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Audio Production problems with Athlon 64?

post #1 of 14
6/10/05 at 10:26pm
Thread Starter 
I need to put together a notebook for a friend who does A LOT of professional audio, using things like Reason, Wave, Cubase, etc.

I've read that the new Centrino2's (533 bus units) have an issue with keeping midi sync. I was wondering if the Athlon 64 laptops are clear of this issue. Anyone have any negative results, or advice when using an Athlon 64 Laptop (I'm recommending a 3400 for a sweet pricepoint.)
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post #2 of 14
6/13/05 at 10:37am
where did you heard this? im currently waiting for my 9300 in order to make music on them (yes midi too )
do you have a link?

greetings wafze
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post #3 of 14
6/13/05 at 11:16am
Yes please elaborate on the midi sync problems MrGraphics.

Since reading your posts here, I've searched many music forums and the only problem that I have found with the Centrinos (533) has to do with the implementation of PCIe for video which only seems to be a problem on some machines and with certain music apps (like Nuendo - http://www.nuendo.com/phpbb2/viewforum.php?f=7).

As I am about to buy an ASUS Z71V and am dependent on midi clock to sync to external gear, I would really like to learn more about the problems you've discovered with midi sync. Links would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.
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post #4 of 14
6/15/05 at 6:20pm
Thread Starter 
That is where I was getting my information - from the Nuendo forums topics that were referenced here. I dont personally own a Centrino 533 so I can't personally say that I am having the issues.

Perhaps I took a problem that was occuring with one app (Nuendo) and assumed all applications had this issue. Would someone composing with one of these 533 bus laptops set me/us straight?
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post #5 of 14
6/16/05 at 3:57am
Thanks for responding MrGraphics, I'll dig a bit deeper into the Neundo forums and see what I can find out.

From what I've read so far, there seems to be a problem with some high powered video cards on the PCIe bus taking too much bandwith which causes poor performance with audio and miidi on desktops too, not just laptops that use the 915e chipset.

Some combos work and some don't, it looks like the ASUS Z71V and possibly the Dell 9300 will work as they have low powered video cards which don't hog the bus. In fact the guy who raised the PCIe problem on the Neundo forums (Scott of ADK) has found one which works and it looks like a rebranded Z71V. He's selling it as the ADK - 7000S here: http://www.adkproaudio.com/systems/laptop.cfm

If the AMD 64s use PCIe for video, then they too could have problems. I also saw a reference that you have to be careful with the cardbus and firewire chipsets with the AMDs to avoid audio and midi problems.

If I learn more, I'll share here. If anyone has had some real world experience with midi and audio on the 533 Centrinos, let us know.

Thanks.
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post #6 of 14
6/16/05 at 5:50pm
Thread Starter 
That's really interesting, and makes complete sense. I have a Matrox RT2500 in my desktop and its really picky about the motherboard / bus utilization. It practically wants all bus bandwidth for itself. Anything less and it won't perform.

I've also read that the DDR2 memory has higher latencies too. So a hogged PCIx bus + high latencys would cause some problems.

Funny thing about my RT2500. I am using the K7N8x Asus motherboard (based on nForce 2) and it works swimmingly. I tried using another brand motherboard that was also an nForce 2 chipset, and it doesn't work. Goes to show that Asus really has their stuff together (which may explain why the Asus laptop doesn't exhibit the same problem as others).
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post #7 of 14
8/31/05 at 12:06am
I am having a big problem with reason 3.0 where when using a midi controller to play a sound from reason. For the first minute or 2 it will be ok then the midi controller wont play anything from reason OR the note will hang and the only way to stop it is to quit reason........im thinking my new 9300 with the geforce 6800go is causing this issue, im still within the 21 days so maybe i can get a lowered powered video card (ati x300) and be ok?
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post #8 of 14
8/31/05 at 11:00pm
Hmmm - I'd have thought this would be a motherboard chipset / video driver issue, rather than a cpu one, though the higher AMD 64 cpu-to-system bandwidth might conceivably help..

It might be worth trying to turn the video driver acceleration down to minimal settings, if possible. I've seen advice not to use accelerated drivers on linux while doing very timing-critical audio work for this reason - also there's a procedure to adjust the relative latencies of pci slots, but I don't know if this can be done on windows.

If I might be allowed a dumb side question, from a notebook audio newbie: what's the best way of doing midi on a noteboook? - I've yet to see one specced with a midi port!
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post #9 of 14
9/25/05 at 5:29am
I'm using an AMD 64 3500+ w/ 1gig of RAM (notebook) (soon going 2 gigs!) for audio editing and it does fine without a sweat...Adobe Audition and Pro Tools to be exact...

My desktop has an Intel P4 3.6GHz w/ Hyper Threading w/ 1 gig of RAM and it's about neck to neck....the AMD does process faster from my own personal experience....seconds wise....

I have love for both, but go with AMD...
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post #10 of 14
9/25/05 at 3:11pm
Midi......many audio interfaces also have midi in out, usb and firewire. Or you can get a usb midi interface. These are pretty inexpensive. Or your controller might have midi ports, which also work off usb.

My oxygen 8 has midi outs so I can trigger outboard gear, but then I have to route the outboard audio back to the computer, which I hardly do anymore.
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post #11 of 14
9/25/05 at 3:15pm
Check the IRQ;s and see if your video is shared with your audio. On most all of the amd's I've checked out, audio has always had its own IRQ and there should be less problems.

I've rarely had any problems that you are describing with my amb athlon xpm, other than running out of processing power with high active track count.

On my 1.6 Centrino, although there is audio/video irq sharing, there is the occasional glitch, albeit these are laptops.
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post #12 of 14
9/25/05 at 3:16pm
mrgraphics......love you avatar....that is awesome!
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post #13 of 14
9/25/05 at 7:31pm
There is a known problem with certain chipsets and PCI-E and Audio cards. NForce4 chipset is most notable for this, but PCI-E In general tends to cause problems with audio as has been mentioned. The current running theory that i have heard is that the video card is hogging so much of the bandwidth on the PCI-E bus that it is slowing down the audio card. Now this is not always true because some board manufacturers have seemingly been fairly exempt from this(For example my Tyan Dual Opteron K8WE with PCI-E) so I havent heard a confirmed report of what is causing this.

In as far as IRQs, try to make sure your audio card has a fairly low IRQ in the range of things, remember this is not in numeric order, the order actually goes 0,1,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,3,....

So an IRQ of 9 or 10 should do fine, preferably 9 and your video card on 10, etc.

In as fara s Midi, Fachiro got it right on, go with an external interface, I doubt youll find a laptop anymore with a game/midi port on it, and those werent that good anyways.

Seablade
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post #14 of 14
10/7/05 at 4:57pm
I don't have any midi sync issues- all my drum and synth tracks work well in cubase. I will say, I do have midi sync problems if I use an emulated usb midi device. Fortunately my keyboard also has a midi output.
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