Let me preface this by saying I’m currently experiencing lots of crackling and popping and have tried lots of solutions to no avail in other threads (using ASIO4ALL or FlexASIO, forcing Renoise to use one less CPU core to “reserve” it for windows, making sure power modes are set to best performance, etc) and the only thing I’ve discovered that helps is bumping my processor’s minimum allowed state under power plans.
So, while the problem may have multiple causes, it seems it is at least partially because of CPU usage, even when Renoise is only reporting about 40% usage.
Now I’m on a quest to lower CPU load as much as possible, and one of the things I’ve been trying to do is get Renoise to make use of my laptop’s NVIDIA GPU for GUI rendering.
I’ve tried forcing Renoise to use my NVIDIA GPU under Windows Settings>System>Display>Graphics Settings as well as creating a profile for Renoise’s executable in the NVIDIA control panel, but when I run Renoise and check GPU activity it still shows no programs utilizing it.
The reason I suspect this may help is that if I limit FPS to 30 under Renoise’s GUI preferences it does seem to lower playback CPU usage by a few percentage at times, but that could just be coincidental.
Do you have the latest soundcard drivers installed? and what “latency in ms” did you use in renoise audio setup?
Did you try changing cpu cores using windows task manager “cpu affinity” or the multi-core option in Renoise itself?
Does your laptop has an integrated gpu in the cpu and a separate dedicated Nvidia GPU? (like 2 gpu’s in 1 system)
Does the crackling and popping occur with only using VSTi’s? or even with regular samples?
Not sure if your laptop is UEFI or the classic BIOS, but if you have a classic BIOS, maybe it’s worth checking to see if there are any settings regarding CPU/GPU or power management etc.
Latest sound drivers, when using directsound I’ve tried anywhere from 20-150ms, or when using ASIO4ALL or FlexASIO 2.5-5ms, no changes seem to totally eliminate the problem.
I was using the multi-core option in renoise, I will have to experiment with CPU affinity, although I did try changing the priority to high in the task manager before…
Yeah, it has an integrated Intel GPU, along with an NVIDIA GTX 1060, it tends to only switch to the Nvidia when gaming it seems.
I believe the crackling and popping are only with VST effects (including native Renoise ones,) and VSTi, although I can never seem to pinpoint it being a single one… it just happens with any of them randomly.
It’s UEFI, and I have the latest bios, I will try to poke around for power management but I don’t think I saw anything last time I was in there.
If you open the Nvidia Control Panel, do you have an option under Desktop called " ‘Add’ Run with graphics processor to Context Menu" ? it’s at the top bar where you see “File - Edit - Desktop - 3D Settings - Help”
Also, did you try one of the VST-Compatibility options?
Renoise GUI seems to be mostly drawn by CPU or very basic graphics operations. If you run Windows in safe mode (no graphics driver activated) Renoise still will be drawn in the exact same way and speed. Hence switching GPUs or tuning graphics settings won’t have any impact on the Renoise GUI.
In Safe Mode, you usually can very well see which elements normally are drawn by GPU: Those will be drawn now ridiculously slow. Renoise is not affected in any way here.
The framerate of the pattern scrolling and the analyzer (and a bunch of other stuff) also is totally dependent on the audio latency you set. The higher it is, the lower the refresh rate. This seems to be a culprit of the design of Renoise, since other DAWs do not show the same effect.
That’s why I never understood why there is a refresh rate setting, since those refresh rates barely won’t reached anyway due the design.
Hm, the Renoise GUI causes two problems on my mac systems, due not properly rendered on GPU:
On my macbook 2013 i7, 10.14, it causes audio stutters on some songs. As soon as the GUI is hidden, or frozen (e.g. opening app menu), the audio continues without any stuttering. Also it doesn’t matter if the analyzer is opened or not, simply the pattern scrolling already causes the stuttering. I think this indicates that macos decided to render the GUI fully on the cpu, and then you have no control over the used core
On my workstation, 10.14, I use a 4k monitor. Now I scaled the resolution a bit higher even. This works very well e.g. with the Finder or Studio One, but the Renoise GUI turns into a stutter torture. I guess due the same reason as above.
