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In Reply to: Changes to Version 0.1 posted by cics on April 18, 2007 at 10:20:23:
RAM uses large amounts of power. With Foobar (including latest 0.9.4.3) not doing full file buffering (for .cue files), use lowest possible RAM. 1GB consumes 10-12 watts power. Change to 256MB (saving 7-9 watts). This is a big deal.Only use DDR2 533 RAM which has a clock speed of 266MHz. Lower speed RAMs force Core 2 Duo CPU to perform poorly (reduced cache). Higher speed RAM results in high memory clock speeds causing more RF radiation.
With all other optimizations done, you get ~155MB available RAM. This is good for ‘Track Buffering’ up to 14 minutes – this feature is not supported by Foobar but would be nice. I’ve posted this suggestion on Foobar’s forum (see link) but don’t seem to make any progress. If anyone has a better way to get this feature implemented in next release it would be just perfect!
If you plan to install Windows with this low RAM, in BIOS setup, make sure you set Video RAM to 16MB and disable all BIOS and Video caches. This frees memory allowing for a clean Windows installation.
Follow Ups:
Hi cics,
thanks for sharing all your work! You are spot on on Foobar 0.9.x not loading tracks to memory when using cue sheets spanning multiple files.
The funny thing is that foobar 0.8.3 does not have that problem (easily checked). May be we can contact foobar developers and suggest a merge of the relevant code.
Best
Giulio
Thanks Giulio,
I've tried making contact with Foobar developers but without success. Also, its very difficult to contact Peter directly.
Just saw your post on Foobar's forum. For me most optimal design is track buffering. This way, you can use 256MB RAM and foobar loads each track into RAM - tracks up to 16 minutes can be easily accommodated. I found RAM (ito size, manufacturer and setup) affects sound quality. This is covered in latest paper (version 0.3).
I actually found matching the RAM clock speed to the FSB yielded the best results. And also reducing latency timings yielded even better results.For example, the computer I'm building is actually intended to be the workhorse (for my graphic design work), but I'm testing different parameters to see what would be optimal if/when I build a dedicated computer audio transport. So, I have the 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo and DDR2 800 RAM. (With the RAM latency timings at 4-4-4-12 and Memory voltage at 2.0) If I change the RAM to DDR2 533 to match the FSB clock of 266 MHz, it is an audible improvement. But the best configuration so far is when I reduce the FSB to 200 MHz (giving my CPU a 1.8GHz speed and lower voltage) and then changing the RAM to DDR2 400 (which allows me to have latency timings of 3-2-2-6 and voltage of 1.8)
I should also mention I play my music from a RAMDisk (so the HDD is not used at all during music play) and I have all buffer settings in foobar at 0 (I feel foobar's buffering messes up the timing/jitter) including 0 buffer in the ASIO settings. And in my soundcard control panel (M-Audio USB Audiophile) I am able to reduce latency all the way down to 512. (I used to listen to it maxed out at 4096 and 512 is much better) If I eliminate the use of SRC in foobar I can drop the latency even lower (with even better results). But I like the sound of 24/96, so I'm experimenting with offline processing by Voxengo r8brain Pro to create 24/96 WAVs (which allows me to eliminate the SRC DSP in foobar and keep lower latency with my M-Audio). Sounds great. Really 3D.
Yes, matching FSB/RAM clock speed is important. Dropping from 266 -> 200 MHz clock speed should mean even less RF radiation. With 266/200, CPU cache reduces from 2MB to 1 MB (I use CPU-Z utility). I'll try 200/200 on my 256MB DDR2 533.With RAMDisk you need at least 1GB RAM which means more power consumption. But this takes away I/O overheads during playback - interesting trade-off. I'll try this as well - do you load each CD manually onto drive? I didn't get any improvements with playing .wav from Foobar's file buffer. Maybe Foobar's buffering is confusing things.
SRC upsampler / soundcard latency - try setting Foobar's buffer to 100ms. What CPU load are you getting during playback?
With CPU-Z I'm still retaining 4MB L2 Cache with FSB & RAM set to 200MHz.I don't get any improvements with foobar's file buffer either. And as far as setting the buffer to 100ms - I should mention I'm using version 0.8.3 with an exe ASIO (dll). So in my ASIO output settings, the buffer option is (0-63). Mine is set to 0.
As for CPU load when playing 24/96, it still only peaks at 3%. It doesn't make sense that CPU load has anything to do with how low I can set my sound device latency.
And if you want to try RAMDisk, I'm using SuperSpeed's version. (See link below) You can download a trial version and decide. You're right though, I'm using 1 GB RAM (I actually bought 4 sticks to use for graphic design work, but obviously using only 1 stick sounds best for audio). I set the RAMDisk to 512MB and yes that means I can only copy 1 CD. It's a tough trade-off, but the improved sound quality sold me.
for the 200/200 configuration?
On latency issue - I had similar problems which was resolved with Foobar buffer set to 100ms. Larger buffers put more load on CPU and could result in premature dispatching to soundcard which requires data realtime. Don't know about Foobar 0.8.Try using SuperCache ii (desktop version) - this gives RAM playback without having to load each CD into RAM when using RAMDisk. I've set it to Read Ahead 1MB (equivalent of 6 seconds) - you get about 40-50 disk accesses per track. I can't tell the difference when entire track is played from RAM vs ReadAhead. No need to have Foobar do any buffering. You need WMI and DCOM Server Process Launcher services running for this setup. It's an improvement over doing standard Windows disk IO even with added services and cache ii running. In your case you could drop RAM from 1GB to 512MB.
I had to increase RAM to 512MB as I couldn't get cache ii to work @ 256MB. Biostar mobo allows lowest RAM clock speed of 266MHz, so couldn't get 200/200 option to work (I suspect this causes L2 cache drop as I can only do 266/200).
I've had an interesting thing happen with my Zalman PSU (it failed) so I switched to Enermax PSU. Now this gives me best results with 256MB RAM and no cahche ii. I'll do a separate post.
Are you guys using the SRC resampler in foobar verison 0.9?
I was using it for the .8 version, but I neer checked to see if it would work in the .9 version or if I had to somehow get a newer version.
I'm sure I'd have to change the buffer settings.
I have my asio settings buffer at its lowest and foobar buffer set to 50,000 Kb or something, and I remember my system needed extra buffering to run SRC. I also remember that it sounded very good, but nowhere near how good it sounds now with all the tweaking done within the last few months. Check my latest affinity post for some more interesting settings to test.
http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/messages/20187.html
I think this was another significant leap for me.
I have not tried any special memory settings or underclocking or bus speed matching (don't really know how) so i hope I'm not missing to much by just buffering from my sata drive into foobar. I don't have any long pauses that I can tell, and if I remember I think that only happens with asio buffering, but I'm not sure.
I'm using foobar 0.8.3 and have been using SRC with that version. But now I'm hearing better results doing offline processing with Voxengo r8brain Pro to 24/96 WAV files (and eliminating SRC DSP in foobar).As for foobar buffer settings - I leave all those at 0. Lower latency is better. And IMHO foobar buffer mucks it up.
The memory settings/underclocking/bus speed matching was a significant leap for me - sorry to tell you, I think you might be missing out. And playing from RAMDisk instead of HDD was also significant.
You said you "don't really know how". Well, the first step is to get yourself CPU-Z. (see link below) This program will tell you what all your speeds are set at. The next step is to adjust these speeds in your BIOS.
I'm going to continue putting off my curiousity to revisit upsampling until I have the rest of the PC optimizations perfected.
And I'll play with setting the foobar buffer to zero and listen.
My question now has to do wth the fact that my media server is used to play movies as well, and since i still beleive that I don't know what I'm doing when I change bios settings, will my HD abd DVD video watching, web surfing, file downloading, web browsing...performance suffer by underclocking anything..This is my only pc at the moment.
Also, I've had cpu-z, but that's as far as I got.
Core speed=2793 MHz, Multiplier=14, FSB=199.5 MHZ, BUs Speed=798 MHz, Voltage is 3.072, Memory Frequency=266 MHz.
Will my Dell system Bios even let me change anything, and if so, what do I need to change?
It corrupted Windows and other stuff. Its incompatible with SATA RAID and I'm rebuilding transport...
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