Gimme' Speed ! !

  • Thread starter Thread starter chessrock
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chessrock

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Say, just wondering if anyone can tell me what it would take to get more juice.

I'm careful to delete all unnecessary files . . . I defrag with regularity . . . I have gone through a bunch of articles on "optimizing" my system for audio, I've cut down from 96k to 44.1, etc.

Keep in mind now, that I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to computers, so there is probably something obvious I'm missing out on. :D

One thing I've noticed is that things slow to a standstill when my temporary memory that CoolEdit Pro uses gets maxed out, and it becomes unstable. This, I am assuming, has to do with the fact that it uses my D drive for it's temporary storage, whatever that is, which is rather smallish. Can I get a bigger D drive? Or can I change some settings to have it use my C drive instead?

This is only part of the equation, because most importantly, I want it to open my audio files and projects FASTER. It just takes so freakin' long to load anything, my clients get impatient and lose their good vibe. Sure, it takes a while to process anything with plugins, but that wouldn't seem as bad if loading time were quicker.

How do I get more speed?

Here's what I got:

*AMD Athlon XP w/ 1.47 Ghz

* 512 MB syncDRAM total system memory

* 80 GB hard drive

Thanks ! ! !
 
What's a partition? And how should they be set up? I'm using XP.

And no, Tex and E.D. I've already tried inserting toobs inside my A and B drive. I've stuck toobs inside the little compartment where my recovery disk supposedly resides . . . and still no more speed, but ooooh do those digital recordings sound warm.
 
I've heard insulating the IDE cables on your HD helps speed everything up. You could also try changing the voltage on the back of your PSU to 230v instead of 115v. That way it will run twice as fast. :D













































p.s. - whomever stumble upon this thread, don't do anything above unless you want an expensive paperweight.
 
I'm kidding about the toobs . . .

But I'm not kidding about the speed. I need it. And I figure rather than ditch my current computer, which is still fairly new, I should probably look in to ways I can get my current one faster. It doesn't have to be like $10K Pro Tools setup fast.

Just "a little faster" than what I currently have would be fine. I'm waiting at least 30 minutes for a 20-track project to load up (or maybe it just seems like it - but it is getting longer all the time). Maybe if I could cut that down to a minute per track or less?

And yes, I am a complete computer idiot who doesn't even know what hard-drive partitioning is. :D I know that I have a hard drive and that it stores things . . . and that it doesn't like when I stick toobs in it. :D
 
First of all we can take care of the easy things.

-Defrag the HD before each project.

-Reduce the number of progs running in the background (Anti-virus mainly)

-Take the computer off the internet (disable the ethernet/modem)

-Get a memory manager (MemTurbo or the like) not really necessary if running Win2k or WinXP

-use msconfig by hitting the following buttons START -> RUN -> "type" msconfig
choose selective startup and uncheck everything except win.ini and sys.ini (if using WinXP include boot.ini)

-ensure your using your HD to it's max. ATA-66/100/133 and DMA is enabled

-next time format your HD woth larger block sizes for audio. are you using FAT-32 or NTFS with 4k blocks? Audio files are large so wasting disk space isn't really a problem

-while your trying to load your project, hit CTRL-ALT-DEL and go into your task manager if using WinXP or Win2k. Check out the performance. If your audio prog is pegged high and the processor is up near 99%, there isn't a lot you can do. In other words, it would require deeper digging.
 
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