Dropouts

  • Thread starter Thread starter rowrep
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cakewalk boost

1. even if you have AGP sometimes having your graphics acceleration turned up can cause problems so move graphics acceleration all the way to the LEFT.

2. set your virtual memory (SWAP SIZE) to be 2.5 times the size of your ram. letting windoze funk with your virtual memory while your recording is bad news.

3. if you have a network card or modem, then set up a seperate windows profile for when you are doing music. in your music profile keep all the un-needed cards disabled.

4. turn off read ahead for your hard drive (although this is slowly going out of vogue, i still swear by it).

5. turn off windoze findfast.

6. turn off CD recognition.

there's more but i'm not on my box, i'm on the laptop.

i use a self-built amd 450mhz with 384m ram, a 9gig mecropolis scsi-uw i use for audio, and a 9gig IDE drive i keep my programs on. i'm using the frontier design wavecenter/tango 24bit card and breakout rack (8 tracks). i also use a sony dtc-a7 DAT as my monitor for previously recorded tracks. without eq, and compression on each track i get no less than 16 tracks at 24/48.

while tracking i use the slowest mix latency. when mixing i use the fastest mix latency.

BTW, since I have my virtual memory (SWAP) hard set, i'm going to create a partition just the right size and use it for my SWAP, then i shouldn't have to defrag so much. oh yeah. make sure that you defrag after any heavy session. run scandisk first before you defrag, and don't forget to backup your work before you do anything. i let you know how the partition trick does. or i'll wreck my machine... not for the first time.
 
Disclaimer.......

To all who read this. These are my thoughts on these issues. Read at your own risk.

1. AGP Acceleration. Since the graphics card is handling all the video functions why then is it better to have the CPU handle all that overhead. I have read a ton of posts on both sides of this issue and I am interested in your opinion as to WHY. Just saying do it is not good enough for people to do it. Give the technical reason if you would. My opinion, is to leave the acceleration to the video card and make sure it has it's own dedicated IRQ. Exclude video memory from Windows use so it can't stomp on your applications. This IMHO will yield the most stable video side of your DAW.

2. WHAT! Why does this issue keep coming up for systems that have more than 128MB of memory. It is just not true. For systems that have MORE THAN 128MB installed ram. Do a benchmark on your swapfile use and you will see the proof of what I am saying. FACT: If a system has more than 128MB of memory the swapfile usage is so minimal if it gets hit at all. Having it be 2.5 times your installed memory is just plain wrong. No disrespect but let's go one step further. Let's see, that's 2.5 * 312MB = 780MB of disk space for a swapfile that may NEVER GET TOUCHED. Does that seem right to you? It does not to me. Do a benchmark and you will see that file rarely, if ever get's hit. So if it doesn't then having it chew up almost 800MB is a total waste of space, not to mention what the OS has to do to maintain the swap table. And how much if it does get hit? 2, 3, 10, 50 MB of it? So make it 64MB and your covered.

3. I totaly agree.

4. I totaly agree.

5. I agree, but take it a step further. If you have findfast installed at all, disable it and/or delete it. It is an MS Office tool that is totaly useless for the general user.

6. I totaly agree. Turn off Auto Insertion for all CDs.

As for creating a partition just for the unused swap file. Again a waste of disk space. And you can't really defrag a swapfile anyway I don't care what utility you use. If it does not get used.......*broken record skips*

I agree again with the scandisk/defrag before any important session.

And don't wreck yer machine. It aint worth it unless you have a recent ghost image or some other image to restore from.

These thoughts are in no way a reflection on any previous users opinions, (well, yes they are I guess) they are of my own mind, as are thiers. No two systems will ever require the same tweaks, but some/all require all the same BASE setup. I just want to dispell some of the *old ways* of windows thinking. New times require re-learning the entire chain of hardware/software interaction. We are all constantly in school.

Share, listen, listen, learn.
 
Sultan: I know of one technical reason why graphics card acceleration can cause problems. Some card maunufacturers discovered they could improve benchmark figures by not checking to see if the command FIFO for the PCI buss is full or not-- they just blindly write to the PCI buss no matter what. On the plus side, it saves a read from the PCI buss giving a slight speed increase. On the minus side, if the command FIFO is full the CPU will stall and wait for the PCI buss to do some of it's work and make room for the new command. Obviously, CPU stalls fall solidly in the "bad thing" category. Bringing down graphics acceleration to a lower setting can disable this sneaky little feature on some graphics cards.
 
pglewis,

but isn't that only a problem with PCI graphics boards?

-AlChuck
 
cakewalk boost

the AGP issue is something that i noticed that worked for my machine (tyan trinity board / amd 450mhz ). i later read that it's better, but i had already reduced my graphics acceleration based on my own performance experience.

the memory and swap file do matter and here's why. let's say you have the following mix (you are mixing not recording):

kick (compressor [comp], look ahead limiter [lal], low pass filter eq)
snare (comp, lal, parametric eq)
hats (stereo comp, high pass filter eq)
bass (comp, lal, lpf eq)
stereo guitar (comp, lal, para. eq, flange, delay for fattening effect)
lead vocal (comp, lal, para. eq, autotune, delay for doubling effect)
back vocal mix (comp, lal, para. eq, autotune)

in the aux you have:
reverb
delay (rephrasing of vocals at 1/8 note)
chorus (for a slight flange effect on the guitar and back vocals)

with just these 9 tracks, look at how much processing power you need. i don't compress during recording. with 24 bit i don't think i need to, and my sound quality has gotten gobs better since i chucked the compressor and adat, and got the wavecenter/tango. as long as your RAM is never exhausted during the frequent paging in and out that occurs while running these plug-ins, you're OK. as soon as your RAM is exhausted, and old page is put into virtual memory. when that page is re-requested, the system checks your L1, and L2 cache. then it goes to your memory, then it goes to your virtual memory (drive). All in all, i think the cakewalk and dsp-fx programs that i rely on were programmed well; however, any little boost i can give to keep away from dropouts is worth it.

BTW, as of 2 months ago, i almost always put a look ahead limiter after my compressor so that i can reduce (to a lesser degree) the onset of the peak that triggers the compressor. otherwise the difference between what you can normalize to and the average volume level hasn't improved.
 
Yes, the memory does matter, but not the swap file. Again this is for systems with more than 128MB ram. If you have 128 or less, then your way is valid because you will get pagingfile hits. I want to be clear that I mean for system with MORE than 128MB. If that is true, then my scenario becomes true with regard to the pagingfile. It will, or rarely if ever get hit.

"As long as your RAM never gets exhausted" is exaclty the point I make about the swapfile. It never gets hit if you have enough RAM. If that is true then why is it neccessary to set it at 2.5 times your installed ram. A small swapfile will suffice for the rare times it may get hit. *broken record skips*

And thanks AlChuck, the issue is PCI graphics cards. But some AGP's probably have the issue as well, as stated by crosstudio. Since it made a difference for his system. But it is not the norm for an AGP card to have to do that. It's an interaction of ALL the hardware together and the software.

Every system is different and needs to be tweaked as an individual entity. But certain rules still apply to all configurations.

Crosstudio, with your mix scenario shown, how mcuh proccessing power does your system take? And what is your system to begin with (CPU Mhz, RAM, HD chain etc)
 
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