User profile for user: ralph4d
ralph4d Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

geforce 320m driver causing latency (ableton)

Hello,

I have latency problems on my brandnew macbook pro (2010, with geforce 320m card)

I use my mac for making music and live performances, and I use windows 7 professional.

After various hours of trail and error I figured out that the nvidia driver for windows 7 is causing the high latency, the audio is much 'slower' compared to my other white macbook (from 2007). I used dpclat.exe (dpc latency checker) to determine the latency and i disabled devices one by one and the latency is more than OK when I use the standard vga driver of windows 7 instead of the nvidia one. To bad my external monitor doesn't work with the standard vga driver.
While googling i stumbled upon people talking about the 'powermizer' functionality or that the videocard is switching between 2d/3d, which could case the high latency spikes.
Anybody has a clue to fix this high latency? Or if there is a new decent driver for the geforce320m is in development?
Overall i'm very happy with the macbookpro but this is just strange.
(Update: I also tried windows xp but it has the same issues, also the driver causing the high latency spikes)

macbook pro 2010, Windows 7, ableton, latency, nvidia drivers

Posted on May 30, 2010 8:19 AM

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22 replies
User profile for user: Peace Logic
Peace Logic
User level: Level 1
5 points

Jul 21, 2010 1:17 PM in response to ralph4d

Indeed you are correct, there is a problem with the 320M driver on the MacBook Pro 13" while running bootcamp. This problem does not exist on the MacBook Pro 15" inch and up (I'm referring to the new 2010 models). This is because it uses a different driver.

I called Apple and had a rather long discussion with Brandon who is reporting the problem to the senior engineers. I gave him all the information he needed to reproduce the problem. He said typically they would have something like this fixed within a couple of weeks assuming they can replicate the problem easily (which is a no brainer).

I'm going to follow up with my case number in 2-3 weeks. He said a fix should be in the next Bootcamp update.

Currently the only fix is to disable the 320M in the windows devise manager. This will automatically kick in the standard windows VGA driver. It does have it's limitation obviously, but it's the only work around for now.

Dean
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User profile for user: Peace Logic
Peace Logic
User level: Level 1
5 points

Jul 21, 2010 1:31 PM in response to ralph4d

Ralph, I would also call apple support and report this problem separately from me. This affects any USB audio devise or camera hooked up to the port. The more people that report it - hopefully the faster they will fix it.

Also the 320M video card is on the USB bus - That's why the USB ports are affected by the bad driver. So this should mean that if you use the Firewire port for an audio device, one would think this port would not have these problems. I realize it means buying a Firewire card, but it's a thought. Firewire in general should be more reliable than USB. In fact many professionals recommend firewire over usb for audio. I've been thinking about buying a Firewire audio card because the macbook pro 13 only has two usb ports. This way I can dedicate that port to audio. I'll let you know more if I end up buying one this weekend and whether I have any problems.

Dean

Dean
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User profile for user: Peace Logic
Peace Logic
User level: Level 1
5 points

Jul 21, 2010 3:26 PM in response to ralph4d

Ralph,

I've done some more experimentation and found one obvious item worth mentioning right away. Under Windows Power Management choose "Best Performance". You can also tweak the power management setting by clicking on the "Advanced Settings" link. I was able to get everything pretty much in the yellow range (under 2000 in DPC Latency program). Every so often it would go just a little above the yellow range, around 2200-2300µs). So obviously the graphics card is going into some type of power savings mode and when choosing best performance this is turned off. I have not looked through each "Advanced settings" to determine witch item is set differently.

Then of course you'll want to turn off WiFi, bluetooth, and any other non essential items in the devise manager, essentially all the standard pc tweaks. So at this point things stay in the yellow. It's not where it should be but if you set your sound card with a slightly higher latency it should be at least usable without any drop outs.

Now once you've done all the above if you then disable the 320M in the devise manager it stays under 200µs and stays there. With the 320m on it reliable stays under 2000µs. Play around with your sound cards latency to find a reliable setting. I'm not sure how important really low latency is for you, but this should at least put things in a working state without drop outs. I'll stay on top of Apple and hopefully this will get fixed quickly.

The other thing worth noting is that you can go into the Nvidia control panel and in the 3D section turn off all the high performance items. There may be other settings that will get the latency even lower with the 320M on, I'm still digging through all the settings to figure it all out and post if I find anything that helps.

Hope this helps you out 🙂 ... I know how annoying this problem is...

Dean
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User profile for user: Peace Logic
Peace Logic
User level: Level 1
5 points

Jul 21, 2010 5:00 PM in response to ralph4d

Two other important things to modify:

1. In the device manager turn off under batteries - Microssoft ACPI Compliant Control Method Battery. This will cause spikes every so often if you have it on.

2. On the Start Menu - Right click on "computer" - select properties - bottom left corner click on "Performance Information and tools" - now click on adjust visual effects - then select adjust for best performance.

3. For the very best performance choose the classic style. Basic windows 7 is ok too (a slight performance hit on latency). But do make sure Aero is off.

With all these setting and the one in the previous message you'll be able to constiantly get 1500 micro second latency (give or take a little). It will reliablely stay under 2000 without ever going into the red. This way you'll still be able to use the second monitor with the 320M enabled.

Dean
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User profile for user: ralph4d
ralph4d Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Oct 23, 2010 10:15 AM in response to ralph4d

thanks guys for all the responses; hope apple will really fix this because it still isn't working.

I work with a firewire edirol card and only can use it by using the standard vga driver. This is quite annoying since I can't use an external monitor, for that I have to switch back to the crappy NVIDIA drivers.

I already tweaked everything in the device manager of windows to use the absolute minimum needed, but still I get high ratings by using dpclat.exe (dpc latency tool).

Apple, please respond to this serious issue, for all the musicians and video artists outthere.
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User profile for user: Antonio34587
Antonio34587
User level: Level 1
0 points

Dec 22, 2010 4:27 AM in response to ralph4d

I have around 3000us DPC Latency on a new Macbook Air 11.6 (2010 Model), any idea what can be done ? Still running stock drivers that came with bootcamp 3.2, there's a setting for Power Management Mode in nvidia Control Panel and its set to "adaptive" but changing it to "Prefer max performance" didn't help.

USB Audio with the NI Audio 4 DJ is not usable at all on Win7, USB errors all over the place, sound is stuttering like crazy even at very high latencys. On OSX, everything works with 2ms latency. I hope this gets fixed since its not windows7's fault but most likely some driver issue...

Message was edited by: Antonio34587
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User profile for user: dejot200
dejot200
User level: Level 1
0 points

Jul 27, 2011 4:28 PM in response to ralph4d

hello ralph4d. first sorry for my grammar - i don't speak english...

i have same problem with geforce 320m...:/ when i turn off the graphic card everything work perfect but how to work on standard VGA ... i have only found that problem is with c:\windows\system32\drivers\nvlddmkm.sys. but i dont't know how to fix it.. :/ that is so horrible... for APPLE i shoudn't be a problem to fix it but it is...

i will be so glad for any information about solution. bye bye

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User profile for user: Thor, the Norseman
Thor, the Norseman
User level: Level 1
4 points

Jan 27, 2012 1:48 PM in response to ralph4d

I'm having the same issue with a Mac Mini from 2010 running Windows 7. I have 1000 to 1500 microseconds of DPC latency on average. Turning off the driver in Device Manager immediately reduces it to about 30 microseconds. I do all my sequencing work on this machine, and I'm kind of tired of doing that work in 1280x1024 mode. Boot Camp with full drivers is sold as part of the Mac package, and Apple is a hardware company, so you'd hope that they'd want to fix this sooner or later.


I filed a bug ticket with NVIDIA to fix compatibility for the GeForce 320M in their official notebook driver (ticket #110707-000221 in their system), since it's a notebook chipset and all:


"The GeForce 320M in the Mac Mini MC270LL/A has no video signal on any outputs after upgrading from version 197.39 in Boot Camp, to version 275.33 or 275.50. I would keep using the old version, except it induces severe DPC latency (1600 ns and above) on my system, causing almost constant audio dropouts on my FireWire audio interface. This is therefore a dual bug ticket. Please review the attached before/after screenshot of DPC Latency Checker, showing a dramatic improvement in DLC latency after I disable the NVIDIA driver in Device Manager. I have disabled all power saving on my system, and have followed common advice for improving my DLC latency, but nothing but disabling your driver improves the situation. I am hoping that newer versions of your driver might have better performance, so I can actually use my home studio again, but to determine if that's the case, can you please fix your driver to work with this computer model?"


"Let me be specific about what I mean by no video: There is no signal. When the Windows boot splash screen disappears, right when the GUI is meant to appear, both of my monitors display a "NO SIGNAL" message. I am unable to tell if the system has locked up or not, but an attempt to VNC into the system after blind boot was unsuccessful.


The only workaround I can find is the aforementioned disabling of the NVIDIA device in the Control Panel, which forces Windows to use the Standard VGA Adapter driver instead. Disabling Aero has no effect on the issue.


In real-time audio applications, an induced latency of nearly 2ms is very significant, because latency for live audio input monitoring only gets low enough to comfortably perform with software instruments on a MIDI keyboard with a buffer size of ~10 ms (256 samples at 44100 Hz) or less. For a multimedia oriented machine like the Mac Mini, this looks very bad."


It's been 6 months and they haven't done anything. If they only fixed their own driver, we would not have to rely on Apple for a fix.

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User profile for user: moramax
moramax
User level: Level 1
0 points

Aug 13, 2012 5:37 AM in response to Thor, the Norseman

i've disabled all the devices not used and the acpi,AERO an setted windows 7 for the best performances, setted the max power of the cpu..ecc eccc i did all it's possible,

..my best result is from 1ms to 2ms.

But if i switch the driver from nvidia to standard VGA, the latency measures is very good (<500 uS)

it's a Nvidia driver problem (nvlddmkm.sys) for sure.

other ideas?


ps: with the latest driver i had freeze problems

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geforce 320m driver causing latency (ableton)

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