Hi guys!

Excuse the drama of the subject line, but I had to tell this like it is. After updating Windows 10 a few times (including to the new May version 2021) or just basically putzing about, I'd noticed the DAW musician's least favourite cereal descriptors making themselves known on my 7-year old system: Snap, Crackle and Pop. I was not happy to hear this, because I thought I kept a reasonably well-tweaked Win-10 system for audio recording (as per all the great guides out there as to what services were worth running, system optimization tweaks etc.). I was either going to reimage my hard drive back to a previous month (or 3!) to get back to 'better performance' or do a complete reinstall or even throw in the towel and get a new system. But then I found this video:

LIFE-ALTERING! I did pretty much everything on the list here (save the registry edits, as I don't use a laptop but a desktop) and BAM! Everything back to amazing! NO audio latency issues (as per LatencyMon's testing). Wish I could publish the 'Before/After' stats, but trust me ... hugely different. No more snap, crackle or pop. No more having to reboot to 'clean start' a project sans issues. I personally think the biggest thing - for some reason - was the Ethernet card drivers update ... not sure why, but it counts toward getting that problem, life-sucking driver 'STORPORT.SYS' from ruining your audio-workflow. But everything suggested here is 'undoable' ... if it don't need doing, undo it. But I found NO ISSUES by having made the changes - everything is better from Audio to Video.

Like having a brand new PC again.

I'd also like to add that my AUDIENT ID14 (Mk 1) purchase last month was the best investment I have made in ages. What a great sound-interface. It was because of a 'tweaking suggestions' video they put me on to from their YouTube channel that I found the LatencyMon free testing software (which I'm sure y'all already know about) and was able to get to the bottom of all my issues. Thanks Audient!

Let me know if your PC-DAW was fixed or saved because of the video herein linked.
Cardamom

 

Yep, Drivers can have a big effect in overall system latency and stuff..

I don't know the actual status of things but,
Nvidia drivers have/had bad reputation in this aspect, causing sluggishness or drops, and showing clearly in LatencyMon.

Luckily I've never had this problem tho, as I've always used W7 and ATI/AMD cards.
(I know its silly, but I still regret Nvidia killing/eating 3DFX somehow.. lol)

What's the Ethernet card's brand, or Chipset model tho?
It may be helpful for other ppl..

 

Last edited: May 4, 2021

Thanks for the info Cardamom. Just about to do a fresh install of Win10 and use debloater to rip out all the crap. These tips will help as well!

 

Now if someone can just rescue me from this MIDI hell I live in with Windows. I have to patch things in the most absurd ways just to simply control my synths since it constantly tells me it doesn't have enough system memory. I can't activate a device in Ableton if I want to use it with any MIDI controller based plugins like Ctrlr. Most days I need a calculus degree and a private investigator to help me try and patch virtual ports together just so I can get my devices to control more than one thing at a time... and just because it works today, doesn't mean it will work tomorrow. If I plug anything in a different USB port- have to juggle all over again. Older devices? You don't know the mazes I've run through to get a simple patch to work. Its literally a convoluted mess and I never know if something will work on a day to day basis. Even with an Edirol UM-550 and multiple inputs/outputs, I can never just simply use one thing to control another without having to go through some maze.

Windows MIDI is responsible for Covid. There, I said it.

 

A good tool to cut Telemetry is Spybot Anti Beacon:
https://www.safer-networking.org/products/spybot-anti-beacon

 

Set the Windows power profile to High Performance is a must (mostly for older PC's/Laptops)!
Pause Sysinternals Process Explorer with [space] if running in background.

Disable all Hardware devices which not necessary for audio production.
I managed this with batch files like my Bitwig_Start.bat https://pastebin.com/ndR2G4J7
In there it runs a second batch with a list of killing apps before DAW runs and re-runs it if Bitwig gets closed. Also it's include a task for task planer so if the whole machine gets a BOSD the disabled devices gets activated again after a reboot

I use only Windows onboard tools and PsTools...

All not perfectly but it works way better as without!
If anyone have hints to make things better in my batch or other usefull hints report here plz ^^

 

Last edited: May 17, 2021

My goto tool is W10Privacy...

 

Nice one!
will have to check it out.

I couldn't avoid reading the positive outline tho..

„I was not aware that I was tapped.“...
Angela Merkel

It's like.. K-Boom, ultimate bomb argument lol

But you know, I kinda would be even more sold out if it was Vladimir Putin..

 

i find this helpful https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10

 

There's a recent thread about a nice pack of real-time tweaks for windows 10. Don't remember which by heart but it'd be cool for someone to link it here.

 

did you think about that ? https://devblogs.microsoft.com/wind...dio-workstation-build-and-tweak-guide-part-1/

 

Optimizing Computer Applications for Latency: Part 1: Configuring the Hardware
https://software.intel.com/content/...-latency-part-1-configuring-the-hardware.html
Optimizing Your Computer for Audio - Windows 10
https://support.presonus.com/hc/en-...Optimizing-Your-Computer-for-Audio-Windows-10