How many tracks till you break your PC's back

[BushmasterM4]

I use Tracktion 3 as my DAW and I love the layout and feel of it. Well I recorded 24 tracks today and with only 8 plugins I started to get the stutters. I running Windows XP Pro (32Bit), with an AMD X2-4800 cpu (dual core) and 4 gigs of memory. My hard drives are all 7200rpm WD. And all inessential processes are removed from Windows. With Tracktion 2 (the previous version of my DAW), I had a tune with 30 tracks and several plugins on each track and it didnt break a sweat. That was on a single core AMD-3800 with 2 gigs. This is the first time with Tracktion 3 Ive had over say 16 Tracks. So, I may go back to Tracktion 2 for big projects or I may jump ship. So tell me what you use as a DAW, and what you PC specs are, and a rough track/vst count for that Daw/PC. Ive read Cubase is very cpu friendly, but I would rather hear it from actual users. ProTools is out of the question. Thanks

 

[BushmasterM4]

Oh yea I run a 6ms latency and record at 24bit 44100. Changing to a higher latency has no effect.

 

[pipelineaudio]

Seems like traktion should do a LOT more than that. It is a pretty tightly coded app

I have an amd 4400+. Last time I really tried it was well over 100 96khz tracks on an import. I didnt have any plugs going till I threw out the irrelevant stuff, but it wasnt sticky.

For a comparison of apps' efficiency, sonar vs cubendo vs reaper

http://dawbench.com/dawbenchdsp-x-scaling.htm

 

[TimOBrien]

I could run 35 16bit/44.1khz tracks on my Pentium2/450mhz... (NO plugins)
My current P4 2.8Ghz laptop runs 35 stereo 24bit/44.1khz tracks at 10-15% CPU use.

ITS THE PLUGINS.

And you don't mention what 'several plugins per track' you're running.

(There are plugs that will bring ANY computer to its knees and blue-screen it.)

You have to learn to work WITH the systems.... because there's no such thing as unlimited computer processing.

 

[VomitHatSteve]

I could run 35 16bit/44.1khz tracks on my Pentium2/450mhz... (NO plugins)
My current P4 2.8Ghz laptop runs 35 stereo 24bit/44.1khz tracks at 10-15% CPU use.

ITS THE PLUGINS.

And you don't mention what 'several plugins per track' you're running.

(There are plugs that will bring ANY computer to its knees and blue-screen it.)

You have to learn to work WITH the systems.... because there's no such thing as unlimited computer processing.

That's been my experience. I haven't really stress-tested my computer yet, but any more than 4 tracks with plugins going at the same time, and it really starts to chug.

 

[superspit]

4 stereo tracks....no plugins.

CEP 1.0
Sperry 486 prox
16 meg Ram
300 meg HD
SB awe card
'wired' mouse and keyboard.

 

[BushmasterM4]

Ok, I think what I am experiancing is a hard drive problem. My cpu meter in Tracktion does not go over a 1/3 with all those tracks. But I see a exclamation point in the meter and the stuttering happens. So I thaught that was a cpu issue. But in the manual, I read that the mark in the cpu meter shows the program is having problems getting tracks from the drive. A cpu problem will max the bar and turn it red So I need to run some speed tests on the drive and also increase the cache size in Tracktion. Will try this tomorrow. One of the biggest things is the cache size. The default Tracktion 3 uses is small. Looks like an easy fix. Tweak the drive and cache size and see what happens.

 

[TimOBrien]

Would have helped if you had mentioned that first.

Are you running a separate drive for you audio files?? (you SHOULD.... always.)

Boot (C) Drive - OS, applications and VSTplugins
Secondary drive - Audio files and miscellaneous data
Third drive - Sample librarys (if needed)

 

[BushmasterM4]

Would have helped if you had mentioned that first.

Are you running a separate drive for you audio files?? (you SHOULD.... always.)

Boot (C) Drive - OS, applications and VSTplugins
Secondary drive - Audio files and miscellaneous data
Third drive - Sample librarys (if needed)

Yes. I have been since day one, when I built the pc. Its usually the stupid simple things you dont think off. I getting ready to head out and benchmark the drives and change the cache settings in my DAW

 

[BushmasterM4]

Slide the cache buffer in Tracktion 3 all the way to 150. Also changed my swap file settings in windows and the 25 track mix no longer stutters. Also benchmarked my drives and switched to the quickest. One was an average of 68mb/second and the one I switched to was 98mb/second.

 

[dgatwood]

Quad G5. Say 50+ tracks with 30+ actually being played, EQ effects on about half of them, reverb added on some of the mix busses.

If you're breaking down at a dozen tracks, unless you're talking about something like convolution reverb, that's a pretty sure sign that something is massively wrong. My Mac laptop could do twice that with EQ and some light reverb back in 1998. No, really.

By any chance is DMA disabled on the hard drive? Is your HD controller sharing an IRQ with your audio interface? Oh, never mind. I just read your last comment about the cache.

 

[aviv]

4 stereo tracks....no plugins.

CEP 1.0
Sperry 486 prox
16 meg Ram
300 meg HD
SB awe card
'wired' mouse and keyboard.

my hat off to you mate, mine buckles at 2 stereo tracks...