cluster sizes

  • Thread starter Thread starter foreverain4
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foreverain4

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how big of a role do cluster sizes play in the speed of your recording system? what size would you think would be idea for a drive that only has audio data on it? i think mine right now are at 32k. should i go bigger? is there a way to do it without reformatting a drive? i thought about trying to match this to the buffer size of my card, which is at 128.

using xp
 
Cluster size may matter a bit but IMHO hardly worth spending any time on.
If your DAW works, just leave it as it is. If it doesn't work, look for the problem elsewhere.
 
well, my problem is, i cannot get my computer to put out as much power as it did. i upgraded from winME to XP. i did the whole reformatt, fresh install deal. i am using a motu 2408mk3. under my ME system, i could record 24 tracks at a time without a glitch. now i cant even get 8. the only thing that has changed in my system is installing windows XP.


1ghz
512mb ram
(1) ide system drive
(1) ide audio drive
(3) external firwire audio drives
 
Sounds like the old DMA problem. I have a hell of a time getting ultra DMA working on my machine whenever I do a fresh install of W2K. Check out device manager in XP, right click my computer, properties, hardware, device manger. Under hard disk controllers, check the properties / settings of the primary and slave channel, are they in ultra DMA or PIO?
 
they are dma enabled. i ran a test this afternoon. i sent my metronome to inputs 1 and 2 of my motu. i then recorded 24 separate tracks from those two inputs. no problems. i , then, sent the metronome to inputs 1-8 separately. i added 8 tracks in my software and had them each pulling from one of the 8 inputs. well, my tracks were dropping samples again. so, i think it has something to do with the bandwidth on the pci buss.
 
Maybe it is something as simple as buffer settings, or broken soundcard driver...
 
it is an intel 815 chipset. i have messed with the buffer settings to no avail.
 
I ran into this problem with a Delta44 on a similarly-configured PC a couple years ago (using Win2000). I traced the problem down, like you did, to some traffic problems on the PCI bus.

M-Audio support was friendly and personal but really no help. The best answer I got was "you need a computer faster than what exists currently for any serious 24/96 audio above 2 tracks..."


Upgraded my computer and all is well :)


Still, I think the problem is likely that Win2000 and WinXP have busmastering problems on motherboards more than 2 years old or so. I had a Celeron with an Intel-chipset motherboard. I think Intel has a busmastering patch for their chipsets, you may want to try that?
 
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