OS X latency issues

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
1

OS X latency issues

So I finally got my hands on a new (to me) macbook. It’s not brand new but should be able to handle Traktor scratch perfectly fine, but I seem to be having some latency issues no matter how I change the settings. What’s weirder is that my desktop pc is much more responsive in Traktor even with a higher latency set. I have tried with both traktor 2.x and 1.x, at first I thought it might just be that the mac couldn’t handle traktor 2.0 but even on the previous version with the latency set at 1ms I was getting a delay.

If anyone has any ideas id appreciate the help.

the machine is a 2009 macbook with a 2ghz dual core processor and 3gb of ram.

2

What OS version, latest drivers? What’s the buffer size? Is the hard disk close to full resulting in slow VM traffic?

3

Did you do a clean install after buying it or are you still running the old owner’s OS or is the disk nearly full?

4

Clean install, running snow leopard with all the latest drivers. The hard disk is pretty much empty.

5

What audio interface? Latest drivers?

6

Sorry should have mentioned that, It’s an Audio 6.

7

Try rolling back to an older driver then. Use this to uninstall it first and don’t plug your soundcard until the reinstall is complete.

8

You say that you have 3GB of RAM, do you know in what configuration it is? I think your model only has 2 slots, you should either have 2GB or 4GBs. Macs don’t like different amounts of RAM in the slots and they recommend each stick be the same size and type.

9

Yeah 2 slots, It has one 2gb and a 1gb. I upgraded it with some memory from a previous laptop. I’d heard that its better to have them both the same size but figured that a 2+1 would still be better than 1+1, was I wrong to assume that?

10

You need to check they are the same speed as well, otherwise it will work at the speed of the slowest.

11

According to the system profiler they are both 667MHz, Is that their actual speed or just the speed that they are running at?

12

That’s just the speed that they are running at. But according to this site your maximum speed is 667MHz: MacBook "Core 2 Duo" 2.0 13" (White-09) Specs (Early 2009, MB881LL/A, MacBook5,2, A1181, 2300): EveryMac.com

13

Any other ideas as to what could be the problem? I thought it was weird that whatever the latency was set at it has a significant delay in comparison to my other computer, which is set already over 10ms. (11)

14

Dunno if it will fix the current issue but I’ll suggest you upgrade to faster RAM, 667 is pretty slow.

15

I did a test with Traktor with 4 decks, key lock and effects on and the neither the cpu or ram are peaking at all. Really confused by this, other than the latency this machine seems to run Traktor fine.

16

It’s definitely not recommended, for my Macbook pro specs for memory it states in notes (For best performance, fill both memory slots, installing an equal memory module in each slot.) To check the recommended for your laptop go to the apple in the upper left/About this Mac/More Info/Memory Tab/memory Upgrade Instructions. You can also do a quick test and revert your memory to 2 1Gb sticks or 2 2Gb sticks and see if it helps. Also, when you say latency, do you mean your latency number in Traktor seems High or is there a delay in the audio back out of your system?

17

Also, have you tried running your Audio6 on a different USB port?

18

Tried with 2 x 1gb memory and its running fine now. Thanks for the help guys.

19

Sweet, glad it worked out.

20

For what its worth I can run Traktor (latest version, 2.5.1 or whatever) with absolutely ZERO issues on my 2007 1.83 macbook (not PRO) with 2GB ram and running Snow Leopard 10.6.8. There are no clipping issues and the CPU never goes above around 1/3 even when playing 4 decks and analyzing tracks simultaneously.