How to increase ROCK snappiness?

Roon Software Discussion ROCK
1

Hi,

I’d appreciate some tips on how to increase Roon snappiness on ROCK.

Background:

I just switched my Roon core from a 2016 enthusiast Windows Gaming rig to ROCK with the following hardware:

  • Intel NUC 13 Pro Kit NUC13ANHi3
  • Samsung 980 Pro PCIe4 SSD for system
  • Kingston DDR4-3200 CL20 (2x8GB for dual channel)
  • Samsung 870 Evo 4TB for internal storage

I use Roon as remote on that Windows PC now and I notice that Roon is displaying images slower than before. It’s only fractions of a second, but I want my software VERY snappy and I know it was like this before when the core was running on the same PC.

So what is causing this? Here are some ideas/questions:

  • it might just be the difference between core and remote on the same system (meaning it’s caused by overhead and as a user one can’t do anything about it).
  • it might be that an i5 or i7 NUC would be snappier, but I doubt this, because as far as I know Roon is about single core performance in “normal” use (one zone playing with moderate DSP and nothing more). Also my windows PC has an Intel i7 6800K which single core speed is slower than that of the i3 NUC Gen 13. Additionally the Windows PC is running in Asus EPU (“eco”) mode, so slower than normal
  • the SSD on the NUC is also faster than the one in the Windows PC
  • RAM in the NUC is also configured faster than in the Windows PC right now

I guess the main question is: Should I get an NUC Gen13 i5 or won’t that enhance snappiness?

2

Does it have to be a NUC? I have very snappy on an 8-core i7 4.2 with a PCIE 4.0 M2 Drive, on Ubuntu linux.

3

My 10i5 NUC is plenty snappy, I don’t really see how it could be snappier in normal use. And your 13th gen single core speed should probably be faster even as an i3. But if fractions of a second make a difference to you that it doesn’t make for me, you may want to go for an i7 rather than an i5.

It might also not be the NUC at all but the fact that you now have a little network latency that you didn’t have when the Roon server ran on the same PC as the remote

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4

My 8th generation i3 is snappy with 8 GB memory. I have around 3,700 albums. How large is your library?

Try changing your DNS servers to Cloudflare, Google or Quad 9.

5

You haven’t given any network speed or connectivity information.

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6

M2 Mac Mini is supposed to be butter smooth

7

But the Mac mini M2 won’t run ROCK so irrelevant

8

You need to provide your networking specs. Without them it’s impossible to speculate. you could be running ROCK on an amazing machine and have a dog ■■■■ network affecting performance.

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9

Thanks for the replies. Indeed I have forgotten the network specs, sorry. Here they are:

  • Internet is 1 Gbit / 50 Mbit via cable
  • Router is a Fritz!Box 6660 for internet and wifi
  • hifi is running via cables over a separate Startech switch
  • everything with 1 Gigabit copper ethernet or fiber
  • the Windows PC (former core) and NUC (current core) are connected to the Startech switch (PC with fiber, NUC with copper)
  • remotes are the Windows PC via fiber and phone and tablet (WIFI6 devices)
  • everything is in the same room

Most of the info above should not be relevant for this topic, I think.

Yes, because of power consumption.

Yes, that’s what I am thinking. I did not measure the latency, but just wanted to state that we are not talking about an error here with with several seconds delay or more.

Library is rather small with 1572 albums.

I am using Cloudflare DNS over TLS (DoT) settings in the router so it affects all devices in the LAN.

10

I think this is what your issue is. If you are calling information and images up from a machine across the network it is bound to be slower than if you are doing this locally. The only possible remedy in my opinion would be to make sure the NUC is running in ‘performance’ mode so power is not being throttled for the sake of using less electricity. If that doesn’t make a differenc stick it back.

1 Like
11

Good idea! Unfortunately, my NUC has this setting greyed out.

This let me to the following experiment concerning the performance of the i3:

I let 4 zones play different 44.1/16 music with all upsampling to 192kHz, one zone with a convolution filter running and additionally ARC on a smartphone.

All the zones had plenty of headroom of processing power: 32x, 31x, 26x, 18x.

The NUC was consuming only ~ 10 watts at the socket and the fan was idling or running very slow, so no noise. Room temperature 22°C.

This lets me to the conclusion that an i5 is already overkill for my use case (I will never have the above test scenario in real life) and the performance difference mentioned in the first post is that of network latency, pretty small and I can live with that.

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12

Has it finished analysis

13

Yes, of course. Analysis was done in about 50 minutes.

14

I agree I think it’s local access vs network access. If OP has a 1 gig network across the board that’s more than plenty.

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15

Well the OP is looking at buying new hardware to increase snappiness.

If an Apple Silicon Mac Mini gives the snappiness that an Intel NUC doesn’t then maybe he won’t mind it not being ROCK - it’s certainly not irrelevant

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17

Thanks, but someone suggested this already in this thread and I am using that service already.

1 Like
18

I migrated from a QNAP NAS to a NUC 11TNH i5. Core is running on a Samsung 970 EVO plus M.2, and music on internal 4TB Samsung 870 QVO. 2x 8GB 3200Mhz Crucial memory modules. Roon is configured for Sample rate conversion and Parametric EQ. There’s 112k tracks in my library. Performance could not be snappier. I am over the moon. Searching is superfast and almost instant. Highly recommended.

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