Processing power?

  • Thread starter Thread starter ecktronic
  • Start date Start date
ecktronic

ecktronic

Mixing and Mastering.
CAn anyone enlighten me on how I would get more processer power so I my computer can handle mixing large amounts of tracks (ie 48 tracks).

I have a Pentium 4 HT with 2GB RAM and 400GB HD.

Thanks.
Eck
 
Buy a second computer and network them together.

Just for the record, what kind of home recording project needs 48 full-blown tracks?




:confused:
 
You would need to upgrade your motherboard and buy another CPU. That way, if you pick the right one, you can have your current CPU, a new one, and more RAM!
 
You could also buy a dsp card to offload plugin processing, like the TC Powercore or UAD-1.

The nice thing about a uad card is not only does it ease the load on your host cpu, the plugs themselves sound fantastic
 
What type of P-4 CPU do you have (Speed and Core Type and Socket) and what Chipset and type of Motherboard do you have??

Certain P-4 CPU"s ,Namely the Northwoods with the 800mhz FSB ,Overclock really well which is a way to squeeze up to 800mhz extra out of your CPU which would give you a Good performance Boost.....

My P-4 2.6ghz is Clocked at 3.225ghz without any sort of Extreme cooling measures as I just have a Zalman CNPS7000-CU cooler on it and a few case fans and my CPU on a Load rarely breaks 40c so it doesn"t run hot at all....

You can"t do this with any of the Newer Prescot cores or the older Willemette cores but the Northwoods are great for overclocking......

You could also pick up one of those CPU/Motherboard bundles and do the upgrade yerself...You can get an Athlon 64 pretty cheap these days....

Cheers
 
You may not necessarily need a new cpu and such. Do you only have the one 400 gig drive in your tower? Are you sure your limitations aren't due to hard drive streaming?
 
everyone is basically correct...

if you want better performance, get a faster chip, a dsp card to help carry your loads, faster ram, and if your 400gb HD is like say 200gb x2, your system will take a little bit longer to find files then if you had some 80gb's & maybe a large drive to store finished stuff... change em to SATAII, get a dual core processor with a nice chunk of cache on it, etc.. even run Linux or some other operating system other then um.. windows..
 
Also, make sure and disable all non necessary apps....
 
ssscientist said:
Buy a second computer and network them together.

Just for the record, what kind of home recording project needs 48 full-blown tracks?




:confused:
Click to expand...


Who said its aproject.
I am mixing my bands second album.

Thanks for the info but I cant afford that and im not sure that will be enough processing power.
Eck
 
Minion said:
What type of P-4 CPU do you have (Speed and Core Type and Socket) and what Chipset and type of Motherboard do you have??

Certain P-4 CPU"s ,Namely the Northwoods with the 800mhz FSB ,Overclock really well which is a way to squeeze up to 800mhz extra out of your CPU which would give you a Good performance Boost.....

My P-4 2.6ghz is Clocked at 3.225ghz without any sort of Extreme cooling measures as I just have a Zalman CNPS7000-CU cooler on it and a few case fans and my CPU on a Load rarely breaks 40c so it doesn"t run hot at all....

You can"t do this with any of the Newer Prescot cores or the older Willemette cores but the Northwoods are great for overclocking......

You could also pick up one of those CPU/Motherboard bundles and do the upgrade yerself...You can get an Athlon 64 pretty cheap these days....

Cheers
Click to expand...


I dont know the specs. All I know is its a brand new computer and is a Fujitsu Siemens Scaleo P running windows XP media edition.

Thanks alot.
Eck
 
xstatic said:
You may not necessarily need a new cpu and such. Do you only have the one 400 gig drive in your tower? Are you sure your limitations aren't due to hard drive streaming?
Click to expand...

Yeah 400GB total in 2 hard drives in my 1 tower.
Dont know about Hard drive streaming.

The cpu usage goes to 90/100 % when I have lots of plug-ins working and the play back slows down and is judery.
I tried playing with the buffer speed etc but couldt fix it with that.

Cheers,
Eck
 
Thanks everyone, youve all been a great help.
Im going to look into the cards some of you were talking about.

How much extra cpu would I get or does that depend on which card I buy?

Thanks,
Eck
 
Sorry for soo many replies but I am wondering if you can only use the UAD-1 plug-ins with the card or does the card let you use plug-ins that I already have.
So what im saying really is does using my plug-ins I have ofload the processing to the card rather than my computer?

Once again thanks for any info.
Eck
 
The UAD card just adds a set of plugins to your list. When you use the UAD plugins, they run from the DSP card, but all of your other plugins still run from your CPU.

I love the UAD stuff, but I do not think this is going to solve your problem. I think you are going to need to make some other changes or you are going to have the same problems again and fairly soon. I would reccomend putting the money into getting your tower where it needs to be, and then add the UAD card to your setup:)
 
have you tried freezing some of the plugins on your tracks? that should free up some cpu usage.
 
make some other changes or you are going to have the same problems again and fairly soon
Click to expand...

Bingo. Sounds like you are venturing in the Soundscape/PT TDM territory with a project like that. I dont think there is a non-hardware accelerated solution that will run reliably with that many tracks with effects/etc
 
My system runs just fine with 48 tracks and 100 plugins. Its not even dual core....
 
Before I upgraded my system I was running 48 tracks on a P-III 700 with a TC Powercore card doing the verbs and other high demand plugs. Your P4 is probably up to the task if you do a fresh windows install and optimize it for audio, and then work smart. Working smart means not using multiple plug instances where 1 plug on an aux buss will serve multiple tracks, cleaning up extranious edits and such, etc. Take a couple of hours to make a clean test project and methodically find out what processes add what amount of load to your computer. Find out which plugs are CPU hogs, and which are efficient.
You've either got to do this homework to figure out how to make your current rig work, or upgrade.

-Bob
 
xstatic said:
The UAD card just adds a set of plugins to your list. When you use the UAD plugins, they run from the DSP card, but all of your other plugins still run from your CPU.

I love the UAD stuff, but I do not think this is going to solve your problem. I think you are going to need to make some other changes or you are going to have the same problems again and fairly soon. I would reccomend putting the money into getting your tower where it needs to be, and then add the UAD card to your setup:)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info.
I tested my cpu and it could manage 15 tracks with a compresor, 6 band EQ, and R-verb on each. The cpu was at like 90% and it was running a bit slower so I could prob manage another 3 or 4 tracks with the plug-ins.

1 GB of RAM is what you get with the UAD-1e am I right? Is that not alot of processing power. Thats like an extra 10 tracks with the plug-ins I was talking about.

Arghh I aint sure what to do. as 10 tracks extra for £500 isnt that great.

How could I modify my computer?

Thanks again,
Eck
 
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