Computer processor question

[AlexHerd]

Hi
I'm new to computer recording and I have some questions. My computer is old, and only has a Pentium 1. I would like to get a Pentium 4. Would this be an easy upgrade? what would I need to do? Thanks!

 

[brzilian]

You're basically going to have to trash everything you've got and start from scratch. I'm guessing you probably don't even have an AGP video card.

Original Pentiums ran at 33 or 66Mhz bus speeds and used EDO Ram. Current systems use 100 to 150Mhz bus speeds and use PC133,Rambus or DDR RAM.

Depending on the age of your HD, it probably won't support the ATA66 or ATA100 standards and will be fairly slow compared to today's HDs.

Your motherboard probably isn't based on the never ATX standard so your case won't work with never motherboards either.

You will definetly want the never features like ATX,ATA66/100 and USB support for today's OS's and recording software.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

 

[xalien]

While it might be possible to do some digital sound manipulation on your current hardware (heck, I had a nice sound editor on my 16 mhz Mac) you'll be in for a lot of pain. You can get so much now for just a few hundred bucks it's not worth screwing around trying to upgrade.

As the low-end, you can get a nice Celeron system for under $600 bucks:

http://www.gateway.com/home/prod/hm_300le_ProdDetail.shtml

At the higher end, you can get a truely kick ass PC for under $1500.

http://www.gateway.com/home/prod/hm_500x_ProdDetail.shtml

Once you've got a new computer, the next real questions is what to buy for software. There are numerous really nice software packages out there for doing digital multi track recording. Just about any of them (starting from less than $100) will provide stellar recording quality.

Good luck getting started.

-Steve

 

[elevate]

If you're up to the challenge, you will invariably be able to get a better computer for your money if you build it yourself. It's not that difficult and there's tons of resources on the net to guide you in the right direction. You'll be able to pick exactly the components you want, and not be forced into some crap you won't need - like a sound card and win-modem stuck on one pci card, or some such other atrocity.

 

[AlexHerd]

Thanks for the awnsers guys! I think I'm gonna go with getting a new one built. It's just a little more expensive, but I can upgrade the WHOLE system. Thanks again.

 

[c9-2001]

you can get an awesome computer/daw for under 700
got to ebay and get a AthlonXP system or ubid.com
if your gonna be doing a lot of music stuff you'll want the athlonXP over the P4, if you want to get the P4 go all out and get the new 2.2 b/c all the other chips suck...

 

[elevate]

if you want to get the P4 go all out and get the new 2.2 b/c all the other chips suck...

I think you can completely disregard that comment.

 

[c9-2001]

disregard it, for what? a 2gig P4 with a lot of memory bla bla bla, would out do my AthlonXP 1600+....
under cubase the the 2gig P4 couldn't handle what the athlonXp 1600+ did. i had give or take 64 tracks going with out any vst's on and the P4 was at 50% idle... when i started playing the song it went up to 80% with the athlonXp it never even got to 30% an under nuendo it was even lower. i've used 4 different P4 systems... they aren't very good for audio(my opinion)but graphics... i find them to be very good. all the dual PIII systems i've used were much better than the P4 systems...

 

[elevate]

I don't question the fact that most XP processors outperform most P4 processors. That doesn't mean that all P4 processors suck (what Mac user wouldn't love the performance of any P4). The fact of the matter is that the fastest x86 computer you can get runs P4 (or Xeon if you're talking duallie), and it's gonna stay this way for a while. Not to mention the fact that it's invariably easier to put together a more stable P4 righ than an Athlon rig.

Out of curiosity, did the P4 rigs you used have Rambus or DDR? Also, the fact that you had 50% cpu utilization with nothing happening is an indicator of something being wrong. I just opened a Vegas project with 18 stereo tracks (with a few dx plugs) and my dual 366mhz Celerons sit at 1% utilization (probably used to draw the graph in Task Manager). During playback usage seems to be around 20% with a peak at 29%.

 

[c9-2001]

Out of curiosity, did the P4 rigs you used have Rambus or DDR? Also, the fact that you had 50% cpu utilization with nothing happening is an indicator of something being wrong. I just opened a Vegas project with 18 stereo tracks (with a few dx plugs) and my dual 366mhz Celerons sit at 1% utilization (probably used to draw the graph in Task Manager). During playback usage seems to be around 20% with a peak at 29%.

off your first statement i see where your coming from i was gonna build a dual xeon system but ppl told me i'd only get an extra 20% using it.. and for the price of things now and ebay being so cheap right now i'm just gonna order a system a little stronger than mine.
as for the 4 P4 systems i used i know all of them had DDR, i think the one at the joint studio has ram bus though.

for your system to be at 1% utilization with 18 stereo tracks and some dx plugs is very good, but your also running vegas.... if you open that project under cuabse(18 stereo tracks and some dx plugs) you not gonna be at 1%... i don't know one pc that at 1 pc to tell you the truth... even mine idle under nuendo with 24 tracks is about 6% its real low, but if your at 1% more power to ya...

 

[camn]

c9, are you a gear slut? Or do you actually do projects with 64 tracks?


I ask merely for information, you understand

oxxo

 

[c9-2001]

c9, are you a gear slut? Or do you actually do projects with 64 tracks?

I ask merely for information, you understand

oxxo

a gear slut LOL
naw i've done a project that ran 108 tracks total... the beat was 20 i think, then all the vocals,hook,adlib beat breaking down and changing.... it was crazy my pc was still only around 40-60% with all those tracks under nuendo... on avg we use 24-32 sometimes 48
a gear slut...LOL i wish i had all of gear that i want but i work with what i have and get the job done

 

[elevate]

if you open that project under cuabse(18 stereo tracks and some dx plugs) you not gonna be at 1%

I'm not sure, but I think this may be because Cubase, Logic, Pro Tools, etc... all use their own mechanisms for screen drawing, whereas Vegas uses the Windows API extensively, which is more efficient. I think the issue is that the other apps have versions for other platforms, so they try to maintain a code base that's as portable as possible (I know that Steinberg codes all their apps in a UNIX environment). Sonic Foundry doesn't have this issue to deal with, so they can take full advantage of any tools/features Windows has to offer.