How configure equalizer apo to minimize latency (basic PEQ)
A system-wide equalizer for Windows 7 / 8 / 8.1 / 10 / 11
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I installed Equalizer apo onto my new surface pro 11 (Intel) and for the first time ever, I noticed very high latency. Probably close to 80 ms extra. Can I configure EQAPO to better minimize latency? For example, do I need to install both premix and postmix? Would any of the other "install as" modes work better?
Are you using the graphic eq in the Configuration Editor? This is based on convolution which is usually quite fast but maybe not fast enough on the Surface Pro 11. Equalizer APO also has biquad filters which are lightning fast. Besides a peak (peq) filter all kinds of others filters are available like shelf filters. These filters are by default used in the Peace equalizer (interface for Equalizer APO) to ensure the lowest latency. Using these filters in Peace is very easy, using them in the Configuration Editor is very cumbersome.
Premix/postmix has nothing to do with latency nor has the APO techniques ("Install as"). In other words, it isn't about configuring Equalizer APO to minimize latency. Latency is a matter what you do with Equalizer APO (using its commands to do stuff like EQ-ing).
I'm using PEACE to set the EQ configs and it's set to biquad. Does EQ APO/ PEACE ignore filters with a gain set to 0? Or should I manually disable them?
I think the latency issue is mostly fixed after adjusting some other settings. The very first time I booted up the game with the EQ active, overall performance was abnormally bad for some reason. Which may have been the main factor for the high latency
Equalizer APO, I'm not sure. That's why Peace doesn't create a filter command for 0 dB filters. Any command which isn't necessary won't be generated, mainly for latency reasons (initially reading by Equalizer APO and the audio stream processing).
After the reading by Equalizer APO's audio manipulation engine the latency is fixed (perhaps not entirely fixed but reasonably fixed). When using biquads filters the latency is low as said. However, other commands, mostly audio delaying may cause an initial large latency. For instance, having a delay of 1 second obviously causes a delay of the same amount as a sound buffer needs to be filled.
I'm not sure what's causing that. It might be that the audio device is set at game startup. Any Audio Processing Object might be (re)initialized. If so, Equalizer APO will reread its config.txt file (and included files like Peace.txt). This causes additional latency besides the latency of the game startup.