Off Ramp & Engine 3

[Scroobius]

Hi Peter

I hope you are well & I see you have been working hard on xx. Not too many late nights I hope !!!.

I have just updated to 9y-4 (from 9x-7) and there are a couple of problems. It works sometimes with engine 2 but most times comes up with a "not enough system resources memory? " message. I have 2gigs memory in an HP Pavillion dv9000 laptop with vista - I do not get memory problems with 9x-7. Does 9y-4 use more resource and do I need to upgrade memory ?.

And now for good news. At last I can get engine 3 working with my off ramp & pace car combination. But only with 24 96 native files (but there is a problem see below). I guess that with engine 3 running it will only pass the native file format x1 x2 or x4 with vista not able to get its grubby hands on the signal. So anything other than 24 96 will not work with the off ramp pace car. Off Ramp Pace Car will only accept only 24 96 (I tested this with the Sounds option in Control Panel).

I do have a problem running 24 96 files with engine 3 - when I start the track playing it stops and starts for say 30 seconds before it settles down and plays OK. Is this also caused by system resource problems ? and would it be fixed with more memory ?.

I hope I can sort this because the sound quality with 24 96 files is superb I guess because vista oversampling is not clobbering the signal.

all the best
paul

[PeterSt]

Hi Paul,

Yes, 0.9y4 works with the Off-Ramp. Set "Dac Needs" to 24 bits in order to let it work.
And don't forget to slide up the Volume slider, because this is active wih Engine#3.

Let me know whether we must proceed on the Engine#2 memory problems. I hope not, just because Engine#3 is way better (SQ).

Anyway, does this help ?
Peter

[Scroobius]

Hi Peter - 3 questions:

1.  Am I right that I can only play 24 96 native files (via engine#3) because my off ramp / pace car will only take 24 96

2.  Am I right that with other formats (say  16 44.1) the x2 & x4 upsampling will not work with off ramp pace car because it will not output 24 96 ?

3.  Does 0.9y4 use more resource (memory) than 0.9x7 ? and is this likely the reason that with 24 96 files & engine#3 playback stutters for first 30 secs of a file ?

Thanks for your help

Paul

[PeterSt]

Hi Paul,

1.  Am I right that I can only play 24 96 native files (via engine#3) because my off ramp / pace car will only take 24 96

No. The Off-Ramp (which really determines it when it is in the chain) accepts 24/44.1 just the same, but only 24 (and not 16). This is why the "DAC Needs" is to be set to 24. Don't get confused by the DAC Needs = 32 setting, because any device that accepts 16 bits (but can do 24) can also accept 32 bits (and throws out the least significant last 8 ).
Thus, set DAC Needs to 24, and DAC Is to 24/96 and you can play 16/44.1 just the same. XXHighEnd makes 24/44.1 of it, at that settings.

2.  Am I right that with other formats (say  16 44.1) the x2 & x4 upsampling will not work with off ramp pace car because it will not output 24 96 ?

No again. But, x4 upsampling can't work, because it can do 96KHz max. And I'm not sure what you want to say with "will not work with off ramp pace car because it will not output 24 96 ?" because it just does. It outputs 24/44.1, 24/88.2 or 24/96. If you mean to say dat a device behind it can do 16/44.1 only (or 16/88.2 and 16/96), yes, *then* you are in trouble, because the OffRamp won't output 16 bits. Only 24.

3.  Does 0.9y4 use more resource (memory) than 0.9x7 ? and is this likely the reason that with 24 96 files & engine#3 playback stutters for first 30 secs of a file ?

Hard to answer, because that stuttering shouldn't happen anyway, and can only indicate that your PC is not "on par", while at the same time it depends on quite some things. Thus, if you set "Start playback during conversion" while rpe-conversions are in order (like from FLAC), yes that would be a good reason for the sound to stutter (with a not on-par machine). If you, together with that, have a single core processor, you  just shouldn't use that setting, because the conversion will take away the cpu cycles from the playback engine. But, this would also happen with multi core processors and a wrong Core Appointment setting (I use 3) or priorities for Player and Thread which are too close to eachother.
Things have changed indeed in 0.9y, which mainly is about all is preprocessed, and *nothing* is processed in real time anymore, while 24/96 sure was processed in real time before. It is hard to predict how this can differ, but it really can be solved with a multi core processor. With single core I guess not, unless the processor is powerful enough (and any notebook processor is just not). Don't look at cpu useage for this, because it is not about that. It is about the speed of task switching, and any power saving processor is just lousy on that (like a Celeron is lousy on it).

Well, I hope this helps a bit !
Peter

[Scroobius]

Hi Peter - I have checked and Pace Car only allows 24 96.

Using sounds in control panel and running the test signal: -
With Pace Car in and running test signal only 24/96 works (although 24/44.1 24/48 & 24/96 are listed)
With Pace Car out (off ramp connected direct to DAC) and running test signal 24/44.1 24/48 and 24/96 all work

So now with Pace Car removed I can get XX engine#3 working with 16/44.1 native files Hoorah !!!. 

Conclusion : Pace Car will only work with 96k signal. I have checked previous emails with Steve Nugent and this is indeed true (I had forgotten).

All I have to do now is find out why the stuttering.

Best regards

Paul