HELP!! Slow playback of just 1 track!!!

M

MercyfullMusic

New member
Somebody help me please, I can't figure this out. I have a Pentium II 333 mhz. CPU with 64 MB of Ram and am using a Soundblaster AWE 64 gold soundcard. I am using Cakewalk 9 as my software. I am also using a DMAN PCI Card (4 inputs). When I record even just 1 track I get a slow playback at the start and slow spots at different time during play. Cakwalk 9 has the CPU meter and Disk meter, the CPU meter is usually only at 3% - 8% and the Disk meter never exceeds around 17%. This is with all the background programs turned off of course. I don't understand why my computer can't easily play back many more tracks. It seems other people are recording with slower computers. I have updated the Awe 64 drivers and still no help. I am now thinking about going to 128 MB of RAM, but I have a hard time thinking I need to. HELP!!!
 
What is the size of your hard drive? How much space is available on it yet? What is the read spead of the drive's Read/Write heads. Maybe they are not fast enough. Another thing you might want to try is to run Scandisk and DiskDefragmenter.
 
Hi MercyfullMusic (I like your name...)

When was the last time you reinstalled Windoz? Because, sometimes it's much easier to wipe everything off and start again, rather than trying to guess what's wrong.
On top of that, it's possible to do it without losing all your personal files

Hope it helps, unreal
 
My hard drive is 8 gig. It is less than 30% full. I don't know the speed of it, but I went to a website that gauges the speed of it and it was in the 90% group. I try to defrag once a month and it doesn't seem to change the situation. I haven't reinstalled windows operating system in about 2 years. If the hard drive is the problem wouldn't Cakewalk 9's hard drive meter show it?
 
Wow! 2 years? I re-format and re-install everything about every six months whether I have problems or not. I have all my systems on a network-so it's easy to backup everything.
I like to try out software, and if I dont like it, I uninstall it, but there are almost always some remnants. Stuff like that can build up and slow the system down.

What version of Windows you running? If 95, a or b?

You mentioned that you de-frag often....you do use scandisk often, too, right? It's just as important, if not more important.

Also, are there any conflicts with system resources? Sometimes when there's a conflict, the hardware will work, but just not reliably...intermittent problems. other times it just wont work. Having 2 soundcards can be hard to set up without some conflicts...but I know it's possible...it better be :) .....I have a SB Live on the way to use along with my Delta 66.

As far as turning off background programs, it's also good to disable things like screensavers, desktop wallpapers, animated icons, and windows themes...I know you probably know this, but just in case...I'm just brainstorming here...trying to think of every possibility.....
You're processing power, and ram are plenty for AT LEAST 4(or more)tracks...I've done that with a Pentium 200mmx with 128megs with no problems. Of course...I'm assuming we're talking about 16 bit, 44.1kHz. :)

Another thought....I assuming you're using the DMAN for your audio recording and the AWE64 for games and cd's and stuff? If you're using the AWE64 for recording.....since you updated the drivers.....did you run the wave profiler in Cakewalk again?

About your hard drive, if it's an 8 gig IDE, I'd bet it's a 5400 rpm - maybe UDMA 33?.....not blazing, but definitely fast enough for several tracks. One thing about the hard drive.....is it sharing the primary IDE channel with any other devices like a cdrom drive? If it's an older cdrom drive, it(cdrom drive) NEEDS to be on the secondary channel.

Well, That's enough brainstorming for now. Hey, If you fix the problem(s) PLEASE let us know what it was if you know, so's our brains can get more wrinkles.


[This message has been edited by MrBoogie (edited 07-19-2000).]
 
MercyfullMusic,

Check out all these tips at
http://www.musicsolutions.com.au/articles/optimisingwindows.html

before you do anything too drastic.

MrBoogie,

Yes it's possible -- I have a Delta 66 + SB Live in my box and it works great! Sure was no "cakewalk" getting there, though... a loit of fiddling and troubleshooting until I got it to work properly. If you have problems, search for my earlier posts from late May through mid-June or so and maybe that'll help.

-AlChuck
 
Mr. MercyFull,

It sounds to me like you have an IRQ conflict or something is just hogging an IRQ. I've seen this on my system with our HP scanner, if the scanner is not turned on and the connection perfect the driver will chew up the CPU, and it happens at a level that doesn't get picked up by the monitoring programs. I'd pull out any card that wasn't necessary and see if that cures your problems. If so, you can then figure out how to set up the card so it won't conflict with the rest of the system.

Good luck,
Sean
 
Fixed it.

I formatted the hard disk, reinstalled everything with only Windows 98, Cakewalk 9 and Realplayer Jukebox. Now it flies.
Must have been a lot of crap going on in the background I couldn't see in Task Manager.

This is a recording only computer now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top