Upgraded PC to 64 bit, now Spark maxing out CPU & getting audio dropouts

[64but]

I was running Spark through Ableton Live 8 on a Windows XP 32 bit machine with 4 gig ram and 4 core AMD Athlon CPU, and whilst it was a little CPU hungry, it worked fine.

I've just upgraded to Windows 7 64 bit, 8 gig ram and 6 core AMD Phenom CPU and the CPU Load meter in Ableton is freaking out, jumping up and down to 80%, even when nothing is playing!

When I play the project there are massive audio dropouts and the playback slows down. As soon as I delete the track containing Spark, Ableton settles down again.

So I tried running it in standalone mode, and still got audio dropouts. The major change here is Windows 7 64bit environment. Spark doesn't seem to cope with it at all.

Tried the upgrade to 1.1.2 and no change. Anyone else experience this...?

[Kevin]

I have Windows 7 64 bit installed on my computer and don't have such problem.
Can you give me details about your setup (audio driver, sample rate, buffer size ..)?

Kevin

[64but]

Here are the deets:

- Nio 2|4 soundcard (external)
- Novation USB audio & midi driver (latest)
- Sample rate 44.1khz
- Buffer size 512 samples

[Kevin]

Thanks.
2 questions:
Did you use the same audio card with your previous computer?
Can you try with the built in audio card?

[64but]

Yes, used the exact same Nio on the previous setup. All I did was update the drivers. Tried using the built in audio and seems slightly better in standalone mode, but inside Ableton still the same issues - very high jumping CPU meter and constant audio clicks / dropouts.

[64but]

Further update to this issue.

I have just installed Windows XP again on my system as a dual boot setup and reinstalled all the audio software and Ableton. Now everything runs fine just as it did before the Win7 upgrade.

In addition, I have noticed the same audio issues inside Ableton in Win7 in projects where I'm not using Spark, so clearly this issue is not specifically related to Spark, it's a more general audio issue that I'm having inside my Win7 64 bit setup.

Ableton tech support have been unable to diagnose the issue so far. Kevin - can you suggest any resources I could consult for troubleshooting audio issues in Win7?

[Kevin]

First of all, I would try to make it work with the built in audio card.
If you achieve to this, I think you can contact Novation support.