Ableton Forum

Hi,

I came across several posts where users suggested that Latency mon can be used to identify issues with drivers causing latency problems. I found ACPI.sys and having trying to solve the issue but to no avail. My question here is that is the data reported from these tools really means that there is an issue? I cannot feel much latency while working on projects.I tried the bench marking test in the forum and saw similar results as others.



Wanted to know from users if I should rely on these tests

Latency mon metrics

interrupt to process latency - 150 to 600

highest measured - 1144

Highest ISR - 233(wdf01000.sys)

Highest DPC - 1188 (ACPI.sys)

Highest reported hard page faults - 53273. Its RED

DPC Checker - This is mostly Yellow lines

those tools are not for testing your audio latency in a DAW. they test the latency of low-level system calls that interrupt processing. if these interruptions last for too long, then you may get audio processing glitches.

if you are not hearing audio glitches then you may not have a problem. however, if your DPC latency is spiking near the threshold then it will mean that your computer is more likely to glitch at higher loads.

the ACPI.sys thing is related to power management, and is a common culprit on laptops.

https://www.ableton.com/answers/windows ... sys-driver

fishmonkey wrote:those tools are not for testing your audio latency in a DAW. they test the latency of low-level system calls that interrupt processing. if these interruptions last for too long, then you may get audio processing glitches.

if you are not hearing audio glitches then you may not have a problem. however, if your DPC latency is spiking near the threshold then it will mean that your computer is more likely to glitch at higher loads.

the ACPI.sys thing is related to power management, and is a common culprit on laptops.

https://www.ableton.com/answers/windows ... sys-driver

Thanks a lot for replying. All my research pointed to the same direction. Interestingly I want to decide on a new PC, so I went to the store and tried latency mon on multiple high end laptopn 1. Spectre i7 2. Surface pro i5 and the 3. New Dell XPS 13 i7. All of them had high hard faults and some or the other process giving high interrupts time. Decided to buy a macbook pro finally(after 20 years of using Windows!!).

Lets hope i don't spend too much time on just figuring out things like latency

shrekage wrote:
Thanks a lot for replying. All my research pointed to the same direction. Interestingly I want to decide on a new PC, so I went to the store and tried latency mon on multiple high end laptopn 1. Spectre i7 2. Surface pro i5 and the 3. New Dell XPS 13 i7. All of them had high hard faults and some or the other process giving high interrupts time.

But was it possible for you to turn off throttling on those machines? Kinda pointless tests if it wasn't.

Stromkraft wrote:

shrekage wrote:
Thanks a lot for replying. All my research pointed to the same direction. Interestingly I want to decide on a new PC, so I went to the store and tried latency mon on multiple high end laptopn 1. Spectre i7 2. Surface pro i5 and the 3. New Dell XPS 13 i7. All of them had high hard faults and some or the other process giving high interrupts time.

But was it possible for you to turn off throttling on those machines? Kinda pointless tests if it wasn't.

Not sure what throttling settings are these? I did everything on the HP spectre, had for two weeks. Updated bios , reinstall windows, changed power settings. diasbled APCI. Everything possible, but I could still see the issue.

Also, i was able to run 5-6 simulataneous versions of serum on the machine before it started showing 100%.

On the macbook pro at 6 instances the system is at 12% with same config i7 and 16GB.(though spectre is 7th gen and macbook is 4th gen)

shrekage wrote:

Stromkraft wrote:

shrekage wrote:
Thanks a lot for replying. All my research pointed to the same direction. Interestingly I want to decide on a new PC, so I went to the store and tried latency mon on multiple high end laptopn 1. Spectre i7 2. Surface pro i5 and the 3. New Dell XPS 13 i7. All of them had high hard faults and some or the other process giving high interrupts time.

But was it possible for you to turn off throttling on those machines? Kinda pointless tests if it wasn't.

Not sure what throttling settings are these? I did everything on the HP spectre, had for two weeks. Updated bios , reinstall windows, changed power settings. diasbled APCI. Everything possible, but I could still see the issue.

Neither am I as this varies with processor and machine brand, but it's a common issue. Sometimes you can affect this is in BIOS/UEFI settings or in control panel settings.

I wish the Mac had the same fine control over this.

Well I would say that ignorance is bliss! The lesser I have to fiddle around with settings and optimization more time I get to make music. Right now everything is working as expected on mac so all good.