how do memory and cpu speed directly relate to DAW's ?

[Eddie N]

slacks post about ide and scsi got me thinking about this..

heres a silly question.. what exactly does memory do in an DAW ? and what are the benefits from having so much of it ? memory is more related to the amout of tracks you can record/playback at a time than using effects right ? and using effects is pretty much directly related to cpu speed ?

i know...these are silly questions.. its one of those "i know i need it but why?" curiousity questions...

- eddie n -

 

[bobbo]

Hey Eddie N,
I think it might depend on which recording software you are using. I just know that with ntracks, it states on their website that when you are recording, the amount of tracks you can get is related to the cpu speed because it needs to go and search for the files on the disk and reads and writes directly to the disk. (I think) Then they say that the amount of effects you can use is dependant on the amount of RAM you have, but that any more than 64MB really won't give you very much more performance.
I think this is what I understood from their website. I think that some other software might do the opposite, and that the amount of RAM is very important because the software doesn't search the disk, but uses the memory to store the information.
Again, I might be all wrong with this info Eddie, so hopefully someone else will reply.
bobbo

 

[Slackmaster2K]

Yeah, you're pretty much right. n-Track does go directly to disk...as do most applications.

Memory: Some apps will support loading loops into memory, but loading full-lengths waves would fill things up pretty quick. Also, the more memory you have the less swapping. You basically want enough memory for the OS and the applications that you'll be running while recording. I forget the actual numbers, but I believe that NT sucks 48MB off the top and 98 likes to chew 32MB. I'd recommend at least 64MB and 128 is better because really, you can't have enough memory.

CPU: the more tracks you're recording/playing back, the more CPU utilization. However, this is very small with today's bus mastering technologies in comparison to DX effects which will eat the CPU like crazy. Especially the nasties like reverb and compression. YES, DX effects rely heavily on the FPU which is why the AMD K6 line of processors suck in comparison to Intel PII/Celerons.

Slackmaster 2000