USB Audio Interface JACK Xruns on Linux but not on Windows

Talk about your MIDI interfaces, microphones, keyboards...

Moderators: MattKingUSA, khz

merlyn
Established Member
Posts: 1392
Joined: Thu Oct 11, 2018 4:13 pm
Has thanked: 168 times
Been thanked: 247 times

Re: USB Audio Interface JACK Xruns on Linux but not on Windows

Post by merlyn »

There's the CPU spike. Does the DSP load also spike? The spike suggests that there is something that could be done in software to fix this.

In your first post the outputs of lsusb and cat /proc/interrupts didn't add up.

Is the BIOS the latest version? Are there BIOS settings that might affect this?

You could go further down the rabbit hole with rt-tests :)
Jack Winter
Established Member
Posts: 381
Joined: Sun May 28, 2017 3:52 pm

Re: USB Audio Interface JACK Xruns on Linux but not on Windows

Post by Jack Winter »

If it's related to a spike in CPU use, try disabling hyperthreading. I've seen a scenario where xorg spiking on a cpu caused xruns at low latency in reaper. It went away when disabling SMT.
Reaper/KDE/Archlinux. i7-2600k/16GB + i7-4700HQ/16GB, RME Multiface/Babyface, Behringer X32, WA273-EQ, 2 x WA-412, ADL-600, Tegeler TRC, etc 8) For REAPER on Linux information: https://wiki.cockos.com/wiki/index.php/REAPER_for_Linux
silksow
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Feb 12, 2019 11:38 pm

Re: USB Audio Interface JACK Xruns on Linux but not on Windows

Post by silksow »

Jack Winter wrote:If it's related to a spike in CPU use, try disabling hyperthreading. I've seen a scenario where xorg spiking on a cpu caused xruns at low latency in reaper. It went away when disabling SMT.
This very suggestion made a massive improvement for my xruns/dropouts just today. Thanks again, Jack :D
vittopascu

Re: USB Audio Interface JACK Xruns on Linux but not on Windows

Post by vittopascu »

Jack Winter wrote:If it's related to a spike in CPU use, try disabling hyperthreading. I've seen a scenario where xorg spiking on a cpu caused xruns at low latency in reaper. It went away when disabling SMT.
Nope, same identical issue with the UR22 (the codec power supply is dead but the USB controller is still working, so it is enough to test for xruns)

Anyhow, little update, I just realized I had a MiniDSP ministreamer laying around, which is basically a 16bit audio interface. I plugged it in, selected the "force 16 bit" option, buffer = 48, frames = 3, 3ms nominal latency, no xruns :shock:

The testing on my UR22 has come to a tragic end because I was trying fix some hardware issues inside and I ended up killing it, so no more UR22. I will buy a new audio interface and let you know the results.
Last edited by vittopascu on Sun Jul 14, 2019 11:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
vittopascu

Re: USB Audio Interface JACK Xruns on Linux but not on Windows

Post by vittopascu »

Last update on the matter:

I got a Focusrite Clarett and it works without problems, no periodic dropouts with 128 samples, 2 buffers. However I sent it back because the noise floor is way too high for the price. Not no mention the discomfort of having to use their control software through a virtual machine to set up almost every parameter.

Instead I decided to go all-in and buy an RME ADI PRO-FS (only handles conversion) plus an external preamp, very expensive device, works fantastic. It is completely class compliant and no driver installation is necessary, will handle basically any reasonable latency you throw at it without a single xrun.

I noticed that I still get xruns when working entirely through wine (so REAPER in wine and all windows plugins) so I updated my workflow to avoid this. I use REAPER native Linux port in conjunction with Carla plugin host. REAPER native works fantastic in linux and the native plugins are absolutely gorgeous.

However it does not support LV2 plugins which is where Carla comes in, allowing me to mostly use native linux plugins with basically no performance loss. Carla also allows to use windows plugins through its wine bridge, when it is absolutely necessary, and I must say it is very stable and does not cause xruns, although the computational load for a bridged windows plugin is about double what you would have with a native version (if it were available).

This is where the beautiful feature of REAPER is handy, where you can freeze tracks. One can use windows VSTs through Carla and then freeze the tracks so that the computational load caused by the bridging is not causing any problems. This is the closest to a professional, all-round setup I could get and I am quite satisfied with it.
Jack Winter
Established Member
Posts: 381
Joined: Sun May 28, 2017 3:52 pm

Re: USB Audio Interface JACK Xruns on Linux but not on Windows

Post by Jack Winter »

Congratulations!
Reaper/KDE/Archlinux. i7-2600k/16GB + i7-4700HQ/16GB, RME Multiface/Babyface, Behringer X32, WA273-EQ, 2 x WA-412, ADL-600, Tegeler TRC, etc 8) For REAPER on Linux information: https://wiki.cockos.com/wiki/index.php/REAPER_for_Linux
van_dim
Established Member
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Jul 24, 2019 1:29 pm

Re: USB Audio Interface JACK Xruns on Linux but not on Windows

Post by van_dim »

Hello,

I just want to add some more information with regards to Steinberg UR22 interface xrun issues.
The whole thread was a interesting read for me as I have absolutely the same issues with my Steinberg UR22 under Linux.
I have a desktop with Gigabyte Z170/Intel i5 6600k/16GB RAM/AMD RX580/SSD etc...
I have tried numerous different distributions - Ubuntu Studio, Fedora Jam, AV Linux etc. with same problems mentioned above. I also did try a lot of different settings in BIOS, overclocking, every possible USB port etc...
While I did not dig as deep as vittopascu the end results were the same - depending mostly on the setttings in Jack I had xruns at regular intervals.
All the best to everyone!
3700X/Gigabyte X570/16GB DDR4/RX Vega/ Behringer U-Phoria UMC404HD / AKG K701 / AKG K612pro / Ubuntu Studio
Post Reply