Subject:2.8 Ghz pc and Acid 4.0 DISSAPOINTMENT?

Posted by: jroditis

Date:3/23/2004 3:54:40 PM

I was running Acid 4.0F on a 350 PII and had some limitation in number of plugins and tracks due to the slow 350 mz. But my biggest dissapointment is I got a new custom PC:
-P4 2.8 gig with 1 meg cach. Asus P4 800
-2 WD 120gig SATA drives
-1 gig kingston Ram
-ATI 9600 dual monitor Video card (no fan)
- Echo Gina 20Bit with New XP drivers
-TDK 8X DVD burner
-Antec sonata case
-Windows XP home
All properly teewked, no services running in background. DMA mode drives ....etc.
And I run acid hit play with no loops or plugins and it uses between 80 to 90% CPU then I add tracks and it just about stalls at 100% CPU. Also tried windows classic driver?
Has Anybody been through this senario?
Any sugestions would be helpfull for my self and others looking to upgrade to a P4 sysytem.
Cheers..............

Subject:RE: 2.8 Ghz pc and Acid 4.0 DISSAPOINTMENT?

Reply by: DKeenum

Date:3/24/2004 5:18:30 AM

How many plug-ins are you using?

Subject:RE: 2.8 Ghz pc and Acid 4.0 DISSAPOINTMENT?

Reply by: DKeenum

Date:3/24/2004 6:07:01 AM

I just saw your thread on kvr-vst. Keep asking. There is a solution.

Subject:RE: 2.8 Ghz pc and Acid 4.0 DISSAPOINTMENT?

Reply by: jroditis

Date:3/24/2004 8:29:46 AM

0 plugins?
I think the windows cpu manager is misleading I think when it reads 90-100% cpu usage perhaps thats the percentage Acid reserves to run because when I run cubase 5.1 I loaded it 20 strereo tracks and 3 plugins per track and the VST perfomance reader reads 50% cpu and the windows cpu manager reads 100% cpu ?

Subject:RE: 2.8 Ghz pc and Acid 4.0 DISSAPOINTMENT?

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:3/24/2004 12:59:14 PM

Something is definitely bottlenecking your performance, Jim.

I usually get about 10-15% CPU load with a 24-bit project (with no FX) and my system's much more meager than yours.

Have you tried reducing or turning off video acceleration? And is the RAM you have the ECC kind? I've heard that it's recommended to use ECC RAM when having 512 MB or more. (ECC RAM is the kind that corrects any errors that may occur.)

HTH,
Iacobus
-------
RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid
mD's ACIDplanet Page
Guitars 4 Kids

Subject:RE: 2.8 Ghz pc and Acid 4.0 DISSAPOINTMENT?

Reply by: jroditis

Date:3/24/2004 9:26:51 PM

Yes I reduced the video acceleration and my Ram is 3200 kingston ram 2- 512 chips, my motherboard is asus p4p800 and 2.8 megz intel with 1 meg cach.
I hope it is not the built in TV tuner in my all in wonder 9600 ATI card?
Iam wondering if I should reload Windows

Subject:RE: 2.8 Ghz pc and Acid 4.0 DISSAPOINTMENT?

Reply by: [r]Evolution

Date:4/5/2004 3:58:16 PM

I'm kind of in the same boat. I have a similar setup as you. P4, 2.4GHz, 1024DDR, Asus Mobo, Echo Mia SoundCard.

When I run VEGAS, (my main program) I can run loads of Plug-ins, both Audio & Video on Numerous Tracks, and my CPU will chug right along. Sometimes peeking but never dropping out, skipping, crashing or seeming to have any real problems. This all changes when I run ACID. I like ACID because I know how to use it and it integrates well with my workflow. It does all that I need it to do and more, but it appears not to perform on my system nearly as well as I think it should.
Sometimes the CPU Meter will go up to 90-100% when I'm working but the RAM Meter in the lower right corner of ACID usually says 10%-35% of 1024 used. I switch my Audio Drivers back and forth trying to determine which works best but they all seem to perform about the same with. I even get 'clicks' or 'pops' when I activate a new window and the audio is running. Sometimes the audio will even 'cut out' for a second when I activate a new window or close a window. This is even with e Echo ASIO WDM drivers.

Brother... my heart is with you and I'm in your thread hoping you/WE get a solution.

Subject:RE: 2.8 Ghz pc and Acid 4.0 DISSAPOINTMENT?

Reply by: jroditis

Date:4/5/2004 10:51:26 PM

Iam going to try and switch my PC from standard PC to ACPI and also turn hypertherding on,
if that does no work Iam taking the pc to the music store and we are going to try a Echo Mia card and see if the cpu spikes to 100%.
One more thing when I uninstalled the gina card and activated the cheep onboard audio (ac 97) card and pressed play in Acid 4.0,cubase 5.1 or media player the cpu usage was 5-7%
Go figure.
I will keep you all informed when I get this figured out.
Cheers.............

Subject:RE: 2.8 Ghz pc and Acid 4.0 DISSAPOINTMENT?

Reply by: DKeenum

Date:4/6/2004 8:09:03 PM

I'm thinking, seriously, about buying an echo mdid mia card in about two weeks, so please let me know how this goes. It does sound driver related doesn't it?

Subject:RE: 2.8 Ghz pc and Acid 4.0 DISSAPOINTMENT?

Reply by: Waltern1

Date:4/6/2004 9:05:19 PM

When using the Echo card, do you deactivate the motherboard's AC97 sound chip through the BIOS rather than Device Manager?

Subject:RE: 2.8 Ghz pc and Acid 4.0 DISSAPOINTMENT?

Reply by: jroditis

Date:4/6/2004 10:59:42 PM

I tried both ways and the best way to deactivated ac97 is through the bios that way it does not try to load ac 97 drivers every time you boot your machine. I have a funny feeling after I sort out my cpu usage problem i wil be able to run both ac97 onboard audio and my recording sound card . for now one step at a time.
Cheers...............

Subject:RE: 2.8 Ghz pc and Acid 4.0 DISSAPOINTMENT?

Reply by: forlornsoul

Date:4/8/2004 6:47:42 PM

I am running it on two systems, a 2.x Ghz Athlon XP2700+ (formerly w/512Mb dual DDR w/Nforce2 chipset) and a 1.33Ghz Athlon w/1Gb PC133 memory. I have not checked out cpu usage *but* I think I will for some of my tracks for my dark ambient project (Darkened Soul) and see what it looks like. I haven't gone so far to hit any limitations and I am not using a ton of effects/midi+VSTi's but I have not had either system come to a crawl....previously my 2.x was a 1.2Ghz Compaq Presario and never had any major performance issues. In the 2.x I am using the on-board audio and a SBLive 5.1 in the other. I am considering upgrading one to a higher-end audio card but not sure what one (still!) and whether to put them in both....

The 1.33Ghz is my main system where my Karma/Triton LE are connected to but I use the other for my main looping tracks....I haven't gotten off the faster one for all DAW stuff....at some point I'll upgrade the slower box but for now running XP it does what I need it to do, same for the faster one.

Just my $0.02

Mike

Subject:RE: 2.8 Ghz pc and Acid 4.0 DISSAPOINTMENT?

Reply by: jroditis

Date:4/9/2004 7:53:13 PM

Well lads cpu uasage is down to 2-5% during audio playback from 90-100%.
Here are the changes I made:
From standard pc to ACPI with hyperthreding on.
Updated the bios on my P4P800 to ver. 1016
One more minor detail !!!!!!!!!!!!
I upgrated from 20bit gina to a 24bit mia (no midi) got lucky 150$ canadian.
Also managed to get my Opcode 128X midi interface to work on windows XP SP1
which means I will be selling my midisport 8x8s.
Cheers......

Subject:RE: 2.8 Ghz pc and Acid 4.0 DISSAPOINTMENT?

Reply by: DKeenum

Date:4/9/2004 8:00:33 PM

Congadulations!

Subject:RE: 2.8 Ghz pc and Acid 4.0 DISSAPOINTMENT?

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:4/9/2004 9:13:19 PM

Cool to hear you're back on track, Jim!

Iacobus
-------
RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid
mD's ACIDplanet Page
Guitars 4 Kids

Subject:RE: 2.8 Ghz pc and Acid 4.0 DISSAPOINTMENT?

Reply by: jroditis

Date:4/9/2004 10:26:14 PM

Thanks for all your help !
Cheers.....