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    Urgent help. I need advice on the most sensitive software to DPC Latency

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by horus22, Jul 5, 2009.

  1. horus22

    horus22 Notebook Guru

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    Which is the most sensitive software to DPC Latency?
    I want to be sure that my laptop is bullet-proof or I'm going to ask for an upgrade.
    Tomorrow I have to decide, so it's a bit urgent.
     
  2. Nebelwand

    Nebelwand Notebook Consultant

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  3. horus22

    horus22 Notebook Guru

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    I know how to check DPC Latencies.

    I need a software that is severly afflicted by those latencies.
     
  4. Shyster1

    Shyster1 Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    High-quality streaming audio, or high-quality video. For example, if you run some of the really graphics-intensive games on a system with DPC latency issues, you may start to see a bit of stuttering in the video feed.
     
  5. Baserk

    Baserk Notebook user

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    Like Shyster1 already mentioned, all programs using high-quality streaming audio will be affected by high latencies.
    If you are looking for a program that will seriously suffer from DPC spikes (to have an argument against the notebook-reseller, I assume?), check a program like Cubase.
    Cheers.
     
  6. horus22

    horus22 Notebook Guru

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    Thank you for your support, guys.
    High quality games are out of the question because I have integrated graphics.

    Baserk, you guessed right.
    I've posted here a more detailed view of the problem:
    http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=396287

    I was pretty sure I had a strong case(VISTA audio drivers sound better, but gave me constant clicks no matter what latency I would have used), but when I've installed the original DELL audio drivers(which sound a bit distorted), the clicks had a much smaller intensity, and someone untrained would not clearly notice them. I assume that the reseller would blame the laptop's small speakers.
     
  7. Shyster1

    Shyster1 Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Fair enough as to high quality games, but that being said, anything that pushes the GPU (integrated or discrete) out to its maximum capabilities should put enough traffic on the FSB that any bad DPC latency problems would start to cause micro-stuttering in the video. So, if you have a game where you can play it on, say, settings X, but on higher settings Y it becomes unplayable, then you could probably pick up DPC latency stuttering by running the game with settings X.
     
  8. horus22

    horus22 Notebook Guru

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    The only game that I've tried is UT2004, and sometimes it has short freezes, but I'm 100% sure that they'll blame it on the GMA video card.

    Besides Cubase(which does not have a demo) and games, do you know an intensive software that works with realtime audio/video streams?
     
  9. Shyster1

    Shyster1 Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Try a streaming audio download (e.g., like an internet radio feed, or an audiophile feed if you can find one) and see if it starts getting stuttering.