Useful DPC Latency Checker

Welease

I'm a happy bunny today, so thought i'd pass on this little gem of a utliity..

I've been having problems recently with popping and clicking while using my firewire desk. So much so, that I went out and bought another quad core machine to fix the issue... I've tried increasing/decreasing/reconfiguring buffers/disks etc.. and still the problems remained.. Plenty of similar reports on the web, and no fixes..

In a final throw of the dice, I contacted Phonic and they suggested I download http://www.thesycon.de/eng/latency_check.shtml to help diagnose the problem..

30 seconds later, I had isolated the source of my problems as my WLAN PCI card...

The tool is an DPC latency checker helps find the source of drop out's in audio/video streaming.. It's free! (and I have no connection with the company)..

Windows machines only.. but someone may find it useful if they start having issues.

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first rule of the studio - never network your DAW machine .

Paolo_M

DPC Checker is really only relevant for Windows machines.
It checks for latency is DPC calls, basically Windows reading the various device drivers, and shows up ones that causing excessive response times.
A typical Windows machine has various bits of hardware from different companies assembled into one machine with Windows stuck on top.
If the drivers for any device are not up to par you'll have pops and clicks.
Macs are all the one hardware and OS. (I'm aware they use Intel chipsets but it tends to be network cards etc. that causes latency issues.) Macs don't have this issue because everything is designed and tested by the one company.The only real latency issues on Macs are down to external audio device drivers, which are frequently not up to par.

Welease

Paolo_M wrote: »

DPC Checker is really only relevant for Windows machines.
It checks for latency is DPC calls, basically Windows reading the various device drivers, and shows up ones that causing excessive response times.
A typical Windows machine has various bits of hardware from different companies assembled into one machine with Windows stuck on top.
If the drivers for any device are not up to par you'll have pops and clicks.
Macs are all the one hardware and OS. (I'm aware they use Intel chipsets but it tends to be network cards etc. that causes latency issues.) Macs don't have this issue because everything is designed and tested by the one company.The only real latency issues on Macs are down to external audio device drivers, which are frequently not up to par.

Agreed.. but its stretching it somewhat to say that Mac's dont have latency issues. Type Mac and Latency into Google . As you say, latency issues can and do occur where a driver has not been fully tested.. It can occur with poorly written drivers either internal or external.

In the average studios 99% of equipment is not manufactured by Apple (although per studio only 1-2 devices may link to the OS)

(I'm trying to avoid a pointless Mac vs. PC debate.. just suffice to say.. it can and does happen to ALL systems depending on what you attempt to connect).

Paolo_M

Welease wrote: »

Agreed.. but its stretching it somewhat to say that Mac's dont have latency issues. Type Mac and Latency into Google . As you say, latency issues can and do occur where a driver has not been fully tested.. It can occur with poorly written drivers either internal or external.

In the average studios 99% of equipment is not manufactured by Apple (although per studio only 1-2 devices may link to the OS)

(I'm trying to avoid a pointless Mac vs. PC debate.. just suffice to say.. it can and does happen to ALL systems depending on what you attempt to connect).

I meant they don't have internal latency issues, like with the soundcard or LAN cards etc. That's really what DPC Checker is looking at.
There does seem to be extensive issues with external device drivers on Mac though, perhaps even more so than with Windows machines.
Just an observation having researched and used both, not looking for debate either. There's plenty on teh webz already!!