I was finally fed up with the latency issues I'd been having with my Dell Studio 1537, and Traktor, and decided to fix it. The last two days were spent gathering info on what's causing Traktor to crap out, freeze up, or sound like thrift store vinyl while its running on my Dell. I'm happy to say I was successful in fixing the problems I was having. I thought I'd share my finds with the community. I'm by no means an expert. This is just what worked for me. If your considering buying a Mac, try these tricks out first. You might be pleasantly surprised as I was. This worked on my Studio 15, but since the studio line from Dell is very similar you should give it a shot if you any of the other sizes, and share your findings.
Perform the following at your own risk! I will not be held responsible for lost data, or unforeseen problems that arise as a result of performing the tasks below.
1.BACK UP EVERYTHING - This is the first and most important step when reformatting your operating system, since in most cases formatting will erase all your old files.
2. Install Windows 7 32-bit ultimate - (These might also work with Vista 32-bit, but I'm not sure. 64-bit is not recommended by native instruments as of yet.)
3. goto support.dell.com - upgrade your bios to A09, this will fix the latency problem.
4. Get into your power management settings - This will ensure nothing turns off or goes into power-saving mode while playing for extended periods causing audio dropouts.
I used the default high performance mode(plugged in), and made these changes in the advanced settings.
- Hard Disk - turn off hard disk (never)
- Desktop Background Settings - Slide Show (paused)
- Sleep - All dropdown boxes (never)
- USB settings - USB selective suspend settings - (disabled)
5. Set Traktor Audio Latency -7.5 ms total latency
- USB Buffersize - 4ms
- Audio Buffersize - 8ms
6. Optional - I did this cause I'm anal, but you don't have to.
Disable Sound card (*Audio 8) Input/Output Ports your not using.
Adjust Visual effects in Windows Control Panel to best performance
Set Transport Key lock to:
- Quality - HiQ
- Mode - Scratch
Bookmarks