Dirac Live standalone for PC and Mac

[voodooless]

Just checked:

That should just work.

 

[kaffe]

Just checked:

View attachment 340298
That should just work.

Thanks a bunch

That's really nice to hear.

 

[RosalieTheDog]

I'll reach out to Dirac Live support, but just in case any of you might provide some pointers. Listening to music while working on my Windows 10 PC I've noticed some cracks etc., clearly related to other work the PC was doing (i.e. opening another browser tab etc.). This is new. I am pretty sure it's related to some Windows audio settings and perhaps Windows update. Dirac Live manual recommends increasing latency in case of cracks, which I assume correlates with buffer size. However, playing with those settings results in a much worse problem (do I have to remeasure, in that case?). I have also tried other settings in 'audio device type' (Windows Audio Exclusive & Windows Audio Low Latency). The 'Asio' option doesn't work, as my output devices don't appear.

Any ideas?

Edit: Never mind, it seems to be a Windows wide problem, even when bypassing the Dirac Live Processor. Damned windows updates.

 

[staticV3]

@RosalieTheDog Try running LatencyMon, it may tell you specifically which background process is causing issues.

In case that's the Topping E30 in your screenshot, a manual driver install is required if you want to use ASIO.

You can download it here: https://www.tpdz.net/newsinfo/379406.html

 

[RosalieTheDog]

@RosalieTheDog Try running LatencyMon, it may tell you specifically which background process is causing issues.

In case that's the Topping E30 in your screenshot, a manual driver install is required of you want to use ASIO.

You can download it here: https://www.tpdz.net/newsinfo/379406.html

Thank you for your advice, as always. Installing the E30 driver and setting it to ASIO, then increaing the buffer size in the Topping Audio Device seemed to improve things. However, running LatencyMon and just listening to music / working, I did get a serious drop-out. It gave this result: "
Your system appears to be having trouble handling real-time audio and other tasks. You are likely to experience buffer underruns appearing as drop outs, clicks or pops. One or more DPC routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. One problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup. Check for BIOS updates. LatencyMon has been analyzing your system for 0:02:41 (h:mm:ss) on all processors."

I am a bit at a loss as to how to interpret this. Will read up on what CPU throttling is and how to change the settings.

 

[staticV3]

@RosalieTheDog would you mind uploading a screenshot of LatencyMon after running it for a while?

 

[RosalieTheDog]

@RosalieTheDog would you mind uploading a screenshot of LatencyMon after running it for a while?

I think it is related indeed to some AMD CPU setting. The above is with a performance focused AMD CPU/GPU setting in Amd software. The below is immediately after switching to a "quality" preset, with the same processes running.

 

[Davide]

View attachment 348253

I think it is related indeed to some AMD CPU setting. The above is with a performance focused AMD CPU/GPU setting in Amd software. The below is immediately after switching to a "quality" preset, with the same processes running.

View attachment 348254

Try to follow this exhaustive guide.
I too had similar problems and after a thousand investigations I discovered they were caused by a poorly managed Intel Tuning Management driver on my Dell laptop (Latencymon just showed very high DPC latency of ACPI.sys ...so not immediate to understand).
By disabling the driver I solved it (not with little effort) but if the cause is a driver that you need (like the one for the graphics card) it becomes more complicated.
My PC still has a dropout when it turns off the screen due to power saving timeout...
But the great thing is that with a different DAC there are no problems (probably due to higher safety buffer in the driver than my current professional interface, typically low latency).
The Windows architecture is simply not made for all this... it just question of luck.
So, good luck with investigation and settings.... And consider to return your pc if you can and try different model (avoid Dell).

 

[RosalieTheDog]

Try to follow this exhaustive guide.
I too had similar problems and after a thousand investigations I discovered they were caused by a poorly managed Intel Tuning Management driver on my Dell laptop (Latencymon just showed very high DPC latency of ACPI.sys ...so not immediate to understand).
By disabling the driver I solved it (not with little effort) but if the cause is a driver that you need (like the one for the graphics card) it becomes more complicated.
My PC still has a dropout when it turns off the screen due to power saving timeout...
But the great thing is that with a different DAC there are no problems (probably due to higher safety buffer in the driver than my current professional interface, typically low latency).
The Windows architecture is simply not made for all this... it just question of luck.
So, good luck with investigation and settings.... And consider to return your pc if you can and try different model (avoid Dell).

Thank you Davide for this resource. Whatever precise setting was interfering (one of the many Radeon CPU settings hidden in AMD Adrenaline), chosing the 'performance' preset has solved the issue. I am not very curious about finding out the exact cause. When it's necessary I will refer to that guide.

 

[RosalieTheDog]

Thank you Davide for this resource. Whatever precise setting was interfering (one of the many Radeon CPU settings hidden in AMD Adrenaline), chosing the 'performance' preset has solved the issue. I am not very curious about finding out the exact cause. When it's necessary I will refer to that guide.

FYI, in case someone ran into the same latency issue, it did sadly recur. I tried many solutions that I found online related to the wdf01000.sys issue. I was pretty sure it was some windows problem that I couldn't fix myself. Finally, I decided to upgrade windows 10 to windows 11, and so far, the problem has disappeared. It's ironic, because I stalled upgrading to Windows 11 because I feared it would mess up audio drivers and the like.