Windows XP Home Edition Version 2002 Service pack 3
Intel (R) Pentium (R) 4 CPU 1.80 GHz
1 GB of Ram
I am running them off the computer's hard drive, nothing external
Version of Pro Tools: 7.1
I'm not sure what optimizing my system is, so I guess I haven't.
I don't think any spyware programs a re running, I had Symantic but I took it off, still same problems
Thanks so much for the help!
1GB of RAM - that's one major problem. If I was you, I'd upgrade to at least 2GB of RAM, or better yet, 3 or 4 (RAM is very cheap). The difference will amaze you.
You have 4 processors, which is good. Set Pro Tools to use about 80% of all four, or 99% of two like so:
Setup>Playback Engine:
RTAS Processors: 2 Processor/4 Processor
CPU Usage Limit: 99%/80%
Running audio off the same session as your software is a bad idea.
If you, like most people, have Pro Tools installed on the same drive as your operating system (the C drive), then think about it:
1) Your operating system is running off the C drive. Which means that, your computers processes (such as screen redraws, background processes and general housekeeping) are running off this drive.
2) Your Pro Tools software is running off the same drive. You know Pro Tools, you know that it's complicated software (especially when bundled with multiple plugins). Running Pro Tools on your C drive is perfectly fine. The problem lies with the next point.
3) If you're running a session off the same drive, you're dealing with pulling X number of audio files off that drive. You could have 32 tracks of audio set up in pro tools. And within those tracks, you could be pulling audio from hundreds of different files. Pro Tools has to pull all this audio from the drive, load it into RAM (of which you have very little), and play it back based on where you have your audio set to play back. This is a very strenuous task as it is.
Combine the three of those, and it's an awful lot of work for the drive heads to move around and gather that much data. If you can run your session off a separate drive, you've at least halved the workload for your drives, and everything will run a lot smoother.
So, I'd recommend (if you don't already have one) a separate drive just for audio. This can be internal (a physical drive that you house within your computer), or an external. If you pick an external, make sure it's Firewire (USB is slow, and running a session from a USB drive isn't even supported by Digidesign). Also, make sure it's NOT formatted FAT32. Pro Tools doesn't like it, and it has a 4gb file transfer limit. You're using windows, so have it formatted NTFS.
I only started running my sessions of a separate drive recently, and the difference is astounding.
Edit: PM me your email and I'll send you a guide to optimize XP for Pro Tools. Digi sent it to me and it made a huge difference.