Why the performance difference between audio devices?

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nithel
Sat May 15, 2021 9:58 am

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Why the performance difference between audio devices?

This is something I've been wondering about for many years, since I bought my first audio interface. Kontakt and generally sampling and CPU heavy projects often lead to buffer underrun crackling in the audio output if the buffer is set to too few samples in the audio driver settings. But it seems to vary greatly under the same load and same CPU hardware.

The "Primary sound driver" on my computer requires upwards of 4096 samples to not crackle. ASIO4ALL requires only 512 samples for similar performance. If i pick my Komplete Audio 6 card, I can get all the way down to 128 samples before I get crackles.

Can anyone explain:
A) Why do some drivers and/or hardware require drastically fewer samples to perform the same? Is it the driver or the hardware that makes the difference?

If it's driver, why do some perform several orders of magnitude worse than others, and why can't they all just match the same performance?

If it's the hardware, how come the amount of samples needed changes when I pick a different driver, even though they all output to the same hardware?

I'm guessing it's a combination, in which case:

B) What metric should I look for in audio hardware to optimize for lower latency without crackles (given the same CPU)?
How do I compare different audio interfaces and/or consumer sound cards in regards to how few samples they require? What is the difference between one that requires lots of samples and one that requires few?

As someone who very rarely uses the I/O on my interface, I'm MUCH more interested in an interface that performs well inside FL Studio. I'd much rather spend another $100 improving the latency than adding another XLR in.






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