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Offloading audio processing and other questions

B

Breex243

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 9, 2009
Messages
252
So I've gotten into DJing a bit, and I'm using Torq with my Midi controller. I've noticed a bit of latency when browsing my music database (25K songs, nothing too unreasonable for a DJ, right?). I'm wondering what's the best option for offloading sound processing to speed up my software.

Right now, I have a Creative Audigy 2ZS Platinum, and I'm getting an X-Fi Fatal1ty Champion (might actually sell). The poor performance I reported was using on-board sound. Oh, and CPU = 3.4Ghz OCed e6750.

Here's a few questions I have:
1. Does the X-Fi mean better sound processing in terms of it being a faster chip?
2. Does the 64mb of x-RAM actually help in non-gaming situations? From some old articles I read when initially choosing between my Audigy2 and x-fi, it didn't seem to make a difference, and sound only used up like 3% of a CPUs processes, although I've found that going a bit heavy on the effects causes a noticeable lag with my dials.
3. Will a PCI-E sound card offer faster processing? From the looks of it, PCI is now being relegated to low-end sound cards, but is it enough of a bottleneck for non-uncompressed 7.1 HD sound (yes, I know, double negative)?
4. Anyone use Torq and find that it takes forever to load? I'm talking about 10/20/30min here. I'm going to ask M-audio's forums, but just wondering...
 
What music library software are you using? If you are noticing slowdown during browsing, its with that software.

You have a 3.4GHz dual core CPU, its not the sound card that is the issue here.
 
First time using multi-quote, so here goes:
Criccio--will going back to RAID 0 for music storage speed up library browsing? Kind of related--WMP only loads like 5K songs in my library until I scroll to the bottom, and it's still quite slow. Also, I don't think Torq is multithreaded, and I'm leaning more towards an e8400 than going quad, as the only time I could use 4 cores is when I'm exporting 200 jpegs from RAW files. Also, this is technical detail that I'm going to ask the Torq team--when loading my DB, my CPU stays at like 3-4%, so I'm thinking that it's a hard drive I/O issue--what do you think?

TheInfernal--no biggie, but yeah you are correct about encoding. (aside--haven't kept an eye on wether or not foobar is multithreaded when it comes to conversions--I keep both FLACs and 320MPs on hand, and conversion is a pain)

Nenu--I actually think I was using ASIO configuration on my Sound Blaster in Sound Forge when I was using that for some editing, but taking out my SB was probably mistake #1 in this whole mess. This configuration will only help with I/O response, and not database loading, right?
 
Breex243 said:
Nenu--I actually think I was using ASIO configuration on my Sound Blaster in Sound Forge when I was using that for some editing, but taking out my SB was probably mistake #1 in this whole mess. This configuration will only help with I/O response, and not database loading, right?
Click to expand...

Reducing audio latency only affects how long it takes to get sound from point a to point b.

Browsing a database is not a sound function, it is dependent on the software used, speed of processing (CPU/Ram), storage speed and configuration.
To speed up database browsing, you need to determine which of those is the major bottleneck.
 
Breex243 said:
Does the X-Fi mean better sound processing in terms of it being a faster chip?
Click to expand...
Not necessarily, no.

Breex243 said:
Does the 64mb of x-RAM actually help in non-gaming situations?
Click to expand...
No. X-RAM is only exposed in OpenAL.

Breex243 said:
Will a PCI-E sound card offer faster processing?
Click to expand...
Nope.

Breex243 said:
haven't kept an eye on wether or not foobar is multithreaded when it comes to conversions--I keep both FLACs and 320MPs on hand, and conversion is a pain)
Click to expand...
It's not technically. foobar2000 just spawns additional encoders on separate threads.
 
criccio said:
No. X-RAM is only exposed in OpenAL.
Click to expand...


FFFFUUUCCCK. Exactly what I thought originally (back in '06 I was going to get the non-Fatal1ty, x-RAM-less version). Oh well, looks like it's going on the selling block soon (boy do I have a bunch of junk piled up).
 
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