KVR Audio

Kaine · Post by **Kaine** » Mon Jan 11, 2016 10:11 am

The core parking fix has been around for years and is something we routinely do on a lot of audio and video rigs so certainly give it a go, hell it evens helps gaming boxes in some senarios too. Interesting that MS released a hotfix, it's largely done via a manual registry hack over here.

fluffy_little_something · Mon Jan 11, 2016 1:16 pm

Actually there seem to be two related fixes from MS, this one should be installed after the other one, but it can't be uninstalled once installed:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2646060

Yes, there is a video on YT where someone explains how to change the registry manually.

fluffy_little_something · Mon May 23, 2016 4:19 pm

There is some news on AMD today, seems their new processor will be direct competition to Intel's best i7 processor

I wonder how much they will charge for their new chips...

http://wccftech.com/amd-zen-cpu-perform ... e-fx-8350/

Kaine · Post by **Kaine** » Tue May 24, 2016 10:29 am

That's some claim, everything I heard said it was on par with the i7 6700 in the benches at this point.I was getting hopeful until they mentioned the shared L3 cache again as I've been convinced that's a bottleneck for audio apps in previous generations. Looking forward to hopefully being proved wrong!

And don't get me wrong... nothing would make me happier right now than to see AMD give Intel a proper kick up the arris.

fluffy_little_something · Tue May 24, 2016 11:23 am

I don't know how important L3 cache actually is. My old Phenom II has a whopping 6 MB of L3, yet that doesn't seem to help much. AMD's current APU's (all-in-one CPU and GPU thingies) have no L3 at all, yet the latest 4-core model is more powerful than my 6-core Phenom II.

Seems AMD are already starting the sale of their existing stuff before Zen arrives in October. The FX 8370 with the new cooler is available for about 200 bucks here and I am very tempted to get it because I assume the new Zen stuff will be considerably more expensive.

spacekid · Post by **spacekid** » Wed May 25, 2016 1:43 am

The common way to think of multi-core is a wider freeway, one with more lanes, than a single core. Usually you will have less bottle necks with a multi-core paired with a board that supports it well. The multi-threading goes hand in hand with this. I personally focus on the cores first. Prices are getting good lately, and I'm just holding out to upgrade my '10 machine

spacekid · Post by **spacekid** » Wed May 25, 2016 1:46 am

fluffy_little_something wrote:More good news from AMD, they will finally launch their latest APU in Q1, which I will get for my new computer
http://wccftech.com/amd-a10-7890k-apu/

It has only 4 cores, but each of them is about 1 GHz faster than each of my current six, most of which are idle most of the time, anyway So all in all I hope to get much better performance, especially since I will also get much faster memory modules.

Which brings me to something interesting I read recently regarding the problem of load distribution across cores, especially but not only with AMD processors. There are people suggesting turning off Core Parking. Anyone here tried that?

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2645594

Seems one has to manually install that fix with W7 (if necessary), while in W8 and W10 it is already included.

It is odd that you only have distribution across 4 of your 6. My current is only 4 (AMD) but that share equally. There may be something to turning off core parking, as you suggest. You should be able to get a bit more work out it IMO.

spacekid · Post by **spacekid** » Wed May 25, 2016 1:54 am

^ I just ran across the thread with cantible's guide to audio optimization, and it has a tip on how to disable core parking:

Core Parking
Core parking is feature available in some modern processors (eg: Intel i7 processors) in which entire CPU cores can be shutdown to save power. This is good for power management but can aﬀect real-time audio performance because there is a small delay when unparking which can lead to drop outs if that processing power is needed. By default Windows hides the setting for core parking but it can be shown with a few tweaks to the system registry. 1. ClicktheWindowsStartbuttonandtype“regedit”andpressEntertolaunchWindow’s Registry Editor program 2. Press the Home key to move the selection in the left hand pane to the very top 3. Press Ctrl+F to bring up the Find dialog and search for “dec35c318583” (without the quotes) 4. Once found, make sure the found key is related to power settings by checking the status bar – it should include “Control\Power\PowerSettings”. If not, ignore it and repeat from step 3. 5. Double click the “Attribute” setting in the right hand panel and change the value to 0 (zero) as shown below:

(see pg.37) https://www.cantabilesoftware.com/glitc ... litchfree1

Figure 5.7: Registry settings to show core parking settings
1. Repeat steps 3-5 until all such entries have been changed (there may be several). Tobeclear: it’sonlythe“Attribute”valuesunderthe“0cc5b647-c1df-4637-891a-dec35c318583” keys that should be changed. Once you’ve made these changes a new settings will appear in Power Options that will control core parking: 1. Go to Control Panel -> Power Options -> Change Plan Settings -> Change Advanced Power Settings 2. IntheAdvancedSettingswindownavigatetoProcessorPowerManagement->Processor performance core parking min cores The value you enter for this setting is the minimum percentage of processor cores that must kept running (not parked). Set this to 100% to prevent any cores from being parked.

Zentropy · Post by **Zentropy** » Wed May 25, 2016 4:15 am

spacekid wrote:The common way to think of multi-core is a wider freeway, one with more lanes, than a single core. Usually you will have less bottle necks with a multi-core paired with a board that supports it well. The multi-threading goes hand in hand with this. I personally focus on the cores first. Prices are getting good lately, and I'm just holding out to upgrade my '10 machine

That's true in general, but specifically for audio, it is not. Most DAWs don't have great core usage and even when they do, lots of audio processing is physically impossible to multithread or distribute across cores. When it comes to audio, clock speed is much more likely to bottleneck you than a lack of cores and should be prioritized.

spacekid · Post by **spacekid** » Wed May 25, 2016 6:05 am

Zentropy wrote:
spacekid wrote:The common way to think of multi-core is a wider freeway, one with more lanes, than a single core. Usually you will have less bottle necks with a multi-core paired with a board that supports it well. The multi-threading goes hand in hand with this. I personally focus on the cores first. Prices are getting good lately, and I'm just holding out to upgrade my '10 machine
That's true in general, but specifically for audio, it is not. Most DAWs don't have great core usage and even when they do, lots of audio processing is physically impossible to multithread or distribute across cores. When it comes to audio, clock speed is much more likely to bottleneck you than a lack of cores and should be prioritized.

Interesting, I guess I've been lucky since my quad-core and choices of software have seemed to use all resources well. I'll take that into consideration when I venture past 4 on board in the future.

spacekid · Post by **spacekid** » Wed May 25, 2016 6:32 am

I found an easier way to control parking. I checked my own system and found that 1 core was doing it's thing, and I never noticed. After trying several methods, I found one that is simple- and works(for windows 10). http://coderbag.com/Programming-C/CPU-c ... ng-manager .You already have net 4.0 if you are running windows 10.

Focus on single- or multi-threaded CPU performance?