Latency probs, do you have them? A simple guitar exercise help you test (video)

[Billkwando]

I made this video because I'm horrible at one of my CDLC songs that seems like it should be pretty easy (Prince - "Kiss") and I could never figure out why.

 

It turns out that I introduced latency into my setup by fiddling with out audio control panel options while playing a CD, and I simply didn't realize it was the reason I felt like my playing was crap. The song's precise timing on certain parts is more demanding than most song, so it sounds like crap if there's any lag.....I just didn't realize that's what the problem was, until I was noodling around and started to play an old finger exercise that I idly do when I'm holding a guitar sometimes.

 

All of a sudden, I realized something was very wrong with my audio.

 

The video doesn't fully capture the horrible (but subtle!) lag like I wish it did (it sounded like a harmonizer) but I think I got close with my recreated settings. I realize now I didn't change the Rocksmith Audio Engine Settings from the current (good) setting of 2 back to 4, so that probably explains it.

 

 

I hope this helps!

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[Tmlt]

Rocksmith settings instructions clearly say you should always run at 48KHz.
Dolby increases latency on most equipment

[pokerbarlo]

where can you adjust these settings for soundblaster? Whats the best way to check for latency because I might have gotten used to the lag and played out of time? is that even possible?... lol

[pokerbarlo]

where can I download you excercise?

[Billkwando]

Rocksmith settings instructions clearly say you should always run at 48KHz.

Dolby increases latency on most equipment

 

I've been playing Rocksmith long enough that I've forgotten what the instructions clearly say. Did you have any point other than rtfm ? :P

 

Also, I'm well aware that any additional processing can introduce latency, the problem was that when I'd turn it off, I'd get distorted audio. For some reason it would play clearly on Dolby at 44.1 but if I turned it off, the audio was horrible and crackly. I just forgot how I screwed it up. I added it as an aside at the end of the video, but the real point was the exercise. I just hate it when people address a problem I'm having (such as Help threads, like Google is littered with) and say they solved it, but don't bother to mention how. Thus the extra information.

 

 

where can you adjust these settings for soundblaster? Whats the best way to check for latency because I might have gotten used to the lag and played out of time? is that even possible?... lol

 

For soundblaster you probably don't have Dolby Live to worry about. I bought an old Auzen card that had it, intentionally, so I could play games (not Rocksmith) in surround on my 5.1 receiver. Basically you'd want to follow these instructions:

 

https://technicallyeasy.net/2010/09/how-to-disable-audio-enhancements-windows-7/

 

and while you're in there, go to the advanced tab and make sure you're on 48khz not 44.1khz.

 

where can I download you excercise?

 

Download it? it's pretty simple.

 

15 14 13 12, 14 13 12 11, and so on, all the way down the e string, as fast as you can go, so you can tell when you're leaving the audio behind.

 

 

 

 

 

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[cryptonitor]

Had perfect responce after RS Remastered came. No latency. But today I got many more songs and latency is suddenly like beta RS before even 2014 version. My computer is extremely overpowered (Asus G7 ftw. Add-on SSHD for that responsetime loading kajigger on the whatchamacallit which gave me restart time 12 seconds and startup time less. Replaced motherboard with flawless one and tested RAM for errors) so that is not the issue. Using original RS cable and I got a guitar especially for RS that has active pickups so I'm able to decrease the need for post-processing and amplification. Pristine cables and ALL kajiggers disabled or made to not do any post-processing.  Both on soundcard and amplifier. My collection passed 1300 songs today. Now 1300 songs that all fully load and function optimal with regards to latency when played at max. When I added the songs purchased today (1386 songs total) now every song has latency! Gah.... Any solution other than deleting songs or upgrading hardware? 
Is there a max value of songs you can have in your collection before RS just makes like Donald Trump and starts creating problems for every other system? I know where the windows and apple problems come from and checked related systems which seem fine

[Billkwando]

Had perfect responce after RS Remastered came. No latency. But today I got many more songs and latency is suddenly like beta RS before even 2014 version. My computer is extremely overpowered (Asus G7 ftw. Add-on SSHD for that responsetime loading kajigger on the whatchamacallit which gave me restart time 12 seconds and startup time less. Replaced motherboard with flawless one and tested RAM for errors) so that is not the issue. Using original RS cable and I got a guitar especially for RS that has active pickups so I'm able to decrease the need for post-processing and amplification. Pristine cables and ALL kajiggers disabled or made to not do any post-processing.  Both on soundcard and amplifier. My collection passed 1300 songs today. Now 1300 songs that all fully load and function optimal with regards to latency when played at max. When I added the songs purchased today (1386 songs total) now every song has latency! Gah.... Any solution other than deleting songs or upgrading hardware? 

Is there a max value of songs you can have in your collection before RS just makes like Donald Trump and starts creating problems for every other system? I know where the windows and apple problems come from and checked related systems which seem fine

 

 

 

Now, I don't know this for a fact, but I believe that the only thing the number of songs you have should affect is startup time.....meaning the "Enumerating" message you get when you first start up. It shouldn't (as far as I know) affect the time between when you strike a note, and when you hear it, in Rocksmith.

 

Also, the active pickups wouldn't really make a difference in the way you're thinking (I don't believe), because Rocksmith is designed to accommodate guitars with different output levels, via calibration. The only guitar I have that's active is my bass, and I've noticed no appreciable difference in latency whatsoever.

 

Are you saying there's lag on your notes? I just wanna make sure I understand the problem.

 

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[Alex360]

@@Billkwando rtfm says that resampling between your input and output is costy, so you should set same value, that's right, but you could also play with buffers and output buffer value I've played a bit with ultralowlatency = 1  buffers = 2 or 4 and output buffers to 0 (autosetting is ok most of the time) and it says smth like 3 ms delay in audiolog, but i still able to hear delay, rocksmith set's windows timer to 1 which is good, but it you're on windows you can set 0.5 so it boosts up thing a bit and as for emulated bass for sure, still I'm not satisfied with bass emulated, but guitar is like amp for me >__>

timer tool is here, let me know if i'm just ate placebo myself with this https://github.com/tebjan/TimerTool
thanks!

[Billkwando]

I downloaded that app, should I always set it to .5 when I play? What should my input and output settings be? What buffer settings should I use? I always have a hard time understanding your posts, so try to keep it simple for me.

 

Also I didn't understand what you were saying about emulated bass. Were you saying it's laggier/slower because it's emulated?

 

 

 

 

 

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[Alex360]

@@Billkwando, here I'am to answer your questions!

that app works only when it's opened and you set timer to 0.5
I'm currently have headphones set to 24 bit 48kHz stereo, no surround or anything, all effects are off and monopoly mode is on.
realtone cable should be configured already by you :) same 48 kHz and monopoly mode on

as for buffers I'm using Latency buffer = 1, ultralowlatency=1 (lowers the buffer from 512 or 256 to 128) and output buffer 128 if lower = no sound + exclusinve mode on. audiodump = 0 but when you enable it that gives you info about latency it's 2.67 ms

as for testing riff i'd stick to reggie stroke a chord and mute it, or slap bass and look at yout thumb to see when sound comes out, it should go off as you hit the string not when you rise it up again, you'll figure out ;) I'm lazy to take a video.

as for emulated bass (pitch shifter built in Rocksmith) it has some delay because of the processing so it worse than plain guitar or plain bass experience.

 

all math there, anything I should clarify? or I'm getting worse now? :D

 

here:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6zOE-7JCxwjSWhBWDJMYzhrQk0

 

It's a bit quiet i guess

but changing pitch is good too, but even in Guitar hero you need to click when it clicks ingame...

[Billkwando]

@@Billkwando, here I'am to answer your questions!

 

 

all math there, anything I should clarify? or I'm getting worse now? :D

 

Oh no, this is really really good, thanks! Pretty sure I understand perfectly. When I get home I'll give it a try and let you know if I get confused. LOL

 

Also I never use emulated bass, cos I have a bass, so luckily I've never needed to worry about it.

[domsch1988]

I could never get rid of the lag really. That's why i switched to my kemper for all guitar sounds. No Latency and great tones  ^_^

[Billkwando]

I could never get rid of the lag really. That's why i switched to my kemper for all guitar sounds. No Latency and great tones  ^_^

What's a kemper?

[domsch1988]

 

I could never get rid of the lag really. That's why i switched to my kemper for all guitar sounds. No Latency and great tones  ^_^

What's a kemper?

 

The kemper profiling amplifire: https://www.kemper-amps.com/

[Billkwando]

 

 

I could never get rid of the lag really. That's why i switched to my kemper for all guitar sounds. No Latency and great tones  ^_^

What's a kemper?

 

The kemper profiling amplifire: https://www.kemper-amps.com/

 

 

Meh. Being a CDLC creator, that isn't an option I would use or recommend. Part of the fun is tone changes, and having the tone match the song, which you lose when you use your own amp. My latency is fine now, but if it wasn't, I would find a way to fix it.

[zxcv4321]

I have zero detectable latency on XB360, but I just bought an overpowered laptop because I wanted to play CDLC.

 

Acer Predator Helios 300
7th Gen Intel Core i7-7700HQ Processor 3.80GHz
32GB Memory
512GB SSD + 2TB HDD
6GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 Graphics

 

The latency is unplayable.  I have tried all of the suggestions that have come up so far: audio playback/recorder configurations, dozens of permutations of different configuration file values, driver updates, Dolby off, no HDMI, even setting the windows priority levels and qualities.  Since it is a laptop, maybe it is just an artifact of the way the onboard sound is done?  I am not sure where to turn to now, except for splitting the signal out to an amp.  But I agree, the custom tones in the DLC are cool, and I would love to be able to play them.  

 

If there are any suggestions or intuitions as to what I may be doing wrong, I would love to hear them.

 

So it's a bit frustrating having an over-powered machine that can't play a 4 year old game that is seamless on a generation-old game system.

[Alex360]

@@zxcv4321 try this settings in rocksmith ini, also manage your power plan and set cpu min\max value to 100 while playing so it won't throttle down

[Audio]
EnableMicrophone=0
ExclusiveMode=1
LatencyBuffer=0
ForceDefaultPlaybackDevice=1
ForceWDM=0
ForceDirectXSink=0
Win32UltraLowLatencyMode=1
DumpAudioLog=0
MaxOutputBufferSize=144

 

also make sure your input and output set to 48 kHZ 16 or 24 bit plus 2 check-boxes checked (on same tab where you set this settings) so you allow exclusive mode for those devices

 

 

3.8 Ghz should be fine for your setup, launch empty chrome window before you open eocksmith in case rs fail to set windows timer t o1 :thinking:

you should experience no lag in headphones whatsoever you're on kaby lake so it's less powerful but more power efficient

[zxcv4321]

Thanks for the info - I went through all of the standard hoops already:  device properties, driver updates, NVidia settings and all of the Rocksmith configuration file stuff.

 

I updated the sound driver (Realtek High Definition Audio SST).  I have been trying to remove it and replace it with the WIndows default sound driver, but WIndows 10 is making it really difficult: it won't show the default driver as an option, and any time I remove the Realtek one, it re-installs on reboot.  I am going to research to see if there are other audio drivers that might work better.

[Alex360]

@@zxcv4321 drivers from realtek for realtek hardware is the best option you could get usually windows drivers is the main issue for odd behaviour

also changing to 48 kHz is huge gain on lowering latency since it eliminate re-sampling step for cpu to process :)

[Xellot]

Have you tried Calibrating your guitar????  Changing the lag settings on your game?   Or gone into Steam, and changed any setting in there? I've been playing Rocksmith on a Surface Pro 1 with all of the visual settings turned off, and I keep my latency buffer on 7 to 10.. I literally change it all around there.  For whatever reason I get WAY different tone when I change the latency buffer.  Right now it's on 9, and every song I play is right on par..  If i put it on anything lower than 6 it sounds like muddy dog shit in my opinion.