VCV Rack unresponsive under Windows 7

VCV Rack
1

I’ve just downloaded and installed VCV Rack v1.1.6 under Windows 7, but I’m finding it very unresponsive. I don’t think it’s my hardware (I’m running Windows 7 Home Premium with SP 1 on an AMD Phenom II 810 64-bit quad processor rated at 2.6 GHz, with 8 GB of memory), but it keeps freezing (I get a “not responding” status in the title bar), and takes 20 to 30 seconds to recover. However, according to Windows Task Manager, total CPU usage doesn’t go above 20%.

It’s a very simple patch, basically the default that comes with VCV Rack when you install it, with only a few modules that I added myself (see attached screen print). There’s only one Audio 8 module in it (I’ve read that having more than one isn’t supported). Any idea what the problem might be?

ScreenCapture
ScreenCapture1084×518 260 KB

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P.S. My video card is an ATI Radeon HD 4200. I notice that ATI drivers aren’t listed under requirements for running VCV Rack. Could that be the problem?

3

does the HD4200 use OpenGL and do you have the latest drivers installed?

it could be the problem, as VCV needs a good graphics card beside a fast cpu (your cpu is pretty old iirc).

and VCV needs to run as few threads as possible, else it will use some overhaed for syncronizing.

which audio driver do you use? do you have ASIO drivers installed?

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The driver hasn’t been updated for Windows 7 since October 2013, it seems. According to the description on this web site, it supports OpenGL 3.3.

I’m using the Yamaha Steinberg USB ASIO driver that came with my audio interface (a Steinberg UR 22). It works fine with Pure Data, Max/MSP, Reaper, Audacity, and any other applications I have installed that use audio.

5

that is not a typical symptom. You gfx card is old and slow, but my first guess is that’s not the problem.

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Thanks. Any idea what is the problem?

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Does Wasapi or Directsound work in audio8 ?

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The audio is working fine. It’s just when I go to edit the patch (or click on anything in the VCV Rack window), it freezes for 20 seconds or more.

9

Ah, now I understand the problem, and have no clue what to do, sorry.

10

used the same graphics card with Rack in the past without problems!

have you tried lowering the sample block size and/or the framerate to see if either makes an impact on this?

11

Seems it was the video driver after all. I re-installed the video driver and the problem went away. I wasn’t having this problem with any other applications, but I’m not sure which applications would use OpenGL. Thanks.

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:+1: