WASAPI mode loud artifacts, clicks/pops/scratches win7 64 bit?

[spiroth10]

Im not sure whats causing it, I have a creative x-fi 5.1 pro USB sound card,

normal output is fine (aside from some leaking transmissions if cables cross other active wires, some RARE radio interference -- normal stuff).

this is different than that normal stuff -- much more regular, loud, and annoying -- you can notice it starting and stopping when WASAPI is enabled or disabled.

so what can I do about it -- I read on the foobar forums that an update was released awhile ago, at least for their player -- was it a driver update in general? my sound cards drivers are from 2014 (no updates) -- so is there a way I can get an updated one from Microsoft?

is it something else causing this? audio DOES sound better in WASAPI obviously through an analog path -- but the clicks are VERY distracting, and detract from using it totally.

[detmek]

No, it was update for foobars WASAPI output plugin. It has nothing to do with drivers.

[foxyshadis]

USB soundcards are extremely sensitive to all kinds of latencies, one of the worst being the video driver -- it can lock the bus for milliseconds at the time, causing USB DPC pauses and thus audio crackles. I've had one for almost ten years and it was occasionally bad in XP but VERY bad in Win7 until I finally got a new laptop. Aero made it worse, heavy drive reads caused it (especially USB hard drives), scrolling in Firefox was a surefire way to cause it, and so on.

Keep it plugged in directly, never to a hub. You might get some further information with the DPC latency checker (http://www.thesycon.de/eng/latency_check.shtml), which can help narrow down what's causing the bus latency spikes.