ProAudio 9 - Tracks not playing back in time with one another

[busted kitty]

I need Help! I'm running Pro Audio 9 on a PC (Windows ME). What's happening is that when I play back audio (and record) often one part of the song will play faster or slower than another. For example, the song will start fine, and then the bass track will start to play out of time with the drum machine part. (It will even do this when I've only recorded two tracks of audio!

I thought this was a RAM issue, so I installed more - to no avail. I have 640 MB of Ram, a 900Mhz machine, and I've set the screen to 256 colours and turned down the graphics cababilities. I'm not networked with this machine either. What else might be making things go crazy?

Any suggestions?

[DavidK]

Go to Options/audio/mixing latency, then buffer size. Fiddle around with different settings, that should probably solve the problem.

[busted kitty]

Have you seen this problem before? Any suggestions about where I'd start with regards to settings?

I really appreciate your help.

[DavidK]

Yup, I had this problem. I pushed it down near safe, problem solved.

[busted kitty]

You also mentioned something about a compatability problem with Pro Audio 9 and XP. Could there be a problem with ME as well? Do I need to start looking to upgrade to Sonar, or do you think the system I have will do the job with a few tweaks?

[DavidK]

I am not aware of any issues with ME and PA9, maybe someone else knows. I think it should be great.

[southsound]

Hey,
I had the exact same problem with my setup for almost a year before I figured it out(kinda). I also have ME and PA9, running on a P4 Dell. I tried all the tweaks, and also experimented with a lot of different settings in cakewalk, to no avail. It turned out my video card was clogging my pci buss. I had a Matrox millenium(and yes, it was an AGP!?) and replaced it with an ATI. Problem solved. Like Chewbacca on Endor, it just doesn't make sense, but it was my last shot and so far it is working.
Good luck

[busted kitty]

I maade some adjustments to the buffer size, and things are working MUCH better. Thank you very much for your help!!

I did still have a couple of hiccups. I'll also explore the graphics card issue. Any idea what you paid for your graphics card?

[southsound]

I looked at some really fancy cards but the one I got that solved the problem was middle of the road and cost around $70.

[busted kitty]

Excellent. I'm on a mission now. Thanks for your help. Both of you!