The way Windows handles audio is very poor. Well I don't know what planet they are on because fundamentally this just cannot be.
I own a Mac and a PC and there are some who swear Windows is as good as a Mac. Yes it's possible to achieve it with buying the right hardware and making tweaks etc but you will spend more time tweaking sometimes.
Windows is unfortunately not good at handling music.
Thank you so much for giving your time to read this, I'm sure the wdf01000.sys driver is cursing many Windows 10 Lenovo laptops, as other people are experiencing this online!
TL DR Is DPC latency on a Windows 10 inevitable to some degree, is a one second dropout/crackle once every few hours of VST DAW work in Ableton 10.0.1 normal or abnormal if the system with a expensive RME card is up and running, and does anybody know how to disable that wdf01000.sys which Latencymon reports to be the last source of some DPC latency on my computer? Does anybody have any knowledge about this wdf01000.sys driver who is the main source of DPC latency on my system and can it be disabled like the WIFI/Nvidia driver problems to reduce the Latency Latencymon is reporting even further? Does "DPC Latency" even matter if audio playback is smooth and glitch free? After all, I'm using RME which has the best ASIO drivers. So, I guess my question is, is DPC latency inevitable in Windows 10 and something users just live with or can it be minimzied even further than already having a smooth system? Latencymon says my system is now "Capable of audio work without dropouts" which is right, no red traces over there and no constant crackle/dropout. In my case it does not strike me as a problem, but rather as a psychologial itch, i'm sure many of you are familiar with that feeling. I've not found a single conclusion on how to disable this wdf01000.sys driver on Google, but couple of other users have been experiencing Latencymon reporting wdf01000.sys as a source of DPC latency, but I'm not sure how bad they were. Is that normal Windows 10 performance, or maybe just Ableton 10 yet to become stable? I've noticed like one second of droput maybe once every few hours on projects with some VST instruments (I'm mainly sequencing external hardware and using Totalmix/Ableton as mixer). However, Latencymon still reports that wdf01000.sys is causing alot of latency, but not those terrible CPU spikes all the time like my wifi card, so there is no dropouts/crackling unless I drive the CPU very hard with vst instruments. So, after disabling the WIFI driver, my machine went from being 100% useless due to dropouts and all red traces in Latencymon to being perfectly fine, all green traces in Latencymon, and after disabling the other drivers, my system is pretty smooth. My computer also has a Intel HD 630 Graphics interface whom does not seem to be causing any issues according to latencymon like the Nvidia card did.
I disabled those as, along with the webcam, bluetooth cardreader and couple of other drivers I'd never be using for a computer that is only used for DAW and wont even be connected to the internet. After some Googling, I downloaded Latencymon and tracked down what drivers were causing the latency, and the reason for total audio crackles was the driver for my WIFI (which seems to be quiet common) and also some latency from the driver for the nvidia video card (which appearantly has shitty drivers for audio). Thats when I learned about "DPC Latency". However, when I first plugged the machine and set it up + followed every instruction I could find online on how to optimize Windows 10 for DAW usage, the system was totally broken - just pops and crackles. My machine is a 100% updated Windows/driver wise Lenovo Legion y520, i7 7700HQ, 24gb DDR4 RAM and 500gb SSD drive, so the laptop is obviously beyond capable of bedroom production and than some. I'm particularly happy about how smoothly it runs on my computer, both audio and CPU wise, as I've read couple of horror stories about very capable machines being unable to run the Live 10 due to CPU problems.
I've recently purchased a new machine and Ableton 10 after years of Reaper + hardware sequencer use and must say I'm quiet happy about exchanging interfaces. Here comes a long one for you experienced DAW/Windows users!