Optimising your PC for audio on Windows 10

All of the tuning tips below should be implemented if you want to achieve high speed, low latency audio recording and playback without glitches with your audio interface. If you are experiencing pops/clicks when recording or playing back audio please try following the instructions below. Please note that the steps below assume that you have the view in Control Panel set to 'Small/Large Icons' rather than 'Categories'.

General optimisation:

1. High-Performance CUSTOM Power Plan

Here we’ll be creating an additional CUSTOM power plan for your audio applications.

A power plan is a collection of hardware and system settings that manages how your machine uses and conserves power.

Perform a search for ‘Power and Sleep Settings’
Select ‘Create a power plan’ in the menu on the left
Select ‘High Performance’
Give your plan a name: We recommend something like ‘audio workstation’.
Select ‘Never’ for where it says both ‘Turn off the display’ and ‘Put the computer to sleep’
Select ‘Create’
You will now land on the Power Options page where your NEW custom power plan should be selected.

Open ‘Advanced power settings for your NEW custom power plan
Expand ‘USB settings’
Disable ‘USB Selective suspend’
If you have a laptop, two options will appear. ‘On battery’ and ‘Plugged in’. Select disable for both.

Expand ‘Processor power management’
Set the minimum and maximum process state to 100
If you have a laptop, two options will appear. ‘On battery’ and ‘Plugged in’. Select disable for both.

Additional Optimisation

USB Power Management Settings

This optimises how your machine uses your USB ports

Perform a search in the start menu for ‘Device Manager’
Select ‘Universal Serial Bus Controllers’ and expand it
Right-click the first entry and select properties
Open ‘Power management’
Make sure the ‘Allow the computer to turn off the device to save power’ option is DESELECTED.
Apply steps 3 – 5 to each entry
If an entry doesn’t have ‘Power Management’ visible, like this one, don’t worry, just ignore it and move onto the next entry.

2. Disable system sounds
System sounds can interrupt audio. Ensure that they are disabled by doing the following:
- Go to control panel and select "Sound"
- Go to the sounds tab
- Under sounds scheme, select "No sounds"
- Click "Apply" then, "OK"

3. Set processor scheduling to "Background services"
This will improve the performance of your audio drivers on your computer. To do this:
- In control panel select "system"
- Go to "Advanced system settings" and then the "Advanced" tab
- Click on "Settings.." under Performance to bring up the "Performance Options" window.
- Go to the "Advanced" tab and set processor scheduling as "Background Services"
- Click "Apply" then "OK"

4. Disable Windows Firewall, anti-virus and spyware software
These should all be disabled to ensure that no interferences occur during audio recording or playback and to ensure that maximum resources are available. To remain secure while your firewall and antivirus disabled, it is advisable to temporarily disconnect from any internet connections when working with audio. This will also make sure that no network adapters are conflicting with any audio. 

5. Disable 'Windows Background Apps'
Windows 10, by default, runs a number of Apps in the background, regardless of whether you are using them.

Select 'Settings' from the Windows Start menu, select 'Privacy', then select 'Background Apps'. From here switch 'Off' the apps that you do not believe you are using, or that you do not wish to run in the background when you are not using the program.

6. Disable 'Windows updates from more than one place'
Navigate to 'Settings' in the Windows Start Menu.
Then select:

Update & Security -> Advanced Options -> Choose how updates are delivered -> Turn the slider from 'ON' to 'OFF'.

Advanced optimisation:

If you wish to optimise your system further, or you are using a system that is particularly lacking in resources you can follow the tips below for advanced optimisation. 

Disable Visual effects
The visual features in Windows 10 can use resources that could otherwise help to improve audio performance. As a start, it is a good idea to disable some of the visual features by doing the following:
- Bring back up the "Performance Options" window by following step 3 above and clicking on the "Visual Effects" tab and selecting "custom".
- Untick: "Animate windows when minimising and maximising" to help prevent glitches when minimising and maximising. You can also experiment with disabling other visual effects in the custom list to see how they improve audio performance. 
- Once finished, press "OK"

If you wish to optimise your Windows 10 graphics for the best performance use the "Adjust for best performance" option.

Disable Network cards
Sometimes, network card drivers can cause problems with audio. A good troubleshooting step is to try disabling your network adapters in Device Manager, and then test local audio (like a .mp3) and see if you continue to have issues. This is also a good optimisation step in general. Disabled adapters can easily be re-enabled at any point.

Disable Windows services
One way in which you can make more resources available to improve audio performance is to disable unnecessary Windows 10 services as these use valuable resources. The following site has a comprehensive guide to the services running on Windows 10 and helps locate the services that are safe to disable: Windows 10 Service Configurations by Black Viper

Please note that we would recommend that disabling Windows services should be done only by advanced users.

If you are still experiencing audio performance problems after optimising your computer for audio, please Contact Technical Support

Disable Fast Boot

Some users may experience an issue where audio becomes slowed down after booting the computer. This is fixed by disabling fast boot. For instructions on this and further information please see this article.