad...Mad I tell you...and you though Frankensteins monster was scary...lol You ain't seen nothing yet...lol
Billy
Still a very cool computer Steve
“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig?
“Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”
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i dont know how hard core the pg users in this thread like to get, re tweaking // performance. but the following might be of interest. https://www.dawbench.com/index.htmlhttps://www.resplendence.com/latencymona different latency mon. https://oblique-audio.com/rtl-utility.phpmeasures round trip latency. and there are others. (YMMV). frankly i cant complain bout win 10. no probs. reaps boots up in couple of secs, and biab is fast. but i keep my refurb i5/ssd off the net. also gearslutz.com has a ton of hard core tweakers on that site. lots of pros/cons of amd and intel etc etc. and pros/cons of various daw software and OS's. i was just reading one guy saying with an i9 700 traks. wow. in addition to GSlutz reaper.fm seems to have more than a few i9 users. v interesting threads etc. merry xmas to all. muso
Last edited by justanoldmuso; 12/11/20 04:36 AM.
my songs....mixed for good earbuds...(fyi..my vocs on all songs..) https://soundcloud.com/alfsongs(90 songs created useing bb/rb) (lots of tips of mine in pg tips forum.)
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@Billy - At least your machine looks nicer. Dell doesn't tend to manufacture machines that look cool since they are mass produced. Their Alienware stuff does look cool though. If I recall, I think they may have purchased them in an acquisition.
Steve BIAB/RB 2022, Pro Tools 2020, Korg N5, JBL LSR 4328 Powered Monitors, AKG/Shure Mics.
PC: Win11 PRO, 4 TB M2 SSD, 2 TB HD, 128 GB Memory
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Hi Steve, I guess these cases with tented glass doors are pretty common now days. I just received the video card today and installed it. It also came with LEDs as did the motherboard.
My main reason for buying this case was the material, steel and aluminum and the large size. It turned out to be a little bigger than I really needed but better bigger than to small.
I was not actually looking for "cool" and I guess all that is pretty subjective in any event. It is a pretty slick looking piece of gear I think. Your machine has its own "cool" look. The exterior look of a commercial server is probably not very important to most buyers.
Because of reflection it is difficult to take a good photo of the machine through the glass door. I will see if I can do that after dark tonight.
Billy
“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig?
“Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”
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Thanks again. I found this one interesting. It told me I could reduce my buffer size lower than I thought. It also gave me something quite unexpected: a reading about my noise floor. This is my backup machine, not my fastest one, but it tested well. I did get this curious Information message: RTL Utility - Oblique Audio
Suspect Result
The measured figure is more than 50% different than what the driver reports.
This may be a legitimate result due to the driver incorrectly reporting latency figures. Some devices appear to have extra buffering which is omitted from the reported latency.
On the other hand, it might be due to a glitch in the buffer size when changing sample rates. In this case, try restarting the device and repeating the measurement.My best reading: 190 samples ( 4.3 ms) at 44.1KHz, 128 Buffer Samples Noise floor: -100.2 dB
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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I get a runtime error during install for RTL 
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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During the install? I got one after the install, until I selected my audio interface.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Matt. glad you found it usefull. dawbench is interesting also.. ultimate tweakers really dig dawbench apparently. (see gearslutz and dawbench site. lots of tweakers /deep tech info.) Rharv. if you NOTE on the rtl site it mentions you need certain win dll's to run rtl. if you dont want to install them, on gearslutz and reapers sites are lots of posts about the rtl utility and display results. so youll probably find your info you need amongst those posts. lots of tweakers. heres what the rtl utility looks like. page down. https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=228787now go deep into above thread. might be usefull. just one of many tweaker threads. at the gs or reaps forums just enter RTL and your sound interface in the search. youll get info back. this is how i chose to test the new audient evo. i searched GS for info. i ran the resplendence test on one of my refurbs today before disassembly for xmas. looked real real nice , so i was pleased. low greens. merry xmas. muso.
my songs....mixed for good earbuds...(fyi..my vocs on all songs..) https://soundcloud.com/alfsongs(90 songs created useing bb/rb) (lots of tips of mine in pg tips forum.)
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