Subject:Hey swenstrup!

Posted by: DKeenum

Date:8/15/2004 5:31:47 AM

Tell us all about your problem. Tell us your computer, ram, sound card, other programs, etc. We might can help you.

Acid is a stable program on my and many other peoples computers. There has to be a reason.

Subject:RE: Hey swenstrup!

Reply by: swenstrup

Date:8/15/2004 6:15:44 PM

Here are my specs:
Dell Optiplex GX110 PIII 900
384mb of ram
integrated sound and video
80 and 40 gig drives
MIDI keyboard through M-Audio UNO

I also run Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia MX suite and N-Track without a hitch.

I hope this helps
-Mike

Subject:RE: Hey swenstrup!

Reply by: DKeenum

Date:8/17/2004 6:16:37 AM

OK! Now detail your problem with as much of the details as possible. Then we discuss until we reach the solution.

Subject:RE: Hey swenstrup!

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:8/17/2004 2:33:02 PM

Anything sharing resources? (There could be problems if video and/or audio are sharing resources, even though Windows is reporting everything is fine.)

How are the drives configured? Are they SATA or UltraATA?

What version of Windows are you using?

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

Subject:RE: Hey swenstrup!

Reply by: swenstrup

Date:8/17/2004 2:40:46 PM

whenever i open a song and press play, it will start playing only some of the track if any tracks at all. the sound starts to break up and it usually freezes. if it doesnt freeze and i try to press stop, the whole computer freezes and i have to ctrl-alt-del my way out of it.
my computer is pretty clean(ie-spyware,extra programs etc) and their seems to be quite a bit of free resources. enough to run any other program w/o a hitch.
i am using Windows 98SE with IDE drives set to DMA

Subject:RE: Hey swenstrup!

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:8/17/2004 3:21:17 PM

Ok, Let’s start with the basics:

What version of ACID are you using? ACID Pro 4.0f? If you are not using the latest version, try upgrading to 4.0f. (having the latest patches is always a good starting point)

Has ACID every worked on this PC before or is this first time you are using ACID?

If this is the first time: Did you tune your PC for working with digital audio? A PIII 900MHz should be more than adequate. Make sure your hard drives are defragmented. I’ve seen really badly fragmented hard drives make PC’s run painfully slow. Do you have a dedicated (permanent) swap file? If not, make one. Are your loops on your second hard drive? If not, move them there. You don’t want them in the same drive as the C: or swap file. As Iacobus pointed out, is you internal sound card sharing an interrupt with another card? Try and get it alone on its own IRQ.

If you have your PC tuned properly and are still having the problem, I would guess that the integrated audio might be the cause. Integrated audio is usually minimal at best (and Dell is notorious for cutting corners on specs!). You might want to get a separate soundcard if you are serious about doing digital audio. I know you said N-Tracks works fine so this might not be the problem if you are using the same load on both programs.

How many tracks are you using? Does this happen with just one track or two tracks? Is there a point at which adding another track starts things breaking up? Is your hard-drive light on solid during playpack?

Somewhere you are stressing the system beyond what it can do. You have to find that weak link by process of elimination.

~jr