What would you do? -ACID Product Family - MAGIX Community Forums Archive

Subject:What would you do? Posted by: luceses Date:12/1/2003 11:25:42 PM Okay. I love Acid, but my projects must be getting out of control b/c AP4.0e seems to be slowing down. I know I am pushing the ever loving poop out of my system....average as follows: 20-25 looped tracks, 4-8 midi (SampleTank) Vsti tracks, and a couple of one shot vox tracks whilst using MANY track fx on each track insert and a bunch of other crap all at least at 48/24....my question is, believe it or not, I am getting relatively good performance,but I think it's time to do an upgrade. What would be the best option? A kick ass vid card (mine is Radeon 7000 w/64 megs) or going to DDR PC2100 Ram( my current is 133 sdram), or just jump up to the AMD Athlon XP2000 (my current is tha Atlon 1500). In other words what would yield me the best performanc IF I could only pick one?! My problem is that I am starting to get the dreaded random stutter on playback. I am using M-Audiophile 24-96 with the beta XP drivers. My gut instinct is to get a new vid card, but I am not completely convinced that is the culprit. Thanks to all who reply,Luces.
Subject:RE: What would you do? Reply by: marcarotsky Date:12/1/2003 11:52:42 PM 1. go to rdram (if your mobo supports it) RDRAM is the fastest memory you can get right now. (as far as i know) if no rdram is supported, go to ddrram. (at least 512 mb) 2. processor upgrade is obviously a safe option. (a 2 ghz+ athlon processor right now are ass cheap. i just saw one for like $100) you might even get lucky and see if your MOBO supports dual processors (that would just make you smile ear to ear!!!) :-) 3. video card isnt quite as important. it would help a little, but not as much as the other 2. 4. make sure all your drivers are up to date (especially for your sound card, video card and motherboard) nobody ever thinks to upgrade drivers for a MOBO but its VERRRRY important to. 5. an additional hard drive will help immensly. drive 1 (your boot drive with windows on it) keep all audio related apps on. NOTHING ELSE!!!! leave all your other BS programs on your second or "slave" drive. 6. make sure you dont have a ton of things being managed by windows in your bottom right task bar (next to your clock) go to your "MSCONFIG" utility and uncheck EVERYTHING from the "startup" tab that you dont need on startup. 7. get a good operating system (windows xp pro or 2000 are your best bet) 8. last, but not least....sit back and crack open a few beers and just tell yourself it will all be ok!!!! :-) good luck!!!! lemme know if you need anymore suggestions or help. --marc
Subject:RE: What would you do? Reply by: Iacobus Date:12/2/2003 10:18:33 AM Adding to what marc said, you really don't want a video card that will blow your socks off; such video cards have drivers that are souped up to the point where it would probably hog resources away from your other devices. (Not to the point where you'd notice otherwise, but just enough to distract from audio performance.) Get a second hard drive anyway when you get the chance. You will notice a performance increase as the main drive will dedicate itself to overall system performance while the second drive will dedicate itself to media playback. Make sure you place the main drive as primary master while placing the second drive as secondary master (on the secondary IDE channel); otherwise, they'd have to share the same IDE channel, which means one has to wait for the other when requesting the system bus at the same time. (This is all a moot point when using Serial ATA.) HTH, Iacobus ------- RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid mD's ACIDplanet Page
Subject:RE: What would you do? Reply by: jtxx000 Date:12/6/2003 6:54:03 PM An easier (and cheaper) way of getting better performance is to solo the vsti midi tracks and render them to files, then delete the soft synths and midi tracks and use the files you rendered.

Subject:What would you do?

Posted by: luceses

Date:12/1/2003 11:25:42 PM

Okay. I love Acid, but my projects must be getting out of control b/c AP4.0e seems to be slowing down. I know I am pushing the ever loving poop out of my system....average as follows: 20-25 looped tracks, 4-8 midi (SampleTank) Vsti tracks, and a couple of one shot vox tracks whilst using MANY track fx on each track insert and a bunch of other crap all at least at 48/24....my question is, believe it or not, I am getting relatively good performance,but I think it's time to do an upgrade. What would be the best option? A kick ass vid card (mine is Radeon 7000 w/64 megs) or going to DDR PC2100 Ram( my current is 133 sdram), or just jump up to the AMD Athlon XP2000 (my current is tha Atlon 1500). In other words what would yield me the best performanc IF I could only pick one?! My problem is that I am starting to get the dreaded random stutter on playback. I am using M-Audiophile 24-96 with the beta XP drivers. My gut instinct is to get a new vid card, but I am not completely convinced that is the culprit. Thanks to all who reply,Luces.

Subject:RE: What would you do?

Reply by: marcarotsky

Date:12/1/2003 11:52:42 PM

1. go to rdram (if your mobo supports it) RDRAM is the fastest memory you can get right now. (as far as i know) if no rdram is supported, go to ddrram.
(at least 512 mb)

2. processor upgrade is obviously a safe option. (a 2 ghz+ athlon processor right now are ass cheap. i just saw one for like $100) you might even get lucky and see if your MOBO supports dual processors (that would just make you smile ear to ear!!!) :-)

3. video card isnt quite as important. it would help a little, but not as much as the other 2.

4. make sure all your drivers are up to date (especially for your sound card, video card and motherboard) nobody ever thinks to upgrade drivers for a MOBO but its VERRRRY important to.

5. an additional hard drive will help immensly. drive 1 (your boot drive with windows on it) keep all audio related apps on. NOTHING ELSE!!!! leave all your other BS programs on your second or "slave" drive.

6. make sure you dont have a ton of things being managed by windows in your bottom right task bar (next to your clock) go to your "MSCONFIG" utility and uncheck EVERYTHING from the "startup" tab that you dont need on startup.

7. get a good operating system (windows xp pro or 2000 are your best bet)

8. last, but not least....sit back and crack open a few beers and just tell yourself it will all be ok!!!! :-)

good luck!!!! lemme know if you need anymore suggestions or help.
--marc

Subject:RE: What would you do?

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:12/2/2003 10:18:33 AM

Adding to what marc said, you really don't want a video card that will blow your socks off; such video cards have drivers that are souped up to the point where it would probably hog resources away from your other devices. (Not to the point where you'd notice otherwise, but just enough to distract from audio performance.)

Get a second hard drive anyway when you get the chance. You will notice a performance increase as the main drive will dedicate itself to overall system performance while the second drive will dedicate itself to media playback.

Make sure you place the main drive as primary master while placing the second drive as secondary master (on the secondary IDE channel); otherwise, they'd have to share the same IDE channel, which means one has to wait for the other when requesting the system bus at the same time. (This is all a moot point when using Serial ATA.)

HTH,
Iacobus
-------
RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid
mD's ACIDplanet Page

Subject:RE: What would you do?

Reply by: jtxx000

Date:12/6/2003 6:54:03 PM

An easier (and cheaper) way of getting better performance is to solo the vsti midi tracks and render them to files, then delete the soft synths and midi tracks and use the files you rendered.