[ddots-l] Re: Noel's post about system settings to avoid Glitches and pops?

Hi Mike,
Below is the thread where in the lads mentioned Noel's post etc. I cut and paste it for you. I would read it through.
Also, in terms of the Presonus Firepod, my experience is that WDM drivers with buffer settings somewhere between 9 and 15 works quite nicely even on my old laptop which is a 1.6 Ghz processor with only 512 mb RAM using Windows XP.
Many people recommend using the Texas Instruments fire wire chipset for external fire wire audio controllers such as the Presonus Firepod as opposed to the cbuilt in factory issue chip set but I have found the latter to work all right for me. 

Okay, now here is the thread between the masters at work:
Gord wrote: Have you set priority to background services in the performance dialog under the 
advanced tab of system in windows control panel?
Phil replied: No, no, no! Very very bad idea. In fact, this can make your system much more unstable. I remember trying this on several occasions with various set-ups and found that system performance got significantly worse. I wondered if it was something to do with my system. Then, I came across an article written by Noel Borthwick from Cakewalk. Noel recommends not doing this at all, and having played with this setting here myself and discussed this with others in the business, 
I agree with Noel.

you will find noel's post at the following URL:

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=1238330
Here's a quote from noel's post. Noel wrote: "I don't recommend this. Setting the sheduling to background for "better performance" with drivers is a myth. At best this is masking a real problem 
with
the driver. All this does is change the quanta for the timeslice assigned by the windows scheduler. By making the time slice longer you are potentially setting up a scenario where the high priority audio threads in the host application might be denied frequent enough servicing by the scheduler! This might actually result in more dropouts or clicks. Here is a quote from an MSDN article 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308417

.
If you click Programs, the foreground program runs more smoothly and responds more quickly. If you want a background task such as a Backup utility to run faster, click Background services. . The Programs option allocates short, variable time slices (quanta) to running programs, and the 
Background services option assigns long, fixed quanta.
Contrarary to the SOS article that says "this is the most essential tweak of all, because ASIO 
drivers run as background services in Windows." An ASIO
driver is just another a dll running in the process memory space, its NOT a background service - at 
least not typically. I've never seen an ASIO driver
that installs an actual Windows service (you would see that in the services view otherwise). Its 
just a DLL running a user mode thread to service the audio
device and asio callbacks. The thread is no different from the threads that run in the host 
application itself. If the driver is coded to have the thread
priority set to time critical and its thread is not being blocked by something else there should be 
no need to change this setting. i.e. for the few people
this "helps" its likely that all its doing is masking another more fundamental problem. Additionally setting the sheduling to background is allowing ALL other background tasks on your 
computer to get a longer timeslice - i.e some other windows
service or background application is now more likely might to start interfering with the host task." 

Regards, Phil Muir
P J Muir Productions
Music And Audio Production
URL:
http://www.philmuir.com/
Band website:
http://www.demuirs.com/

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----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Christer" <m-christer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
To: <ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 8:05 PM
Subject: [ddots-l] Re: Glitches and pops?



Hey Phil!

Please could you tell me where I can read/get hold of the 'post' by Noel,
that you and Gord talk of?

Cheers

Mike
----- Original Message ----- From: "Phil Muir" <ddots@xxxxxxxxxxxx> 
To: <ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 11:19 PM
Subject: [ddots-l] Re: Glitches and pops?
Gord wrote: Wow! I went up and looked at Noel's post. It certainly makes 
sense,
especially the bit about that tweak actually allowing other background
services unrelated to daw applications to get longer time slices in task
scheduling.

Phil replied: agreed!


Regards, Phil Muir
P J Muir Productions
Music And Audio Production
URL:
http://www.philmuir.com/
Band website:
http://www.demuirs.com/
----- Original Message ----- From: "Gordon Kent" <dbmusic@xxxxxxxxxxxx> 
To: <ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 9:38 PM
Subject: [ddots-l] Re: Glitches and pops?



Wow!  I went up and looked at Noel's post.  It certainly makes sense,
especially the bit about that tweak actually allowing other background
services unrelated to daw applications to get longer time slices in task
scheduling.
Gord
----- Original Message ----- From: "Phil Muir" <ddots@xxxxxxxxxxxx> 
To: <ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 6:38 AM
Subject: [ddots-l] Re: Glitches and pops?



Gord wrote: Wow!  Tascam had put up what was considered the definitive
set of tweaks for
best audio performance a couple of years ago and that was one of the
first
things they said, especially when using asio drivers.

Phil replied: that's a great document, a part from that twique.  I have
also found that speeding up the menus twique is a good one too!

Gord wrote: I did definitely
notice an improvement with my laptop, which is a 202ghz dual core, when
I
did this recently.  Now lately I've been experimenting with going back
to
wdm with my motu, so maybe I should try chaning this setting back.
Every
one of the dancing dots systems that I set up had this setting on them,
as
well as the paging settings and visual performance settings.
Phil replied: the pageing and visual performance are good twiques to do. 
Noel is a good guy and his article is definitely worth a read.

By the way, if any of you are uing MOTU gear in WDM mode then, you will
want to change this setting in the wave section of your Aud.ini file.


KsUseInputEvent=1





Regards, Phil Muir
P J Muir Productions
Music And Audio Production
URL:
http://www.philmuir.com/
Band website:
http://www.demuirs.com/
----- Original Message ----- From: "Gordon Kent" <dbmusic@xxxxxxxxxxxx> 
To: <ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 6:13 AM
Subject: [ddots-l] Re: Glitches and pops?



Wow!  Tascam had put up what was considered the definitive set of
tweaks for best audio performance a couple of years ago and that was
one of the first things they said, especially when using asio drivers.
I did definitely notice an improvement with my laptop, which is a
202ghz dual core, when I did this recently.  Now lately I've been
experimenting with going back to wdm with my motu, so maybe I should
try chaning this setting back.  Every one of the dancing dots systems
that I set up had this setting on them, as well as the paging settings
and visual performance settings.
Gord
----- Original Message ----- From: "Phil Muir" <ddots@xxxxxxxxxxxx> 
To: "Dancing Dots E-mail List" <ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 2:04 PM
Subject: [ddots-l] Re: Glitches and pops?



Gord wrote: Have you set priority to background services in the
performance dialog under the
advanced tab of system in windows control panel?
Phil replied: No, no, no! Very very bad idea. In fact, this can make 
your system much more
unstable.  I remember trying this on several occasions with various
set-ups and found that system
performance got significantly worse.  I wondered if it was something
to do with my system. Then, I
came across an article written by Noel Borthwick from Cakewalk.  Noel
recommends not doing this at
all, and having played with this setting here myself and discussed
this with others in the business,
I agree with Noel.

you will find noel's post at the following URL:

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=1238330
Here's a quote from noel's post. Noel wrote: "I don't recommend this. 
Setting the sheduling to background for "better performance" with
drivers is a myth. At best this is masking a real problem with
the driver. All this does is change the quanta for the timeslice
assigned by the windows scheduler. By making the time slice longer you 
are potentially setting up a scenario where the high priority audio
threads in the host application might be denied frequent enough
servicing by the scheduler! This might actually result in more
dropouts or clicks. Here is a quote from an MSDN article

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308417
. If you click Programs, the foreground program runs more smoothly and 
responds more quickly. If you want a background task such as a Backup
utility to run faster, click Background services.
. The Programs option allocates short, variable time slices (quanta)
to running programs, and the Background services option assigns long,
fixed quanta.


Contrarary to the SOS article that says "this is the most essential
tweak of all, because ASIO drivers run as background services in
Windows." An ASIO
driver is just another a dll running in the process memory space, its
NOT a background service - at least not typically. I've never seen an
ASIO driver
that installs an actual Windows service (you would see that in the
services view otherwise). Its just a DLL running a user mode thread to 
service the audio
device and asio callbacks. The thread is no different from the threads 
that run in the host application itself. If the driver is coded to
have the thread
priority set to time critical and its thread is not being blocked by
something else there should be no need to change this setting. i.e.
for the few people
this "helps" its likely that all its doing is masking another more
fundamental problem.
Additionally setting the sheduling to background is allowing ALL other background tasks on your computer to get a longer timeslice - i.e some 
other windows
service or background application is now more likely might to start
interfering with the host task."

Regards, Phil Muir
P J Muir Productions
Music And Audio Production
URL:
http://www.philmuir.com/
Band website:
http://www.demuirs.com/

PLEASE READ THIS FOOTER AT LEAST ONCE!
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