"Realtime" priority in task manager

[EFTER]

Hey everyone! This goes out to all you windows users

Was just wondering if any of you guys have tried changing the priority of Live from 'normal' to 'realtime'?
Seeing as music production software is one of the few cases where a stable realtime process is a must. I know some people have experienced crashes and the likes when changing priority, but haven't experienced anything myself so far.

[Stromkraft]

haven't experienced anything myself so far. :D

like performance increases?

[EFTER]

I don’t think there necessarily should be a performance increase. As far as I understand, the realtime priority makes the prioritized process less interrupted - as in the little (like network) services that constantly interfere and cause latency. So theoretically I’d assume the realtime priority would lead to fewer dropouts and crackling - although I have no actual technical knowledge on the subject ...

[fishmonkey]

the "real-time" priority setting on Windows is meant to be used for small, high-priority, low-CPU use processes.

if Live isn't pushing your machine hard, then setting it to "real-time" won't help. if Live is pushing your machine hard, then it's likely to cause problems.

[EFTER]

Ah, okay. So is there a way to prioritize a program in windows so that other threads don't interfere with Ableton, ensuring as much stability as possible?

[fishmonkey]

what kind of "stability" are you talking about?

[nc2010]

Reopening this topic with some interesting news!

I am using music software since 20 years at least. And for the first time today, I found "Realtime priority" to do a big difference on Live!

Context:

* computer which is a bit old
* external USB soundcard with latency/buffer size set to a low value (128 samples)
* CPU is not high when using Live (thus, I never thought realtime priority would help)
* when run normally ("normal priority"), Live has many "glitches" in the audio playback
* with "realtime priority", no more audio glitches/sound drops in Live !

[Dungeon]

Reopening this topic with some interesting news!

I am using music software since 20 years at least. And for the first time today, I found "Realtime priority" to do a big difference on Live!

Context:

* computer which is a bit old
* external USB soundcard with latency/buffer size set to a low value (128 samples)
* CPU is not high when using Live (thus, I never thought realtime priority would help)
* when run normally ("normal priority"), Live has many "glitches" in the audio playback
* with "realtime priority", no more audio glitches/sound drops in Live !

This is exactly what I was wondering. I am going to test this myself. Can you share more specs being that now we are in 2024 a computer that "is a bit old" can mean anything? Like is my computer old cause it was high end in 2018? I turned up my RAM in the BIOS which now operates at the speed advertised and have now started enabling the RAM setting in my warped files and now I wanted to know if this realtime setting makes sense cause for VR it is bad and you should not use it. But in the circumstance of an external soundcard maybe this makes sense. I will report back what happens hopefully nothing terrible.

My specs are
X 470 Pro Carbon Gaming Motherboard
Ryzen 7 2700X
RTX 4080
32 GB RAM by Corsair speed at 1333 MHz
C drive is SSD running Windows 10 and Ableton Live 11 Suite

With Apollo Twin usb buffer size at 32 setting the priority to realtime eliminates pops and audio drop outs instantly! Also I enabled RAM and have HiQ on all my audio samples but still have idle plugins like serum and some 37 channels all grouped and routed and fx on the master. Will see if she's stable!