I installed an RME UFX to work with Pro Tools 12.4. Unfortunately, if I was playing down or recording into Pro Tools and had RME’s TotalMix or any other window open on the computer, there would be crackling in the audio as long as that window or any other windows remained open. This crackling would also be in any audio being recorded. And when resizing the TotalMix Window that was quite jittery. Here’s what I did to stop all that from happening:
- Had already done all the Avid recommended optimizations for my OS (Windows 8.1) after the computer was built.
- Rolled back to an image before any RME Drivers were installed.
- Disabled Application Experience in Services.
- Uninstalled all NVidia Drivers except the NVidia Graphics Driver and NVidia PhysX System Software.
- Updated only the NVidia Graphics Driver and NVidia PhysX System Software.
- Reset the RME UFX back to Factory Settings using the front controls on the RME interface.
- Put the RME interface’s USB cable on a USB 2.0 port (can’t get it on it’s own USB bus).
- Uninstalled Pro Tools 12.4, the HD Driver, Preferences, etc. and the 003 Rack Driver I had been using with my 002 Rack.
- Installed the RME USB Drivers.
- Installed the RME interface (turned it on and let Windows find/install the drivers) then rebooted the computer.
- Set my onboard soundcard as the default for Windows sounds/audio, leaving my RME UFX for Pro tools only.
- In Control Panel>System>Advanced System Settings>Advanced>Performance/Settings>Visual Effects used Custom and only turned on/check marked Enable Peek, Show Translucent Selection Rectangle, Smooth Edges Of Screen Fonts and Smooth-Scroll List Boxes.
- Then under the Advance Tab beside the Visual Effects Tab made sure Adjust for best performance of: is set to Background services and turned off Virtual Memory (Page File) for all drives (I have 16 gb of RAM).
- Installed Pro Tools 12.4 and Avid App Manager, rebuilt Preferences (not copied in as by Trasher) and turned off Clip Transparency in the View>Clip Menu.
- Using Task Manager I Disabled a number of Start-Up Items, for me specifically: Skype, SuperAntiSpyware, Bing Desktop, Sun Java Update Schedule, Avid Application Manager and AppManHelper (Avid Application Manager Helper).
I rebooted the computer and then ran CCleaner’s Registry Cleaner in between each of the above steps, making sure to fix the issues CCleaner found and then immediately ran CCLeaner’s Registry Cleaner again, rinse and repeat until there were no issues found as not all issues are dealt with on the first run or even subsequent runs.
I also copied my Pro Tools sessions off my Audio Drive, formatted my Audio Drive and then copied my Pro Tools sessions back to my Audio Drive (Avid recommends doing this rather than Defragmenting the Audio Drive).
Not only has the crackling in the audio, whether playing back or being recorded, been stopped with any additional window or windows besides pro Tools being open, but also Pro Tools itself is now very stable and seems “snappier”. As well, sessions open and close (quite a bit) faster than before. Indeed the computer is faster outside of Pro Tools too. And now resizing the TotalMix Window is quite smooth.
Hopefully some/all of the above may help someone else with the same or similar issues and/or graphic issues.
As always, YMMV.