Clicks and pops again...

[Slacknote]

I’ve never been super impressed by the latency on my system, see attached screenshot, and I have to usually mix my buses down to audio and then sometimes even increase the buffer size after that to avoid real-time clicks. But what triggered this optimisation drive is the incredibly high CPU load of Moog Mariana. This is a known issue but on my system it was so bad that it just choked Studio One, but this is not my main problem, let me explain.

Moog Tech Support linked me this:
Troubleshooting DPC Latency : inMusic Support
I installed and ran: LatencyMon, see attached screenshot.
This prompted me to update the BIOS. I do this regularly but hadn’t checked for updates in a while. I also updated drivers that W11 update somehow missed with Intel® Driver & Support Assistant.
This in itself was a useful exercise and I think it marginally improved things.

LatencyMon reckons:

1. At least one detected problem appears to be network related. In case you are using a WLAN adapter, try disabling it to get better results.
2. One problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup.

1. That's disabling the WiFi network adapter in the W11 Device Manager right?
2. Power management had somehow switched to “Balanced” I’m sure it was on “High Performance” so it was good I checked that again. But I found something else, see screenshot: a “Presonus Audio Streaming” power management profile I’d never seen before. Should I use this, if so how is it different from “High Performance”?

In general my system is up to date, W11 updates daily, I update my BIOS, Studio One 7 Pro and all plugins I use as soon as I’m aware of the update.

Any tips?

Thanks,

Slacknote/Robert

 

[Vocalpoint]

For Win 11 - and clicks, pops and nasties - there is only so much you can do with basic power settings, BIOS updates and the like.

The real problem with Win 11 lies deeper. This OS is a disaster (out of the box) due it's Thread Director and it's ridiculous need to conserve energy by parking the cores of any user's modern multi core CPU.

DAW users (like us) have zero use for any core parking - like ever. You want all cores at full bore at all times.

Now - you already know you are in trouble with the output from LatencyMon. For LatencyMon - Green is good. Any Red = bad.

Your next steps are to download ParkControl from Bitsum and ensure it looks like this:



These settings should get you squarely in the ballpark for success.

Extra: If you really want to get your hands dirty - look up a utility called Power Settings Explorer. It will expose a world of power settings that almost no one is aware of. If you go this route - expose these options and set them as indicated (ParkControl will do most of this for you) and save it as your new DAW Power Plan



This should get you to ClickFree in no time.

VP

 

[Slacknote]

Great, I followed both tips. Now let's see if this improves things.

 

[lokeyfly]

1. That's disabling the WiFi network adapter in the W11 Device Manager right?

Yeah, follow Vocalpoints lead as he is obviously up on W11 optimization. On your above question, I think that only means disabling WiFi by turning it off. I see no need to dissable power management from the device manager. Thats kind of a clunky way of turning it off. You should either have a hard switch on your PC, or typically from your task bar. I know simply turning WiFi off in general, I'll always see a slight improvement with CPU (within Studio One, that is) relieving power management on a whole.

 

[Slacknote]

Yeah, follow Vocalpoints lead as he is obviously up on W11 optimization. On your above question, I think that only means disabling WiFi by turning it off. I see no need to dissable power management from the device manager. Thats kind of a clunky way of turning it off. You should either have a hard switch on your PC, or typically from your task bar. I know simply turning WiFi off in general, I'll always see a slight improvement with CPU (within Studio One, that is) relieving power management on a whole.

So this then?

 

[lokeyfly]

So this then?

Yes. Check by turning that on and off and see if there's a difference. There may not be when startng a song, but when track counts go way up, and/or heavy load on your CPU plugins come out, you'll likely see an immediate change with less clicks, pops, & performance. This along with what Vocalpoint provided, which I think you already have in place.

 

[Slacknote]

What about setting Studio One's priority to high in the Task Manager, see attachment?
Thanks all for your help, this has been rather useful. All thanks to Moog Mariana which is a lovely synth but a rubbish piece of software.

 

[Vocalpoint]

What about setting Studio One's priority to high in the Task Manager, see attachment?
Thanks all for your help, this has been rather useful. All thanks to Moog Mariana which is a lovely synth but a rubbish piece of software.

This is not required or useful.

VP

 

[Slacknote]

This is not required or useful.

VP

Thought so, thanks.

 

[lokeyfly]

Ditto, never saw selecting priority in the Task Manager as doing much of anything.

 

[Vocalpoint]

Thought so, thanks.

Have you had a chance to completely review the power/core tweaks that I posted?

If that does not do it - you have other issues ay play here.

I can confirm that all of the ParkControl/Power Settings Explorer settings will get you to a non-glitchy state almost instantly.

VP