Sound of Traktor Kontrol s4 mk3 is a little dirty sometimes ald also crashes sometimes after a while

Ralph Lange

Hello, my Setup: Traktor Pro 3.7.1.377, Traktor Kontrol S4 mk3 newest Firmware, processor 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-1255U  1.70 GHz, 16gb Ram, Windows 11 Version 22h2 asio driver. When i use my controller to play music, the sound sometimes is dirty and sometimes after a while the application crashes leaving a strange sound. I already had created s post and increased the buffer size to 512 and checked if s4 and soundcard have same rate they both have 44,1khz. Could it be, that the controller has to be repaired?

Ralph Lange

@Mark_NI The issue persisted but now I fixed id finally it seems. The high latency of Wdf0100.sys is caused by other drivers ndis.sys and tcip.sys. In the pdf above mentioned it is recommended to disable all network adapters in windows device manager. That seemed to help, no dropouts anymore. when the flaw returns i will rewrite. Regards Ralph

Markovicz

Hi @Ralph Lange,

you seem to suffer from strong DPC latency issues in your Windows system. This is nothing too unusual on PCs which are not optimised for real-time audio processing, but pretty easy to resolve in most cases. 

Please first check this video that explains some important details about latency-related problems and about how to troubleshoot those using a freeware named LatencyMon:

Troubleshooting Audio Playback Issues on Windows Computers

If you cannot solve the problems using the info from this video, then it would be great if you could post some detailed LatencyMon results.

Please launch LatencyMon and then start playing tracks in two decks in Traktor - the easiest way would be to just loop two tracks. You then need to habe Traktor playing for at least 5min, and at least until the issue audibly occurs. Then take screenshots of the following sections in LatencyMON:

• Main

• Stats

• Drivers

and post them here.

Ralph Lange

Hello @Mark_NI,

Thank you for your effort. I watched the video and did most things, what were recommended in it, like changing the settings. I didn't find power options in Windows 11. Here are the screenshots of the Lacenca Mon. What I also want to mention, I had same problems on an older Laptop (6 gb Ram i5 year 2016, win 10). I bought a new one, that I am using now, because the performance on the old one was too low.

Screenshot_20230223_165141.png

Screenshot_20230223_165206.png

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Markovicz

Thanks for the screenshots! As you can see, LatencyMon indicates a DPC issue as suspected:

Your system seems to be having difficulty handling real-time audio and other tasks. You may experience drop outs, clicks or pops due to buffer underruns. One or more DPC routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long [...].

The identified culprit is "Wdf0100.sys" which is a Windows system driver that cannot just be deactivated like other drivers causing latency issues.

Possible troubleshooting steps: update all available system updates for your computer, including the BIOS, Chipset, IDE / ATAPI / SATA controllers, USB controllers and graphics card. Also make sure that all available Windows updates have been installed.

Some users have reported issues with these drivers when connecting USB 2.0 devices to USB 3.0 ports. If this is the case on your system, install the latest drivers for your USB 3.0 controller or connect the devices to a USB 2.0 port instead.

And this is pretty much all you can do - if the above recommendations do not help, you should contact the Microsoft support, send them your latencyMON results and ask them how to reduce the execution time of the "Wdf01000.sys" driverSome users reported Wdf0100.sys-related issues when connecting USB 2.0 devices to USB 3.0 ports. Some could solve their problems by connecting their devices to another USB 2 controller instead of the USB 3 controller. We highly recommend updating your USB 3 drivers first in this case.

Ralph Lange

Thanks for your effort. I installed all new drivers of the acer webpage. I will try other usb drivers, the existing drivers were the newest. I also put the s4 on a different usb port, that is usb 3.2 gen 2, the other was usb 3.0. It takes some time to see if it is working.

Markovicz

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/55574#Comment_55574

Fingers crossed! Keep us in the loop here, please.

hec

Hi there. I have issues too with noises and "crunching" while playing. I have a HP Spectre (Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6500U CPU @ 2.50GHz  2.60 GHz; 16GB RAM) with integrated graphic card (you know, APU type), and definitely is the graphic load on the CPU what is causing my problems.

It's clear for many reasons now. First of all, if the song has not been previously analyzed by traktor, there can be noises. If I have some other resources consuming software open at the same time (i.e. Indesign) or an internet explorer with many tabs open at the same time, there will be noises. If I play 3 or 4 decks, there will be noises as soon as it get hot and start throttling. And what finally gave me the clue about the graphic card was when I got and external 4K monitor to work at home. The crunching assured 100% now. It's ok. I can live with it while preparing playlists, but would be completely unsustainable playing live.

So, what is my humble advice then? If you are going to play life, restart your PC. Close every process you can in the background. Boost your "energy setings" to the max (as says in above link: Troubleshooting Audio Playback Issues on Windows Computers). Analyze your tracks first loading them in your decks (not only by left clicking on them in the browser; you have to do it only once). And last but not least, make sure you have something extra to cool down your pc (a small portable fan directed towards the cpu zone will do). And if you want to be on the safe side, play only 2 tracks.

Ralph Lange

@hec Thank you for your advice. It seems that this problem also occurs on controllers with fast Laptops. I will obey your tipps and in some time tell here about my experiences. It may take some time to notify if it is fixed, because the issue occurs not often. Regards Ralph

Ralph Lange

@Mark_NI The issue persisted but now I fixed id finally it seems. The high latency of Wdf0100.sys is caused by other drivers ndis.sys and tcip.sys. In the pdf above mentioned it is recommended to disable all network adapters in windows device manager. That seemed to help, no dropouts anymore. when the flaw returns i will rewrite. Regards Ralph

Markovicz

That's so good news, Ralph!