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View Full Version : sound stepped: High Pci Latency due the Sentinel Dongle


multiradio
04-10-2009, 02:44 AM
Hi to all,

i just brought an Delta 192 for our radio automation that is protected with a Sentinel pro dongle (now SafeNet Inc (www.safenet-inc.com)) on the parallel port and i discovered that every time the software check the dongle the audio is stepped. I investigate also other configurations and tested many audio softwares with the Rainbow Sentinel medic utility so i discovered that i have the problem every time the dongle is checked with any softare.

I tried to solve with a bigger buffer changing to the maximum the latency buffer on the 192's control panel and changing the pc's pci latency buffer without any result.

I conducted the tests with 3 different computers, different hardware and
chipsets (all P4 with windows 2000, Intel and Sis chipsets, minimum ram of 512 Mb, acpi config and normal pc) without results, i also changed slots and disabled all non essential peripherals: the problem is still there.

The IRQ was not shared and in two cases was not virtual (below the irq number 15) so i realy think it is not involved in the problem.

I think the solution could be simple as to have a longer sample buffer but how can i set it? The software is a radio automation so a long latency is not a problem for us, i don't need Asio driver, it would be very useful a simple,
long latency driver...

can someone help me? :confused:

Luigino Bucosse

JA
04-10-2009, 10:50 AM
Unless you can specify a buffer size from within the software, I don't think you can set a higher buffer for the 192. Have you checked with SafeNet to see if they have updated drivers for the dongle that may improve the performance?

multiradio
04-14-2009, 01:59 AM
Yes, i checked for the latest drivers and tested all the available
versions: nothing to do, every time the test utility or the automation
software check the dongle the latency goes up to 10-15000uS,
i also tryed to change the latency of others pripherals on the pci
bus without any result...

i'm afraid i will change the 192 with some other non Asio hardware...

:-|

multiradio
04-15-2009, 12:03 AM
Latest tests:

i installed a generic (Via tech oem?) driver named "Envy 24..." and discovered that
the sound is distorted but not affected by the problem...

this confirm to me that could be a driver problem: how get rid of it?

how can i set a bigger (dma?) buffer in order to avoid the skipping sound
when the pci latency goes high?

....