@dtmd
Forgive me for not being precise. You are right about the price gamble not being much of a pain. My point is you can always install just a Geforce driver, no additional bloatware. But if your point is that it's the Geforce driver that fucks up as opposed to a Quadro driver, well... There is little difference in their drivers, they even share identical names many times. Geforce's include some game optimizing profiles, Quadro's include CAD, Solidworks profiles etc etc. In both cases all the additional profiles are bloat when all you do is audio work.
If people are bored to optimize then they should go for a Radeon instead (not that a Radeon doesn't need optimizing, but its driver is supposedly less intrusive). If people need Nvidia for maybe Nebula dsp acceleration (i am not aware of any other audio soft that takes advantage of a Geforce) then by all means a Geforce is cheaper and faster for the money.
Also, the last 4-5 yrs Geforce models (and Radeons too) are dead silent when you don't stress the gpu by gaming.
So why Quadro please?

Lastly, for the peeps here, because it has been mentioned many times before too, passive cards are meant to be used in office pcs. I am surprised to have seen on various occasions companies building audio pcs, including passive grfx cards in their builds. In a scenario like an audio workstation a passive card is just a heat generating source inside your pc case, most likely you don't want this even if it costs 30 dlrs less than an active cooled card. Even a low profile card to be properly cooled needs a passive cooler the size of 2 cards lol and it is still debatable if it does the job properly, other factors pitch in, like how the inside of the pc case is cooled, proper ventilation of the box etc etc.

All the best

 

Last edited: Jun 21, 2018

I wasn't replying to you! I agree with you. I was replying to SineWave who rudely went out of his way to call you lazy and stupid.

 

I know. It's all cool. I just thought that it was evident that my first post needed clarification. Some people (like you) got the gist of what I was getting at. Some others, clearly, did not.

That's why I explained it further. His method of addressing that concern wasn't the way I'd go about it. I don't think there's any need for that in forums. But I'm thickskinned. And smart enough to know that I actually am stupid. :P So it didn't bother me.

 

You can install just driver, but what does this possibility gains when driver (optimized for dx) behaves badly. Then you must completely uninstall driver, and fallback to previous one. Or to previous, or to previous one.. until you - if you're lucky enough to - find one that works as.. That works. And even that, whole time-wasting procedure "would not" be the issue, if you eventually found one. Every pc, laptop.. every component in xyz machine.. no matter of standard, schematics, production, code.. has own life. Especially in variable symbiosis with other components, software. Microcosms. If one component or whole plethora of same type of "component" decides to fuck with your zen, you'll be forced to focus your fully unwanted, unplanned time (and..) consuming attention to attention-whore-bastard.

Radeon. Yes, that was an option in serious consideration. But. Finding or knowing someone who's having spare one (as opposite of "nvidia fans".. but that just might change), and willing to borrow for few days, was no option. Some non-ancient, non-passive, dead silent graphic card, imho does not exist. Maybe if someones have xyz meters long monitor/s cables, wireless peripherals, whole in a wall and case in another room, closet.. Spinning (data) mechanical disks, psu fan/s, cpu fan, gpu fan/s, case airflow fan/s.. I one cannot make difference (""dead silent" electron gun monitor/tv") in between pc turned off, and on.. maybe its time to stop with repeating task/s of "in the context", loud (headphones especially), start-stop "snare" adjustments few ms fw/bw, or a/b comparisons.... Or loud closed headphones gaming, might be culprit. And it just might turns to be god thing, not a bad one. What's the purpose of hearing anything above (birthplace/dwelling place of tinnitus) "10+k".

Why Quadro? After swapping 2 cards (3, with one borrowed for testing), right about before going completely berserk.. just some primitive impulse, based on some vaguely remembered past times. A thousand centuries ago, playing in (when skeuomorphism was (must) pop) 3d environment (lightwave, modo, cinema..), left some reminiscence of one type of card vs another type of card, in regard of handling "high poly count", simulating poly blocks movement, gpu vs software antialiasing.... A thousand centuries ago.

In today's environment, as slightly cynical mentioned before, every/any "gaming card" (then vs now ratio.. gpu ram, gpu clocks.. cpu/cores clocks, ram capacity and throughput, multiprocessing..) that has issues dealing with daw or/and daws (not generally unique, bitwig java fiasco) midi playhead moving, "scene" zooming/scrolling.... when simultaneously graphically writes midi events, with one/two plugins opened on one monitor or two.. is just bad design. For one who is unlucky enough to be aware/witness of that question (and find an answer), the question is bad design by whom. Daw coders, opened plugin/s coders, grapic card driver coders, monitor/s drivers coders.. cables, mainboard, bios, os.... The possibilities are endlessly variable. If one component or whole plethora of same type of "component" decides to fuck with your zen, you'll be forced to focus your fully unwanted, unplanned time (and..) consuming attention to attention-whore-bastard. In my case, my primitive internal hint based on absolutely different past times, somehow turned to be "correct". That's why/where from.. my "recommendation" of "workstation gl" card, rather than "gaming dx" one. At coding level, driver especially, as layman, maybe I'm totally of, but who cares. It works. Gambling (test before buy) of same sort, it may (or it may not) resolve someones similar issues. My fair share, or my mis/leading €55, in whole "graphic card do-does-not matter, latency, glitches, stutters, freezings.. issues" dilemma. Just proposition (test before buy.. and even then..) of/for someones option. Not a solution.



exceptionally well (coded) promo for "interactive analyzer display"..

 

Last edited: Jun 24, 2018

When I knew Bitwig was coded in Java, it blew my mind in the worst possible meaning.
On a second thought, I'd better say it fucked up my mind for an hour or so xD

I mean, even if you have the core in C++ with JNI calls it's completely insane to use Java for latency critic applications.

 

Had to take out my card earlier this week to clean my dusty pc.. Ran a tune I made without the card installed. Cpu load was noticeably much higher. Video cards matter these days. End of..

 

I'd love to know what sound cards/Interfaces you guys are using.

 

Radeon 480, Geforce 1050TI and some older cards as well in various other comps.

 

im building new system atm, and reading this im thinking about Rx 550 or rx 560 but the prices is not that good compared to 1030 witch i was planning to buy..
so if i end up using nvidia, disabling all the telemetry and other crap will be enough?

 

Ive had some minor problems with my Nvidia card for music production. Every now and then a dropout, say once or twice an hour. Referring to "latency monitor" it's the NVIDIA driver causing the problem.

So I changed to AMD, as most people say, AMD is less problematic.
And guess what!

AMD cards sucks donkey ass for music production as well.

I tested several AMD Cards with 4 connectors (DP or mini DP). All cards with several drivers sinc 2015 don't perform well for video and printin(!). If I send a document to the printer, the system ahngs almost for as long as 30 seconds for a bigger jpg file.
When I play a video, sometimes the video behaves like a coitus interruptus. No fun!

Interesting as a side not, the older the driver is, the less problems I have.

Soooooo, for me, back to NViDiA for the moment.

 

Last edited: Jul 20, 2018

It isn't a brand or a card that's making the difference. I used my last week for experimenting with cards as stated above.

I think, it's the combination of computer (motherboard/CPU/chipset) and graphics card that is determining the overall experience we have.
So as most of us don't have one system for music, one for video, one for office and so on, one must test some combinations to come to a solution that suits him/her best. And that most of the time is a trade-off.

ATM my choice is NVIDIA for the system I use.

 

...so? lol

 

Hi, my graphics card is always malfunctioning when I use fl studio, I have a nividia gt 720, its not a good card but when I was researching on buying my pc , the internet said it was only important for gaming and not for music production . I'm wondering is the card bad or is it just not optimised right or are the drivers bad and if I get a different driver can it get better, I have a i7 4790K 4 core processor, and 16GB memory, I put the money for my computer into the processor and memory to avoid problems like this. I'd like to make sure that it needs to be upgraded before shelling out 170 euro on a gtx 1050 ti.

 

My MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti Gaming 6GB is on repair so I using my internal motherboard graphic card; an Asus Z170 Premium motherboard with Intel HD Graphics 530 card. I have not notice any big different, in latencymon of course the nvidia driver which is always high on the list is gone. Still crackles and popping when using 64 buffer size on projects with many plugins. If you gonna work on heavy project in Ableton it seems like buffer size 128 is the absolute minimum if you wanna work without popping and crackling. Of course I can record instruments with 32 buffer sizes with incredible low latency (Presonus Quantum TB audio interface) on Ableton 10 Windows 10. I think this is a rule for all DAW's that you record with low buffer size and you "work" on the project with high buffer size. But back to topic my internal graphic card on the motherboard is better than most internal graphic cards I think. My point is if you have a pretty good internal graphic card it should be enough for music production. I work in 4k and have not notice any graphical difficulties during music production. Of course playing modern games is not possible on a internal card

 

Last edited: Nov 12, 2018

AMD over NVIDIA could be a solution for better drivers?

 

One little neat trick with Nvidia cards that I forgot to mention, and I do it in every build of mine, is to go to the Nvidia Control Panel and make sure that in the 3D settings Vsync is set to "off". Years ago, I noticed that some plugins that use OpenGL, use a lot of CPU when this setting is to anything else but "off". Waves plugins, for example.

My buying rule for a graphic card is: passive and low wattage ones. Possibly the ones that don't use too many PCIe lanes. e.g. x8 or x4. Like GT 730 with GDDR5, for example.

 

Buying a powerful and expensive graphic card for an audio computer is like buying a Ferrari for grocery shopping. Just imagine how much GPU power does any of the plugins that use 3D acceleration need in comparison to some modern 3D shooter? Any graphic card released in the last decade or so can 3D accelerate audio plugins just fine.

Actually, this analogy isn't even that good. Since a more powerful graphic card will actually impair your computer a little from doing what it's supposed to do properly: use the CPU fully for plugins and audio processing without producing crackling.

 

Sorry for the OT, what's the difference between active and passive? Does the presence of a heater/dissipator affect performance?


How about a Radeon RX 550 4 GB?

 

No. Having active cooling doesn't affect the card's performance, but a silent VGA just kinda *sounds better*, if you catch my drift.

Radeon RX 550 seems like a good choice [I have no experience with it, yet]. It uses only 50W, so it could be cooled passively, and it uses up to x8 PCie lanes [instead of x16], and fast GDDR5 memory. Fast memory, memory throughput, or bandwidth if you will, is important for 2D speed and makes a bit of a difference.

edit: Checking the TechARP VGA chart for AMD cards reveals that this should actually be the best AMD RX card for audio workstations. These VGA charts are my go-to info, a buying guide, for VGAs.

Investigating further, It seems like Ryzen 5 2400G could be a really great CPU+GPU for a budget audio workstation. It comes with a GPU that is as powerful as RX 550. Really interesting. Link to a review here.

 

Last edited: Nov 12, 2018