Small KS buffers not possible anymore on W10 2004

[therealdadbeard]

Hy,

yes I know it is not released officially but this is just a heads up that maybe Microsoft changed something in their audio backend. On 1909 a buffer of 256 was no problem but in 2004 I have to bump it up to 512. WDM and ASIO seem to be working as they were.

[xcasxcursex]

Out of curiosity, what device offers KS drivers? And why KS rather than ASIO? Surely the ASIO buffers could be just as small? Not trying to argue, just always hunting for lower latency and it seems you have some cool toys for the job

Regarding 2004 though: I hear that the latest build is marked for RTM so it practically is "out yet". Is it possible that there are updated drivers for your device coming from windows update? When you install 2004 from scratch with no network connection and uninstall any pre-installed soundcard drivers and force the installation of the drivers you used for 1909 and disable driver updates in windows update, do you have the same issue? Would be interesting to determine whether this is actually something that changed in the back-end, or if it's just a bad driver update.

Why do you have to increase the buffer anyway? Does it fail to work entirely, or do you just have buffer over-run issues (crackling, etc), or....?

Thanks for the heads-up, I'm over-due for a Windows re-install so I'm waiting on 2004, but I'd rather avoid it if it has teething issues.

[therealdadbeard]

This has nothing to do with audio card drivers. I should clarify that I already use ASIO for my Soundblaster Z @96 which works fine.

I use KS for the VB-Cable ones as I could run a smaller buffer on them via Kernel Streaming. This changed with 2004. Everything else works fine. Even reinstalling everything from VB does not let me run such a small buffer.

I could in theory use ASIO4ALL as a ASIO wrapper for my Soundblaster and VBCable A+B and then just map the inputs. I guess this could work too but never tried because in the past I had massive desync issues.

Edit: Tested ASIO4ALL, works but forgot that other app can't then use the respective audio device so thats scrapped. Man I hope Microsoft comes up with something good for audio. Thats the only thing I envy MacOS.

WASAPI shoulb be good but I can't use that anywhere in VB Audio.

[Vincent Burel]

this is strange,
did you change something in the default parameters (latency, buffer) in voicemeeter system setting or VB-CABLE control panel. if yes, simply reset them to default.

if the problem remains, check your audio device installation:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=688

[therealdadbeard]

this is strange,
did you change something in the default parameters (latency, buffer) in voicemeeter system setting or VB-CABLE control panel. if yes, simply reset them to default.

if the problem remains, check your audio device installation:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=688

Of course I changed the default settings as I can run way lower buffers without issues.

This only happens on 20h1 even after clean installing all drivers. Install the preview and just test it for yourself. I can run a KS buffer of 256 in Voicemeeter on VB-Cables (2048 buffer in settings app) on 1909 with zero issues. on 2004 it just won't work.

Edit: Is there a way to go even lower than 128 on KS? I tried the XML trick but it won't go lower. I am looking now to use VAC as it works with such low buffers.

[Vincent Burel]

ok, yes, normal, with Windows you may consider that you cannot go below 5 ms in reliable way.
(256 sample latency is possible but smaller buffer is not guaranteed to work anyway).

Also with VB-CABLE the buffering is also pending on the application connected on point (in or out) and make very complicated to optimize latency, that's why we recommend to come back to default settings in case of problem.

[therealdadbeard]

ok, yes, normal, with Windows you may consider that you cannot go below 5 ms in reliable way.
(256 sample latency is possible but smaller buffer is not guaranteed to work anyway).

Also with VB-CABLE the buffering is also pending on the application connected on point (in or out) and make very complicated to optimize latency, that's why we recommend to come back to default settings in case of problem.

Yeah would be nice if you could squeeze the last bit out of it but I get it that you have limitations in the way you provide all this functionality in a easy accessible way. Gotta make compromises.

I just switchen over to Reaper + SAR and it's another world. It's way less accessible to everyone but I know my way around stuff so I'm set for now.