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  • VE Pro network setup tips

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    So I have finally narrowed down some issues that have been outstanding on my rigs and thought this might be useful to others.  I had been having unexplained sporadic but frequent cpu spikes in Cubase/Nuendo for awhile but could never track down the exact cause after a lot of troubleshooting. My asio meters would bounce to extremes. Also occasional glitching in the network audio. Was very frustrating, when the system cpu was always normal and the machines checked out fine on all DPC latency tests.  VE Pro at 1 buffer would stream fine but the asio meter would spike more.  When at 2 buffers I would get less asio spikes but VE Pro streaming could get glitchy.  I tried all combinations of audio buffer and VE Pro buffers.  So that got me to thinking the issue was somehow related to the network card and some kind of priority issue.  I 

    So as soon as I turned off Interupt Moderation in all my Intel and Realtek NEC's things were absolutely perfect!  It was enabled by default.  So simple!  I can now set my audio buffer down to 64 samples and VE Pro to 2 buffers and everything plays perfectly!  I will probably settle at 128.

    So if anyone is having similiar issues go into your network Configure panel under Adavanced (Windows) and look for anything related to Interrupt Moderation and disable it; I set Interupt Moderation Rate to off as well.  Also a good idea to turn off any Green Ethnernet/energy saving options in the NEC too.

    Hope that helps.
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    Interesting.  But here, I tried it on a couple of the slave computers and the DAW and the networked stopped working.  Doesn't seem like that sort of adjustment would do that, but it did.  Changed it back on and was able to get things communicating again.

    A lot of people make their livings maintaining networks!  Curious if this helps anyone else.

    Paul
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    hmmm weird.  Works perfect here.  Network does cut out momentarily as it reinitializes, but all network functions seems to work just as before.  From what I understand, with Interupt Moderation on the driver attempts to optimize interupts which to me is a recipe for disaster; I'd rather the system manage everything.  Anyway, if your system works as is of course don't bother! I was more directing to people who were having similiar problems.  Here it made my system totally rock solid glitch free and I can go much lower in latency.  I am pretty happy.
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    Good information here.  http://kb.pert.geant.net/PERTKB/InterruptCoalescence

    "While this scheme lowers interrupt-related system load significantly, it can have adverse effects on timing, and make TCP traffic more bursty or "clumpy"."

    That's kind of what was happening to my network audio; it would sort of stutter and then "burst", and timing would be all off.  It's weird that at 1 buffer in VE Pro it would play fine.  I am guessing because the driver was giving higher priority to those packets, but of course it would freak out ASIO.  This was mainly on my master DAW.  I just turned it off on the slaves for good measure but could probably turn those back on as it started working with just Interupt Moderation off on the master DAW machine.

    Also, forgot to say the issue I was experience didn't seem to be system specific as a newly built X79 system exhibited the exact behavior as previous x58 DAW, each with totally different components. I personally think it is somehow related to a change Steinberg did as at first the x58 machine ran fine for a year or so and then I think somewhere along the several Cubendo updates I gradually started noticing this spiking when running VE Pro.  Though maybe it could have been one of the VE Pro updates too since the behavior does change depending on the VE Pro buffer..  Who knows.