Computer components, dual proc, win98/2k -Sound Forge - PC

Subject:Computer components, dual proc, win98/2k Posted by: speedracer Date:2/8/2002 9:25:12 PM I'm putting together a DAW. I will be running Vegas 2.0 Sound Forge 5.0 and Acid 3.0 on this machine. The audio card is an Echo Layla 24. I will also have a full complement of Waves plug ins (Native). Here are two proposed systems. Please let me know if I would have any potenial problems with either. Option I AMD XP1800 processor ASUS A7M266 Motherboard 512 MB DDRAM PC2100 Western Digital 40 GB 7.2kRPM Hard Drive ATA100 (OS drive) Maxtor 80GB 7.2kRPM Hard Drive ATA133 (audio files drive) Promise ATA133 PCI IDE card various CD-ROM, CD-R, Zip250 and floppy drives. Windows 98SE Option II ASUS A7M266-D Dual processor motherboard (2) AMD MD1600 processors 512 MB DDRAM PC2100 same as before except Windows 2000 Specifec questions 1. Will Vegas Audio 2.0, Sound Forge 5.0 and Acid 3.0 run on Windows 2000? 2. Does Win2k have advantages over Win98 for these sonic foundry products? 3. Will Vegas Audio 2.0, Sound Forge 5.0 and Acid 3.0 run on the dual processor machine? 4. Will I see improved speed, power, stability with a dual proc machine? 3. Any other potential conflics or problems I should be aware of with either system Any advice you could give would be excellent! later, speedracer
Subject:RE: Computer components, dual proc, win98/2k Reply by: starmaker Date:2/25/2002 9:12:43 PM Speedracer, I had nothing but trouble when I went from a single processor to a dual in audio. It was actually slower and stuttered and skipped. it couldn't record cds very well anymore as well. I had an Asus Cuv4x-DLS with 1014 bios. In fact, many products would not run on the workstation after I bought the 2nd processor and it was detected. One thing I will recommend is to engage MPS1.4 in your bios settings. I did not and in fact that might have been some of the problem. The pc ran fastest changing (in windows) the system to Standard PC. Running it in MPS dual processor or ACPI dual processor setting, just sucked. You do know that programs have to be specifically written to support dual processors, right? If not, you are wasting your time. Adobe photoshop and I believe Forge support dual processors as well as many others. I spent over 100 hours on this and finally gave up. Best wishes to you, though... I'm sticking to single processor in the studio. Doug Chief Engineer Morningstar Recording http://www.morningstarrecording.com
Subject:RE: Computer components, dual proc, win98/2k Reply by: johannbad Date:2/26/2002 2:37:34 AM i'm a big fan of dual cpu setups because i can really do more than one thing at once, like processing a 10minute file in SF on one proc and recording CDs on the other. An OS like Win2k can assign multiple apps to different procs dynamicly to balance the load, also, you can assign the processor afinity manually. But for sheer speed, a single proc will win hands down. I could go on and on why, but the point being, what do you find more important, being able to run two proccessor intensive apps similtaniously (2cpus) or run your main app the fastest. Also, if you are doing extensive multitracking, i would seriously change your hard drive setup. one 20GB drive for OS and software, two 40GB (60GB, whatever) in a RAID 1 configuration using a Promise Fastrack (or whatever) IDE RAID card for your audio files. Reading and writing to the striped disk array will be crazy fast (almost double). Also, consider getting another hard drive for backups (or a tape drive.) It doesn't have to be fast, just large enuf for your most important data. the point being that backups are way to often neglected until too late. if you have a song your working on for a client, you get a brown out (microwave turns on or etc), the power dip is just enuf to cause data corruption, thus ruining your hard drive... well... bad news. i backup so often its not even funny. Good luck john

Subject:Computer components, dual proc, win98/2k

Posted by: speedracer

Date:2/8/2002 9:25:12 PM

I'm putting together a DAW. I will be running Vegas 2.0 Sound Forge 5.0 and Acid 3.0 on this machine. The audio card is an Echo Layla 24. I will also have a full complement of Waves plug ins (Native). Here are two proposed systems. Please let me know if I would have any potenial problems with either.

Option I

AMD XP1800 processor
ASUS A7M266 Motherboard
512 MB DDRAM PC2100
Western Digital 40 GB 7.2kRPM Hard Drive ATA100 (OS drive)
Maxtor 80GB 7.2kRPM Hard Drive ATA133 (audio files drive)
Promise ATA133 PCI IDE card
various CD-ROM, CD-R, Zip250 and floppy drives.
Windows 98SE

Option II

ASUS A7M266-D Dual processor motherboard
(2) AMD MD1600 processors
512 MB DDRAM PC2100
same as before
except Windows 2000

Specifec questions

1. Will Vegas Audio 2.0, Sound Forge 5.0 and Acid 3.0 run on Windows 2000?
2. Does Win2k have advantages over Win98 for these sonic foundry products?
3. Will Vegas Audio 2.0, Sound Forge 5.0 and Acid 3.0 run on the dual processor machine?
4. Will I see improved speed, power, stability with a dual proc machine?
3. Any other potential conflics or problems I should be aware of with either system

Any advice you could give would be excellent!

later,
speedracer

Subject:RE: Computer components, dual proc, win98/2k

Reply by: starmaker

Date:2/25/2002 9:12:43 PM

Speedracer,
I had nothing but trouble when I went from a single processor to a dual in audio. It was actually slower and stuttered and skipped. it couldn't record cds very well anymore as well. I had an Asus Cuv4x-DLS with 1014 bios. In fact, many products would not run on the workstation after I bought the 2nd processor and it was detected. One thing I will recommend is to engage MPS1.4 in your bios settings. I did not and in fact that might have been some of the problem. The pc ran fastest changing (in windows) the system to Standard PC. Running it in MPS dual processor or ACPI dual processor setting, just sucked. You do know that programs have to be specifically written to support dual processors, right? If not, you are wasting your time. Adobe photoshop and I believe Forge support dual processors as well as many others. I spent over 100 hours on this and finally gave up. Best wishes to you, though... I'm sticking to single processor in the studio.
Doug Chief Engineer Morningstar Recording http://www.morningstarrecording.com

Subject:RE: Computer components, dual proc, win98/2k

Reply by: johannbad

Date:2/26/2002 2:37:34 AM

i'm a big fan of dual cpu setups because i can really do more than one thing at once, like processing a 10minute file in SF on one proc and recording CDs on the other. An OS like Win2k can assign multiple apps to different procs dynamicly to balance the load, also, you can assign the processor afinity manually. But for sheer speed, a single proc will win hands down. I could go on and on why, but the point being, what do you find more important, being able to run two proccessor intensive apps similtaniously (2cpus) or run your main app the fastest. Also, if you are doing extensive multitracking, i would seriously change your hard drive setup. one 20GB drive for OS and software, two 40GB (60GB, whatever) in a RAID 1 configuration using a Promise Fastrack (or whatever) IDE RAID card for your audio files. Reading and writing to the striped disk array will be crazy fast (almost double).

Also, consider getting another hard drive for backups (or a tape drive.) It doesn't have to be fast, just large enuf for your most important data.
the point being that backups are way to often neglected until too late. if you have a song your working on for a client, you get a brown out (microwave turns on or etc), the power dip is just enuf to cause data corruption, thus ruining your hard drive... well... bad news. i backup so often its not even funny.

Good luck
john