Processors and RAM

[2lim]

I am new to computer recording. I have (my parents computer) whih is a celeron 500mhz with 64 megs of ram, and an sb live value sound card. I am planning on getting the gadget labs wave 824, i was wondering what i would need to comfortably support eight tracks in ntrack each with one or two effects . How much ram should i get, and what kind of cpu upgrade should i get.

 

[Spider]

well thats something i think everyone asks, me included ... i went all out on this one and just stuck in 256MB RAM... ive heard a lot of people using celerons actually .... but also ive heard of a lot of people with 128MB as well , so as a safe gaurd i would at least use 128... i record at the most 8 tracks simultaneously so i think 256 is what i needed.... i dont know really what the min. is , does anyone ??

 

[Cakey2]

Well, I'm running Cakewalk pro audio 9 with a Celeron 333 on a Supermicro motherboard with only 128 mb ram, and i can play back 8tracks and record 8tracks at the same time with no problem. Being cakewalk, I don't have realtime effects, but anyway effects use processor time not ram, so 256 may be a bit of overkill if you only want 8 sim in and out in my opinion.

Gluck,

matt

checK: http://www.mp3.com/carolynn

 

[Track Rat]

Your processor is fine but in the audio world RAM is life. 128 will work but I would strongly recommend 256 MEGs.

 

[AlChuck]

Cakey2,

Plug-ins use CPU cycles and RAM. So more RAM will help here.

-AlChuck

 

[MikeDog]

Howdy!

I'm running n-track on a Celery 400 with 128 MB RAM, and I can do what you want just fine. I'd upgrade to 256 MB if I could, but I'm a little financially embarrassed...

Also don't forget to turn off any superfluous applications while recording. You won't believe the performance boost I got once I switched off auto virtual memory...

MikeDog

 

[DeadPoet]

Celeron 366 (overclocked at 458), 64Mb RAM and an ISIS Card playing back +24 tracks with minimal FX or +16 tracks with full FX, automation, ...

Tweaks ?
Using Win95 OSR2 instead of W98. Since I don't have two screens nor more than 96Mb RAM I figured I wouldn't need W98
Leaving out as much cards (only audio and video card gently hum in my machine) and software as possible helps a lot too.
Good cleaning of the hard disk (a nice white cloth and defrag

Any other tips from other people ?
(I have my virtual memory fixed at 64Mb. If I would have more RAM I would switch to a) W98 and b) to no virtual memory as well I guess)

 

[pglewis]

Good Lord! A sensible Windows user who gets decent performance on a moderate system and only Win95? You don't need the hood-blower and nitro-injection? Show 'em how it's done, DeadPoet . Imagine what a 1.5 Gig CPU with 512M RAM might be able to do.

I'm running on a PII 450 with 96M RAM and a single 7200RPM HD. My drive will probably sustain 40-60 tracks with no DSP as is. The drive doesn't even break a sweat recording 8-tracks at once. I have no doubt I could safely record 16 at a time without having to upgrade my system in any way. It's hard to guage how many effects you can get, there are too many variables involved. Reverbs are notoriously CPU intensive. Different algorithms place different loads on the your system. Often, the better sounding plug-ins take more CPU... there's no free lunch.

Faster chips and software written to take full advantage of multi-processor systems should help evaporate the DSP bottle neck. Add a second, reasonably priced CPU and double my DSP processing... where do I apply? We're almost there.

 

[MrBoogie]

Deadpoet, there's a program that basically takes the web integration out of Win98, and probably does some other stuff, that works amazingly. It has improved the performace of my AMD K6-2 500,128 megs, quite noticeably, and I'm NOT even using the "pro" version that you gotta pay for. Also, you can add the web integration back easily, if you need it. Here's the url: www.98lite.net. This isnt one of those BS "secret tweak" programs. This one tells you what it's doing and you choose what level of tweaking you do. It really works....
Anyone else use it?