I’ve been away from VCV Rack for a while, maybe a year or two. But I’ve just now set up a Windows PC, installed VCV Rack and I’m getting very frequent pops/dropouts no matter how I adjust sample rate, threads and/or block size. Even with very minimal patches (a VCO straight into the Audio module).
This is a fresh instance of Windows 11 64bit (with all updates) on a Dell OptiPlex 5070 (i7-9700, 16GB RAM, Intel integrated HD GPU — no additional video board). I’ve disabled the onboard Realtek audio, but that didn’t help.
My audio interface is a PreSonus AudioBox iOne with the latest driver and firmware.
I’ve tried ASIO and WASAPI. Same clicky results.
I’ve been away from Rack so long that I’ve forgotten nearly everything I learned about it previously. I keep hoping there is some subtle setting I’ve forgotten about, but if so, I have no idea what it is.
Not knowing your gear well, I would make sure any control software for PreSonus shows same sample rate and bit depth as VCV settings. You probably already did.
I vaguely recall Rack doing better with a dedicated video board, but I didn’t expect it to be a requirement, although I just now checked the requirements on the web site, and yes, dedicated graphics are at least, highly recommended. I’ll probably put a video card in this machine at some point.
With very old HD3000 or so, it was a problem, but I doubt the cause is the UHD630 in the i7 9700 you mention. I’m runinng Rack on my 7 year old Intel processor (integrated HD630, no video card) and it’s all good.
Thanks. This machine is fully patched with the latest updates, including Intel’s, but just to make sure, I’ll run their utility on it that checks for missing/out-of-date drivers.
EDIT. No luck. There was a more recent driver available for the Intel HD graphics to replace the most recent Dell-specific driver but it did not help the situation.
If anyone is curious, here is a short recording of the VCV VCO sending a sine wave to the Record and Audio modules, interrupted here and there by pops/dropouts.
I don’t see any glitches/pops in Audition, other than one tiny bit at the start of recording. It looks like perfect sine. You’d need to record from outside Rack to catch the glitches you’re hearing
This is just a small image, but the whole thing looks like that as I scroll through
How bizarre! Even when I listen to the SoundCloud recording (on this newly formatted PC), I hear the pops. But you’re right, I listened on another computer and no pops!
I’m flummoxed … I guess it’s something with this Vizio soundbar I’m using, but I haven’t noticed it with any other audio sources. Completely weird …
I’m glad it’s not Rack though.
EDIT: Guessing here, but the only thing I can think of is that as I was setting this computer up, I slightly dropped the soundbar. Not far, a couple of feet, but it hit with a bit of a thud on the low pile carpet. Perhaps I knocked a connection in it slightly loose, and when I play continuous tones, the soundbar case resonates somewhat depending on the frequency, and that resonance is enough to rattle the flaky connection momentarily loose.
If I can figure out how to get into this thing, I’ll wiggle stuff and see what happens.
