NI Audio 2 /8 causes CPU SPikes every 15secs

I think they cater to both guys as the PCM market is much larger than the mac one (although probably evened up more in creative pursuits )

Also I don't think there's a dpc latency program for mac, if there is I can run some tests if youn like

 

I'd be interested if there was a way to see on Macs, I've never really used 1 tho haha. Is there some sort of resource area where you can look at the stats on the cpu and ram?

I was just importing some files and took a couple screenshots. I don't connect my interface when doing this, and just use the onboard audio. When analyzing tracks, Core 1 stays at 100% (overall avg of ~65% cpu usage). When sitting idle, overall avg was still 15-20% consistently, but w/ the opposite where Core 0 does the majority of the work. When I have my A2 connected, it's the same situation, but Core 0 spikes up to 35-40% every 15sec. It's not consistent tho like w/ the onboard audio, and the overall avg probably is not much higher, which I find interesting.

 

I'll check it over the next week, busy at work!

 

dead wrong, mate. the developement is done for both platforms with the same amount of effort.
(and actually the traktor users are pretty much 50/50 win and mac users, at least these are the results from the surveys)

true.

when i find the time, i'll have a look at it, but i have to admit as long as there is exactly NONE audio issue involved, i couldnt care less, personally speaking...

 

I may well have been on wrong if they cater to Mac users, but I still doubt they would spend time/money on a fix for the Windows driver to stop the CPU spikes, when it technically works fine already.

 

how much time is left, depends a bit on what other issues might be more pressing, but general performance improvements are always part of the developement.

 

Most modern cpus are made to save power -> clocking down to lower mhz when not buzy enough. also when high performance powerprofile setting in windows is selected
check out cpu-z
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html
what you want is Core speed & multiplier to stay at maximum when using traktor
watch cpu-z together with cpu usage in taskmanger. If cpu clocks down with 10-25% you will see cpuusage in taskmanger raise in %
use studio one powerprofile instead of windows performance profile
http://support.presonus.com/entries/...for-studio-one
Also look at Throttlestop utility (now support for newer intel cpus) to stabilize & lock cpu features
http://www.techinferno.com/downloads/?did=41

I use both studio one powerprofile & Throttlestop to max out low end pc for traktor

 

mate thats some excellent advice. going to check out those links now as never heard of those utilities apart from CPU-Z before..

 

I'd like to hear how it goes, please update!

 

Guy, what's happend is (sorry my bad english):

New guys don't keep in touch with pre- MS-DOS era, so there's one thing called IRQ (Interruption ReQuest), and now are added Energy Economy ideas, so evertytime check IRQ it's not enough you computer now everytime too it asks if there's something connected to Energy, so if you play sound at a high level (normally), the Windows think the interface is not working, so they try cut the energy in order the battery economy., just as if you listen a noise for too much time, you don't notivce more the noise exist !

Lets try to fix some problems !

So, on Control Panel, in device manager, if you go to USB Controllers (Universal Serial Bus) and click on one of the USB Root Hub, the last tab is Energy Management, and There's an option called : Computer can .... to economy energy (sorry, I'm Brazillian and my win is in portuguese, but I know you will Understand).. You uncheck all of them and your problem is solved, ok ? NOOOO

If you come back again, after few boots, the square will stay ticked again.

There's one one solution, ad follow this :

1 - Mouse Right click on desktop, then click on Personalize (or something like this)
2 - Click on Screen Saver or screen protection
3 - On new window, go bottom and click on Change energy configuration
4 - on the right size of your plan (of course, I know who you is using High Performance) click on modify configuration plan (or something like this)
5 - Put everyting on NEVER
6 - The KEY THINGS STARTS NOW : Click on Change Advanced Energy Configuration (or something like this)
7 - Go to USB Configs and left-click there twice, will open down SELECTIVE SUSPENSION USB CONFIG (or something like this). Click left-click twice on this
8 - You will se two sub menus : On battery and on energy (or something like this)
9 - Once time each one of this (battery and on energy) you have two options, Deactivated and Activated (or something like this).. Choose on booth : Deactivated , click ok on every screen you see and now your interface never more will stop in the middle of your set, and probably will solve you clicks problems.
10- Now, remember on control panel, device manager and usb hoot hub ?
11 - Go to each one and see if there's something sharing energy with the USB port you use. Avoid the port who share energy with webcam, bluetooth or wi-fi, beacuse they have priority on energy, so remeber IRQ ? every time who windows check if they are working, windows can thieve some energy and cause you problems if your USB is shared with any of this devices.

Other important thing: NEVER use wi-fi with Audio devices, this may cause glitches, even if you are not using Wifi .. Again, the interruptions request uses computer processing too !

The best practice is again, control panel, device manages and on network adapter, deactivate all before you put your computer on our bag to play ! Doing this, you avoid the damn IRQ problems too, and you can reconnect in your home !

I know this cause I work with audio and technology since 80286 was the best computer, and I use computers since pre MS-Dos times...lol..

And sorry for my bad english, I never took classes, and just as my computer and DJK skills, I learned by myself !

If there's something I can Help more, feel free to keep in touch !

 

Driver is badly programed

There is clearly something wrong with this driver, and it doesn't matter ver 2.9 or 3.0, even the latest beta 3.0x causes the same spikes. And is also very clear that the culprit is the driver and/or the Traktor Audio hardware (in my case Audio 2, Win 7 64bit, 2,9 GHz Intel Quadcore I-5, 4 GB RAM ).
And all the system optimization, as switching off Wifi, energy options etc don't help, so forget this, it doesn't have any effect.

The following observation can be made, the tools you need are Windows task manager and resource monitor.

Connect your Traktor Audio interface with any free USB 2 port. Reboot, so all should be normal.
Configure Winamp or any other mp3 player with Traktor Audio interface as default audio device.
Start task manager and wait until all CPU activity comes to zero more or less.
Start resource monitor and mark system interrupts.
Then play any mp3 (I always use 320kbit/s mp3's) with your player.
In task manager you notice immediately the cpu spikes on CPU 0 (1st core) normally repeating every 15 seconds up to 100% followed by falling down near 0, and so on...
In the resource monitor you notice going high the system interrupts in the same 15 sec intervalls.
There is no other task or service who has this behaviour, so its clear the spikes are caused by system interrupts.
If you stop now your mp3 player and exit the player , you will notice another strange behaviour of the Traktor audio. Now your CPU on Core 0 doesn't stay on near 0% workload but remains on something between 20-30% (depends on how powerful is your cpu) without spikes, although your system is doing nothing ! Normally your CPU should stand near zero now.
To verify if Traktor Audio causes this 20-30% workload, pull out the USB cable from your system that is connected with your Traktor Audio interface. Workload drops immediately to 0%.
The same behaviour has the latest 3.x beta driver (supposedly optimized for USB 3), although cpu spikes don't reach 100% but something between 50-75%, if connected to USB 3 (!) - and causes also audio glitches or short audio interruptions.

The thing is, if your system is powerful enough with luck you won't hear audio interruptions. But if the environment temperature is higher or too high, then maybe your CPU doesn't use the highest GHz number and audio interruptions will be more present.

On the same system the realtek onboard audio, or the asio4all, or the Intel HDMI audio over TV never causes any cpu spikes and/or audio glitches. I have tried this on 3 different systems and on all its the same bad behaviour. Normally the audio interruptions appear when you don't need them ;-)

You can tell me what you want, but if a simple playing of a mp3 causes such high cpu load spikes and only with playing an mp3 you get audio interruptions , then something with the driver and/or hardware is seriously wrong. And I am not talking about DJ software like Traktor or something like that ! Using this will cause more problems because Traktor software puts already a significant load on your CPU.

So, NI, get this driver finally done because we are already waiting too much time for a correctly working driver.

Edit:
This thread/post should be moved to Traktor Audio2/8 interface forum because it has nothing to do with the Traktor Pro DJ software as it happens with every mp3 player om your system.

 

I do get a CPU usage increase too, but only about 8-10%. No spikes of total CPU usage go above 25%.

 

how do your measure this ? If you look only the status line it will show you only the average of your 2, 4, 8 or how many cores you have. So if you have 4 cores and one is on 100% and the other on 0% it says something like you observed. You have to look at the graph of the single cpu cores, here you can see the spikes and how high they go.

Edit:
Just notice that your are using Mac, this is another world and different drivers, probably not comparably and/or drivers are better optimized for Mac, who knows...

 

This is on Windows 8. I am watching the graphs for the 4 individual cores in Resource Monitor and none of them spike significantly.

 

Dear DDuck,

As per my previous posts way back I can replicate your findings over and over again on different setups with NI Usb audio devices. I have multiple laptops at my disposal (being In I.T) and I can replicate on everyone of them. Dosn't matter if its win 7/win 8 32bit/64bit 4gb/8gb ram etc etc. The only difference is that the higher the cpu spec the lower the spike which is why people dosnt notice as much on newer machines. on a Core 2 Duo you get a 30-50% spike every 15secs ! All the optimisation tips are helpful in that any extra load so as Wi-Fi etc puts a little load on the cpu on top of the usb spike! absolutely agree though its the driver which causes the issue as other sound cards (USB as well behringer etc) do not have the issue.

However I wouldn't hold your breath for a fix. this has been an issue with them from the start and NI don't wish to admit or rectify the problem.

 

I ve been using a super tweaked version of XP I ve made many years ago with absolute success on both of my laptops (constant dpc latency of less than 30μs, not even minor spikes on the "green range")

I tried to move to Win 8 on both of my laptops due to the ridiculous decision of NI to not support XP officialy (It works fine for now if you bypass the setup checks, but who knows what they ll do in the future).

Had no luck at all. USBPORT.SYS is causing major spikes every 10-15 secs, and even some of the storage and TCP drivers cause spikes every now and then.

Back to XP for me.

 

are you saying that with a barebones XP o/s you didn't get the 15sec spike from the usbport.sys ?

 

Yup. I also tried Windows 7, and no spikes at all. Windows XP has a way lower average though.

 

i cannot confirm such spikes on my computers. neither with win7, nor with xp. and my old dell and my current toshiba are very far away from being cutting edge...

 

Hi,

I have exactly the same problems/behaviour on my laptops with Audio8 DJ. On Core2Duo those spikes reaches 100% of 1st CPU Core every 15 seconds. With 1st generation of i5 (Arrandale) those spikes reaches about 25% of 1st CPU Core every 15 seconds. Both laptops are Intel chipsets with newest possible drivers. Can someone reproduce this with different brand of chipsets (VIA, SiS, AMD, nVidia)?