Topic by rlburnside

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  • rlburnside
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Topic: Best way to get good latency performance, Asio?

Hi forum. I just upgraded my PC to windows 7 and have a nice home theater setup with some killer Klipch THX ultra 2 speakers and an emotiva amp that I've been using for a while now for Pianoteq.

I just ordered a receiver to use instead so I can move up from two channels, and was wondering what sound cards out there support both HDMI and Asio, to power Pianoteq with low latency (I can't play it, otherwise, it bugs me too much).

Any tips? There's another API for audio on Windows 7, it's called WASAPI I believe. Does Pianoteq support this? I'd rather use an up-to-date API if possible. A lot of video cards have multichannel sound support but I'd like to know which ones will accelerate Pianoteq via the HDMI connector.

Is this a fool's errand? Or should I just stick to Analog 7.1 out and Asio support via my Asus Xonar DX? I'd like to move up to a fully digital path so I don't have to use multiple APIs and inputs on my receiver for when I start up Pianoteq vs when I want to watch a Bluray.

Reply by azrael4

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Re: Best way to get good latency performance, Asio?

Hi!
I use an RME HDSPe card which is one of the fastest Cards I know for PC
(I can get 1,4 ms latency with PTQ stand alone)
It's really great!

here a link to their products

http://www.rme-audio.de/products.php

heinke

http://www.heinke-aussenegg.com/

azrael4's Website

Reply by rlburnside

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Re: Best way to get good latency performance, Asio?

Those sound cards look great. Thanks.

Can a developer comment on whether there are plans to support WASAPI in Pianoteq 3.x or 4?

Reply by julien

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Re: Best way to get good latency performance, Asio?

Hi,
No WASAPI support is planned for now. But if for any reason, you really want to use wasapi instead of asio, you can use any VST host that is wasapi enabled.

julien's Website

Reply by rlburnside

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Re: Best way to get good latency performance, Asio?

Normally I use Pianoteq directly, but if this will allow me to shed my analog sound card and retain low latency performance I'm now getting, that would be perfect. I guess I'll have to run tests, but it sucks not knowing if it will be a good idea before I purchase something.

On avsforum they suggest that the Asus HDAV HDMI sound card which has HDMI interleaving and Asio 2.0 drivers, would work, but the added latency of the audio stream being interleaved is unknown. Can Pianoteq company please give some figures to let me know if this is a fool's errand or a good solution? I'd have to drop 200$ on something that would lag just as bad as the built-in sound on modern videocards that have no Asio 2.0 support (nor will they ever, probably).

I don't know what other all-digital solution I could do via HDMI would be possible. HDMI isn't really used as an output port via those custom sound cards, are they. I might as well stick to my analog sound card and let my receiver do all the mixing for me. Which is sub-optimal since than one digital to analog cycle is introduced by this method.

Much better would be to keep the audio chain all-digital, no? That way the room corrections applied by my receiver will be useful without lowering sound quality. I guess those professional output mixing boards want you to output with optical DIN connectors 8x (for 7.1) and then have some type of magical mixing board to merge all those into one HDMI stream. I don't even know if such a thing exists. Others on avsforum were speculating about it before the video cards started supporting multi-channel audio as well.

Personally I think Asio 2.0 is a dead end for the consumer market, and would wish Pianoteq could accomodate people who would rather not spend thousands of dollars for a complicated arrangement in order to mix with their home theater. Supporting 5.1 channels is great and all, but a lot of people don't even have analog inputs for 5.1 on their receivers (I do), it has to be lossy via optical pro-logic mixing or laggy via their HDMI. /shrug

Last edited by rlburnside (14-09-2010 06:02)

Reply by feline1

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Re: Best way to get good latency performance, Asio?

I'd suggest giving Julien's idea a try -
you should be able to find a WSAPI-enabled VST host on Win7 that lets you save its configuration (i.e. that you have Pianoteq plugged in) so that you can start it with a single click with no greater faffing about than if you were clicking on Pianoteq standalone.
Then you can have everything talking to your existing audio setup using WSAPI and keep it all digital and no need to fiddle about with different settings when you want to watch a BluRay disc.

I'm not on Win7 yet so I can't helpfully give you a link to a free or almost-free VST host that would do the job - does Reaper support WSAPI?