Problem
Playback issues and audio dropouts using Steinberg host applications can occur with Riot Vanguard game security software installed and running in the background.
These dropouts appear to frequently occur at regular intervals of x seconds.
When the dropout occurs, the Audio Performance Monitor shows that, e.g., "ASIO-Guard" drops to 0%.
Cause
The audio interruption is caused by an emergency stop of the audio engine. This emergency stop is triggered because the real-time audio processing is blocked by vgk.sys, Riot Games' anti-cheat software, which is running at very high priority in the background. Usually, the software is started automatically when launching Windows.
Solution
While we recommend focusing on audio-related applications on a DAW, it is understandable that other high-performance software is also used.
However, in this case, there are only two options available:
- Uninstall Riot Vanguard
Please read the instructions on how to uninstall Vanguard on the Riot Games website.
- Use the Vanguard Pre-Check
On modern Windows 11 systems that support Secure Boot and TPM 2.0, Vanguard can be configured so that it only runs when a Riot game is launched.
Details on requirements and how to enable the Pre-Check can be found on the Riot Games website as well.
We will continue to investigate this issue.