low buffer settings (reducing latency)

[Chris Cavell]

I was just wondering if anyone out there with a 002 or 002r is actually able to use the hardware buffer setting of 64 without the audio going completely berzerk (it happens at 128 sometimes as well on my setup). 256 is doable, but I'd really like to get it down to 128 or even better 64. If so, what's your setup? Here's mine:

Heres my sys:
p4 2.4 533
1gb generic DDR 333 (2*512)
gigabyte GA8PE667-Ultra (intel 845pe chipset)
dvd drive + cd burner on secondary ide
40 gig ata133 Maxtor sys drive
80 gig 8 mb buffer and 55 gig Samsung on a promise card (on seperate channels too)
built in sound enabled (gives me an extra midi port that PT recognizes)
lan disabled in windows
adaptec fireconnect 4300
ati radeon 7500 with two cheap Kogi flat screens
Extra Unused USB buses disabled in bios(to free up some irq's)
USB microsoft optical wheelmouse

I should point out that I can rec and play at 64 and 128 to perform davec tests, just that if there is actually any sound instead of silence the output turns to garbage, a pretty strange sort of digital distortion, like aliasing on crack! Perhaps an outboard clock might help?

Any ideas, suggestions, commiserations are welcome.
Thanks all.

[tele_player]

Something sounds wrong to me. Even though davec tests don't have any musical sound, they are handling audio just like any other tracks. It doesn't sound good, but the A/D and D/A circuits aren't judgemental.

Is your problem related to the nuumber of tracks you have going? IOW, if you create a new session, and just try to do one track with buffer set to 64, it won't work?

I just created a 48k session on my 002, and started tracking a simple bluegrass ditty, with buffer set to 64. So far, I'm up to 10 tracks, with a RenVerb on an Aux, and several tracks using sends to the Aux. CPU usage is still low (Athlon 64 1700+ at 2.0 Ghz). This is recording to my system drive, a Maxtor 40G with 8Mb cache.

For me, I don't have any problems with 64 byte buffer, until I start loading the CPU (plugins), then I go up to 128, 256, as expected.

[Chris Cavell]

Nope, nothing to do with track count at all. I just went into my bios and disabled a few things I could live without, then re-enabled them because they do make using this computer a tad easier, and playback at 64 now works fine

I've still yet to test it recording at 64 now. It always stank taking it out to sessions knowing that the band might play just a tad tighter with less latency, and if it works now, for no apparent reason, I'll be perpetually stumped.

[macr0w]

I leave my buffer set at 64 all the time when recording. I haven't heard anything weird come out yet. Except maybe my music.