yo lotus! some info that may help ya

[Cuttin P]

Buffer underruns & maximizing FL Studio performance

If your CPU or disk usage climbs too high you are likely to experience audio ' buffer underruns ' (clicks & pops in the sound from FL Studio). The good news is that CPU and disk usage can be lowered considerably if you take the time to make some adjustments to the FL Studio settings. The audio buffer is a temporary store of data waiting to be sent to the soundcard that allows FL Studio to even out momentary spikes in CPU load. If the Audio Buffer runs dry, because your CPU or hard-drive can't keep up, then your Soundcard will make rude pop, click or stutter noises. It�s worth noting that underruns can ONLY occur in real-time playback, they will not happen while exporting to wave or mp3 file .

There are many reasons why your CPU or hard-drive may fail to keep up with your soundcard. This section outlines steps to ensure that your audio settings are optimized for FL Studio. Underrun minimization should be conducted with a typical project playing, your task is to find the shortest buffer length setting with few (or no) new underruns added to the count. Note that you will almost always see some underruns (1-5 is typical), these mostly happen at startup. Similarly, the occasional underrun during a project is not usually a problem, but may indicate you are close to the minimum buffer size the current settings can sustain. Remember , underruns are only a problem when you notice them and they become distracting. The following steps are designed to minimize underruns, use an ASIO soundcard driver if possible :

ASIO Soundcard Drivers (ASIO will appear in the name)

The following is a summary from the Audio settings page. After each change, if the underrun count stops increasing, try to reduce the Buffer length setting further. Your goal is to find the shortest setting with no, or few, new underruns.

First, a reminder that as the Buffer length is increased, underruns decrease, but the delay between playing a MIDI keyboard, tweaking a knob and the response of FL Studio also increases. The aim is to minimize the buffer size without causing buffer underruns. For ASIO drivers, settings of 1-4 ms are 'cutting edge', 5-10 ms are 'excellent' and 11-20 ms are 'good'.
Make sure the Mixer Interpolation is set to Linear and the Sample rate is 48,000 Hz or less.
Increase the audio thread ' Priority ' setting to 'Highest'.
Turn the ' Safe overloads ' switch off.
Download the latest ASIO drivers from your soundcard manufacturer. We recommend sticking with the native ASIO drivers and only trying alternatives if you experience problems with them.

In some cases the 3rd party www.asio4all.com drivers outperform native ASIO drivers and may resolve underrun issues. Note: While ASIO4ALL works with most soundcards, it is a 'generic' ASIO driver, and so your experience may be different.

Disable inactive plugins , turn on Tools > Macros > Switch smart disable for all plugins . This turns off effects & instruments when they are not in use and so decreases CPU usage significantly.
Decrease polyphony of the instrument channels.

Turn off ' Keep on disk ' for Sampler and Audio-Clip channels. This loads samples into memory which is faster.

Record mixer channels to audio and disable the instruments feeding those mixer channels.

Note: If your Buffer length setting is greater than 50 ms and your CPU usage meter peaks over 80%, it may be simply be your computer is not fast enough to play the project. Welcome to the never ending cycle of PC upgrades!
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Standard Soundcard Drivers (If ASIO does not appear in the name)

The following is a summary from the Audio settings page. After each change, if the underrun count stops increasing, try to reduce the Buffer length setting further. Your goal is to find the shortest setting with no, or few, new underruns.

First, a reminder that as the Buffer length is increased, underruns decrease, but the delay between playing a MIDI keyboard, tweaking a knob and the response of FL Studio also increases. The aim is to minimize the buffer size without causing buffer underruns. For standard drivers, settings of 5-10 ms are 'cutting edge', 11-20 ms are 'excellent' and 21-50 ms are 'good'.
Make sure the Mixer Interpolation is set to Linear and the Sample rate is 48000 Hz or less.
Increase the audio thread ' Priority ' setting to 'Highest'.
Turn the ' Safe overloads ' switch off.
Try each of the 4 possible combinations of the ' Use polling ' and ' Use hardware buffer ' switches. 4 combinations? Two switches with two states (on/off) mean 4 possible combinations, try them all.
Switch to ASIO mode (if supported by your soundcard). There is also 3rd party 'work-around' at a www.asio4all.com that allows many non native ASIO soundcards to operate in ASIO mode. Note: While ASIO4ALL works with most soundcards, it is a 'generic' ASIO driver, and so your experience may be different.

Disable inactive plugins , turn on Tools > Macros > Switch smart disable for all plugins . This turns off effects & instruments when they are not in use and so decreases CPU usage significantly.
Decrease polyphony of the instrument channels.

Turn off ' Keep on disk ' for Sampler and Audio-Clip channels. This loads samples into memory which is faster.

Record mixer channels to audio and disable the instruments feeding those mixer channels.

Note: If your Buffer length setting is greater than 100 ms and your CPU usage meter peaks over 80%, it may be simply be your computer is not fast enough to play the project. Welcome to the never ending cycle of PC upgrades!

[Lotus]

wow man awesome. thnx alot ima try some of this shit tomorrow when i work on those techno joints