Sonar, Aardvark DP 24/96, XP

[skiks]

I’m wondering if anyone out there with a similar setup has found stable (i.e., useable) settings for using Sonar with the Aardvark Direct Pro 24/96 in Win XP.

I’ve read the FAQs and have tried a myriad of different buffer settings and so on, but still get dropouts often enough that I can’t do any serious work. Even worse is the fact that after a dropout Sonar gets really slow and I have to quit the program (and sometimes restart) before I get proper functionality back. I don’t have anything else running while Sonar is on. I’ve got the latest drivers and followed the instructions from the Aardvark website. I also have a SoundBlaster Live 5.1 that I only use for MIDI sounds.

Any suggestions?? Thanks in advance!

My system:
AMD Athlon 1600+
512 MB RAM
40GB HD (system) (FAT32)
60GB HD (dedicated) (FAT32)
Windows XP
Aardvark DP 24/96 (driver 7.0)
SoundBlaster Live 5.1
Sonar 2.0 XL

cheers!

[gascap]

Wow,

I have basically the same stuff (XP PRO, SONAR 2.0, and a DP 24/96 except I run with a P3, 550) and have had very little to NO probs....works great! I'll have to check some settings, but I think I mainly goofed around with the latency bar. I also bagged the 7.0 driver and went back to ver. 5.22 - I think it is?)

I'll look around for other settings, but honestly, it worked pretty much from the get-go. Let me know of specific things you might want me to check.

[skiks]

gascap,

Thanks for the reply. I'm curious, why did you bag the latest Aardvark drivers? Did you have trouble with them? I'm tempted to do the same as it seems that the DP 24/96 is far more unstable than it used to be when I ran the old drivers, Sonar 1.3 and Win98SE.
I can live with latency (a little).

Are you also using a SoundBlaster? I'm skeptical of SB in XP (from a few things I've read)and I wonder if there is a conflict between the cards...even though they worked just fine together before I made all these 'upgrades' for the sake of (ahem) greater stability.

Two more questions: what is your I/O buffer size on the audio/advanced page? And what hardware buffer size do you have on the Aardvark advanced page?

Thanks!

[Nick Driver]

I run the DP 24/96 under XP Pro, but on an ASUS P4T-E mobo, 1.6a GHz P4 machine. I simply installed Sonar 2.0XL and it just works. I do have my on-mobo sound disabled, I read something a couple months ago before I bought my DP 24/96 about these audio interfaces not playing happily togtether along with SB and SB-like interfaces under XP with both audio hardware devices enabled at the same time, so I've always ran mine with the only the Aardvark interface enabled.

I also am not running the 7.0 Aardvark drivers, I had to go back to the 6.35 version because my DSP effects would only work at 32KHz sample rate under the 7.0 drivers, which sucked. I record mostly at 44.1KHz.

[dcumpian]

From these messages, am I understanding correctly that you guys are using non-XP drivers with Windows XP? How is that possible?

Is yes, can I use the older drivers for GSIF support under XP?

Thanks,
Dan

[SonarAardvark]

No, the 6.35 were the first XP drivers for Aardvark. 7.0 was the second release in which some people were experienceing problems with DSP effects.

[skiks]

Thanks for all the info everyone.

I emailed Aardvark in hopes of obtaining the 6.35 driver (I have the 5.22 from the CD and the 7.0 download---the 6.35 beta doesn't seem to be on their site anymore).

However, I may have solved most of the problem....we'll see! I followed advice from one of these forums and replaced my SoundBlaster drivers with the ones on the kx Project site. So far, so good!
www.kxproject.com (http://www.kxproject.com)

I'll post again in a few days after some serious testing.

ciao

[skiks]

No, it is still messed up.

Folks, maybe the Sblaster has to go? This is a drag, as it was convenient for a few lo-fi sounds I was attached to.

Maybe someday it will work in XP, with the DP 24/96. I am tired of tweaking, tired of the BS. I think I give up.

[skiks]

Indeed, I'm over it. The edirol VSC DXi GM sounds are close enough to the SB GM sounds I needed from old projects. I still need to load the SB card and reboot to output sound in Finale but that's not so painful, is it?

Otherwise I guess I am joining the ranks of the SB-disabled and happy in Sonar (until there is a real fix).

I'll shut up for a while.
best,

[SonarAardvark]

I am using my sblive quite nicely with my aardvark.

I am using the original Microsoft XP drivers for my SBLive and it works fine.

[skiks]

SonarAardvark,

Are you running in Standard PC mode or ACPI?

Now that I've learned about the ACPI IRQ issues (and indeed, my dp 24/96 and SB share IRQ 11 with each other *and* with USB devices running in ACPI) I suspect that to resolve the conflicts I may need to disable ACPI and re-install everything (sigh). So for now I'll just disable/enable SB I guess.

I may try moving my Aardvark card to a different slot as well.

If you are running in ACPI and not having problems, please send me your settings!! ;-]

[SonarAardvark]

I am not running ACPI. That is probably a big source of your troubles.

I don't think the slot will change much for you once you disable acpi.

[gascap]

Hi Skiks,

Sorry I've been late on the draw here...but I've actually been too busy *get this* recording!..a rarity lately. I can say that I reverted to the older driver because the aark effects stopped working. I don't know if it was related to the driver, but I decided to leave well enough alone.

I will re-read your other questions and hopefully answer them this evening.



[This message has been edited by gascap (edited 08-22-2002).]

[gascap]

Hey Again Skiks,

My I/O buffer size in SONAR is set to 64 (the default I believe...)

The Aark ASIO buffer size is set to 256 (again, I'm not sure how this number was decided)

I know you wrote that you followed the AARk website directions for best results with SONAR, but make sure all the DMA Buffer Sizes are set to 48.

Let me know of anything else I can check out for you.

Cheers!

[skiks]

Thanks again folks. This is a great community.

I'm going to stick with the 7.0 driver as long as things are going well. Last night was pure joy---making music. No more tensing up waiting for the mouse to freeze, etc. As long as my SB is disabled Sonar and the DP 24/96 run beautifully (as advertised). I am too stubborn to re-install everything again so I'll deal with ACPI and disabling the SB except when using Finale. If I have problems again I'll bite the bullet and switch to standard mode. It's a slight pain, but the upside is that I've been exploring the VSC DXi more than I would have before, which is probably a better GM solution for the long run (despite the CPU/RAM issue, which I doubt will come up very often with my system...).

Anyway, if I have to it seems I can use the SB (for playback) as long as I'm not recording.

Glad to hear of your productivity, gascap.

SonarAardvark, you're right: I moved the Aard to a different slot but it didn't affect my IRQ situation; standard mode is surely the answer.

I wish I would have come to these forums before I installed XP!!

ciao

[gascap]

I knew I forgot something. Yes, I have to disable the SB card. I rarely use it and should take it out all together. It sounds like you're on the right track.

Good luck!

[oops]

Could some of you guys plug a mic in at 96khz and have a listen with headphones at higher volumes then please email me whether you get clicks and pops or not.
Thats anyone using xp with aarvark cards.
Thanks http://www.rightwingproductions.com

[oops]

Nforce2 asus a7n8x and xp2600+ 333fsb with pc3200 coming in a couple of days. Will post offerings when I get it set up. Sticking with the 2496's cause I like them. I'll try XP with the different sets of drivers and post what I find. Hopefully able to get some serious throughput. Hopefully clean at 96khz in XP.
I've had perfect results with asus a7v333 solid in xp with not too much buggyness other than that recording at 96khz was clicky. The throuput in Sonar shot right up and could minitor software effects in real time. Wish I could find a solution to recording at the higher 96khz though because my clients deserve the best sound possible.
If this new rig doesn't work at 96 without clicks I'll again revert back to win99se for its clean sound at the higher level.
I'll post though with the new nforce2 up and running after a few days. Also I'll run Sonartest.zip from cakewalknet.com and put results up here. Take care http://www.rightwingproductions.com

[Rv-Sound]

That's weird. I'm using a kt133a mobo and my Direct Pro works extremely well with SX and v7 drivers under win2k (now SP3). The only thing I had to do is tweak the chipset's PCI latency timers (may be only aplicable to this mobo-VIA) and now its running at a 100% PCI efficency at all times. I'm running the onboard audio as well. All works perfect, the DSP Fx work at 44.1 and 48k. I can use the lowest latency settings in sx without any dropouts (there's some strain on the CPU however, but that is normal to all cards at low latencies me thinks). For me the v7 drivers were a winner. My only request to aardvark now is to improve this wdm/mme/DX support thing (on some applications that didn't work well), put variable sampling rates below 44.1 (so I can listen to samples at other sampling rates when using cd-Extract), make a control on the software panel to adjust the output of the headphones indepently of the faders, and last but not least, add meterering to the compressor (its just useless now).

[Rv-Sound]

I forgot, I did the 96k test. I'm on win2k tough. I don't get clicks and pops.

[oops]

Originally posted by Rv-Sound:
I forgot, I did the 96k test. I'm on win2k tough. I don't get clicks and pops.

Does'nt win2k utilize the wdma driver???
or is it using the mmx driver?
Thanks.

[oops]

Originally posted by Rv-Sound:
I forgot, I did the 96k test. I'm on win2k tough. I don't get clicks and pops.

Oh! sorry also... How's the midi throughput in Win2k? (midi latency) not softsynth, but actual midi latency.
Thanks again.

[oops]

Some midi stuff here http://sonarXLstuff.iuma.com
This done in Sonar with loops whatever triggered by midi out of audigy to aardvak inputs out to cakewalk sonar. I pushed the sound around a lot with softsynths triggered by drum sequences and that in turn being groove sampeled or routed to other dxi synths and rerouted back to sonarxl.
The site is self explanatory. Hope you don't mind the plug.

[jbsongs]

RV - what did you do to tweak your PCI latency settings for the KT133a set - up. I have virtually the same set - up and never get more than 60% pci efficiency (100% at idle) - usually it's at 53%. I only have one other pci slot being used for a network card. I am using XPand Sonar X 1.31, however. Any tips to improve PCI efficiency for this specific set-up would be greatly appreciated.I'm also using the 6.35 drivers for the DP 24/96.I've used the George B patch and that improved efficiency by about 7%.

[Rv-Sound]

about the midi latency, I really don't know, how would be an easy way to meassure that? I use softsynths and all I can say is that its perfect to play with. Its great because I'm even using the onboard's midi I/O as well as the DP's, so I got extra ports that allow me to use a POD as a midi knob controller http://www.audioforums.com/forums/wink.gif. I plug the pod to the onboard and my keyboard controller to the DP. I don't use any outboard synths/samplers, but just plugins. And for that it works perfect.

About MME/WDM?...it doesn't matter, since besides ASIO, any system will see the DP as MME. But it doesn't matter, since aardvark's propietary driver works like other manufacturer's wdm's.

About the settings, there's two little utilities on viahardware.com called wpcredit, and wpcreset. With wpcredit, you can directly change values to the northbridge. Its perfectly safe to use. If you boot after making changes, the changes will switch back to normal. U use then wpcrest to retain the values each time you boot. wpcrest is like a little driver wich triggers at startup and make the changes to the northbridge that you found work best for you.
What I basically did, I went and grab the tech notes from george's patches and with wpcredit did a whole analysis of wich settings had an impact on my system. You already might know that george's patches are meant for raid SB live problems, and so on, stuff that I could care less. So I did some testing on my own, and finally a single, safe tweak make a whole lot of a difference.
I even managed to squeeze my tbird a little bit (1.4 running oc'd to 1.5x ghz) and its working great, perfectly safe.
Another thing I paid carefull attention was ram. At that time I choosed high quality SDRAM from crucial, cas 2, pc-150. There's this other little utility on viahardware called memspeed or something like that. It analyses you ram and it displays what your ram should be setup to (CAS, TRAS, TRP TRCP, etc). I use that to properly configure my Ram. Same goes for memory interleave, make sure u got it enabled on the bios.
Even with a good mobo, you don't know how big the impact is on a system with bad configured ram.

Last, I don't use this machine for USB, so I disabled it completly. I also installed win2k (APM install) and then updated it to SP3. I don't what to sound like a hotshot, but even if this machine is now a little outdated, it just makes me feel good. It just works for hours and hours with out any drop outs, crashes, or whatever. It does what I bought it for and I'm happy. I was thinking to upgrade soon to a mobo with DDR, but I think I can still squeeze this one for a couple of more months...
If u need more inside help with wpcredit etc, you can write me to rv_sound@hotmail.com

[This message has been edited by Rv-Sound (edited 11-24-2002).]

[This message has been edited by Rv-Sound (edited 11-24-2002).]

[CloudNine]

I hope this thread is still alive (four years old?).
My win2k is out of service now (for many months), so I ordered and xp Dell.
I'm thinking of installing the 24/96 in the xp machine and wondered where I can get the best driver to use with xp pro.
I also ordered the audigy mb option with the Dell and would appreciate any tips in that regard, too.
Thanks.
Jim

[sabianq]

i use the LX6 with sonar 5 and have no issues with it. the audio is crystal clear.
there are some websites dedicated to aardvark users, there just few and far between.

there is a call to get the makers of the Aardvark cards to give up the source code so the programmers can really tap into the potential of this card.

check out the Aardvark support page:
current as of 10/06/2006

http://asg.hopto.org/

hope this helps!

[CloudNine]

Thank you for the information and link. I appreciate it.
I like the phrase about enjoying the silence. Good reminder for muddy tunes.
Jim

[sabianq]

no problem.....
welcome to Audioforums.com

[CloudNine]

I hope to learn some stuff here and contribute when I can.

Jim