old computer

[classicaldeath]

What is the most common cause for latency, cpu, ram, or soundcard? A friend of mine with no money wants to do some simple recording, he got a free computer with intell III 650mhz , and 256mb ram and clean install of xp. I gave him a copy of audition 1.5, 2.0, and an amp simulator. He would like to use 2.0 for the real time vst effect which 1.5 doesn't have, but there is latency and the recording gets choopy after trying to record a second track, and audition 1.5 keeps crashing. He has some monstrosity of a modem/soundcard combo which I was going to swap for a slightly better one out of a 2000pro machine, and he wants to buy a 512mb stick of ram if it will help. Will the ram and soundcard make any difference or are we wasting our time with this
old computer? Thanks for any help

 

[joswil44]

Pretty much everything you listed in your question can attribute to latency and other problems.

I would aim towards putting together a stronger PC.

Plus you should make sure there are 2 hard drives. 1 containing the operating system and recording software, and the other hard drive strictly for recording the audio.

You dont want the machine to be trying to access or process data and record new data on the same hard drive at the same time.

I have a Mac G4 with a single 1.25 GHz Processor, 1.75GB Ram. Dual 100GB hard drives and I still have issues when I get too many tracks or use too many VST's per track.

You can get by with the basics, but in the long run to do some powerfull projects you want a powerfull PC.

Theoretically you could record on that PC, but I would definately have 2 hard drives, and upgrade the memory to 512 or 1GB if not lots more.

Cheap soundcards can have latency issues as well. Especially when it comes to monitoring as you play.

Its cool your friend got a free PC and maybe that will help introduce him to the world of recording.

But most people who want to record do the research and then find out what they need and start building a PC to suit their needs.

Try adding a second hard drive if not already.

Double or triple the Ram.

Invest in an audio card that will be transferable to another system later on with all the inputs and outputs you will ever need such as optical, firewire, etc.

You did mention your friend had no money, but he will pretty much have to suffer or find a way to put some money into it at this point.

Good luck.

 

[mikemorgan]

I'd say the soundcard in this case is the weakest link, as it is the device being taxed the most. Hardware and driver issues are what cause most latency. Your P3 should have plenty of oomph to record two in/two out all day long without grunting. When shopping an interface or soundcard, beware of known hardware issues with motherboard chipsets or even processors (a lot of cards don't play well with VIA chipsets or some early AMD processors).

 

[mikemorgan]

I must ammend my post to say that the requirements to run XP effectively have a lot of that 256 ram already tied up. If you want to run that computer, I'd say you'd run Win98se with a soundcard proven to do well in that format. Echo Layla, Gadget Labs Wave 8/24, Motu 828, something like that.