Latency, could it be the SATA drive?

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andyg666
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Latency, could it be the SATA drive?

Post by andyg666 » Fri Jun 26, 2009 9:36 am

My setup is this:

Win XP
3Ghz P-IV
1.5GB Ram
1 TB SATA hard drive
M-Audio Firewire 410
Cubase SX3

This is a new (for me) computer. My old system (slower CPU and only 512MB of ram, but IDE hard drive). The m-audio HW buffer is set to 128 samples. In the VST Devices Setup screen, Cubase says latency is about 4ms. Yet when I play--even with no plugins running at all--the output latency is definitely more than 4ms. Sounds closer to 40ms to me.. Awful...

The older computer didn't have this problem. The only difference is that I'm writing/reading the audio to/from a SATA drive, and the older system just had IDE drives. Is the SATA drive causing latency?

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

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Post by digitaldrummer » Fri Jun 26, 2009 2:53 pm

I really don't think that would affect the latency of the sound passing through your A/D. Even if it did, in most cases SATA drives have a faster interface than IDE.

Is your sound output through the M-Audio or another sound card in the system? Are you using new drivers for the 410 or are you missing some updates, etc. I don't know much about Cubase so can't help you much there.
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Post by jnTracks » Sat Jun 27, 2009 6:58 am

most cases is an understatement.

SATA has a transfer of 1.5Gbit/s (if you have an old one) and 3.0Gbit/s for most of them
IDE has a maximum bandwidth of 133Mbit/s

now, the drive itself is probably 7200rpm (most common) which has a sustained transfer rate of about 560Mbit/s

that's faster than IDE but only 1/3rd as fast as the slowest SATA and 1/6th for the fast ones. i other words the SATA interface technology is way faster than the drive that's using it.

:)
i don't mean this to be a rant, i just like to point out some of the silly inconsistency of computer tech. plans to make a 6.0gbit/s standard for SATA were published in july 2008. that would be 12 times faster than the drives that use it.
why aren't we making faster hard drives?

(i checked my numbers with Wikipedia)


sooooooo, could some settings have changed in cuebase or your interface when you switched computers?

i haven't touched cuebase for many years so i wouldn't know what to look for
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Post by andyg666 » Sat Jun 27, 2009 10:25 am

so i created a new session and mapped the audio to the C: drive (which is a 40 gig IDE and just runs the OS and software) and there is no latency problem. so problem band-aid fixed for now at least. i can record on the c drive and just use the sata drive for storage.

i think i either have a bum drive or i installed it wrong or there's some conflict with the OS, etc... to install the SATA drive i just plugged it in to SATA port 0 and formatted it (4 sections of 250 gigs a piece). windows had no problems and reported no errors. the SATA cable itself is rather long (like a foot and a half) as i wasn't sure that anything shorter would reach from the far end of the moboard to the drive bays in the opposite corner (but it definitely will). does cable length have an adverse effect on SATA performance?

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Post by andyg666 » Sat Jun 27, 2009 10:26 am

^^^^

post 666

:twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

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Post by jnTracks » Sat Jul 04, 2009 6:41 am

cable length can effect it. but as i understand it IDE cables have a more limited length than SATA.

and recording to your program drive may work but it's not recommended, for many reasons. one of which is the possibility of latency since the drive is being accessed for program and as a recording drive at the same time!
:wink:

i suspect your problem is compatibility with the motherboard or the specific SATA chipset your motherboard is using.

windows PC's can be tricky as DAW's, because there are so many hardware manufacturers. that's what i use but i'm very careful when i do a build to research all the parts very thoroughly for compatibility issues. (i'm on protools) so first stop is digidesign's web site to see the list of tested compatible motherboards and chips (and so on). then, in the case of my latest DAW build i looked through forums until i found somebody using exactly the same combination of mobo, cpu, ram... who had no issues.

first check all your motherboard chipsets and make sure they're up to date on drivers. update aaaaaaaall the drivers on the system.

then, have you googled this problem? you may find someone with the same hardware as you having the same problem. and maybe even a workaround/solution. looks like nobody here is having the same thing as you so you should google through other boards. i can only theorize, you know?

good luck, come back with more info if you get stuck again. i'm pretty PC savy (been building my own DAW's for better part of 10 years) so i'll advise if i can!
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Post by digitaldrummer » Sat Jul 04, 2009 10:58 am

jntracks wrote:most cases is an understatement.

SATA has a transfer of 1.5Gbit/s (if you have an old one) and 3.0Gbit/s for most of them
IDE has a maximum bandwidth of 133Mbit/s
FWIW you are mixing up bits and bytes. ATA is 133 MB/sec (MegaBytes) and SATA is now at 3.0Gb/sec (Gigabit). 3.0 Gb/s divided by 10 bits per byte (long story but its 8bit/10bit encoded so really is 10bit) gives you about 300 MB/sec max bandwidth. A single SATA drive is not capable of that kind of bandwidth for any real world length of time (regardless of what the drive's specs say).

sorry to go off-topic 8)
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Post by Snarl 12/8 » Sat Jul 04, 2009 2:38 pm

Do you have good SATA drivers? I think sometimes SATA drives do an emulation mode, where they "just work" if you pop them in a computer, but they don't really shine until the computer knows the official language for talking to them. I just skimmed the thread, so forgive me if this was mentioned/covered already.
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Post by jnTracks » Sun Jul 05, 2009 7:42 am

digitaldrummer wrote: FWIW you are mixing up bits and bytes. ATA is 133 MB/sec (MegaBytes) and SATA is now at 3.0Gb/sec (Gigabit). 3.0 Gb/s divided by 10 bits per byte (long story but its 8bit/10bit encoded so really is 10bit) gives you about 300 MB/sec max bandwidth. A single SATA drive is not capable of that kind of bandwidth for any real world length of time (regardless of what the drive's specs say).

sorry to go off-topic 8)
yes, sorry i had it right in my head, just mistyped it. silly byte math.

the site i was checking my numbers on wasn't keeping their units consistent. ether way, SATA is basically an order of magnitude faster. but the drives that run on them are still 7200 rpm and the caches aren't big enough to sustain transfers faster than ATA133 for more than a second or two.

thus, the problem must be in the drivers or system/program settings
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Post by Snarl 12/8 » Sun Jul 05, 2009 1:19 pm

What exact SATA drive is it? Some of them are "built for comfort, not speed".
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Post by andyg666 » Thu Jul 30, 2009 6:00 pm

or i could just be STUPID. i had a waves L3 across the master bus on the session that wrote to the sata drive... take that off and poof--there goes the latency.

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