XP tweaking

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rusty K
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R

Rusty K

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Hi,

My system....1gig Thunderbird, 512Mb Ram, 14.2gig C drive, 80gig D drive slaved to Cdrive, XP.

I record when my system lets me and I'm getting fed up with it. It really screws any inspiration one has.

Questions:

1. Should I still follow the "Optimizing Windows 98 for recording" checklist even with my beefy system? I'm really getting about the same results I was when I had 366Hz, 64Mb and Windows 98.

2. How do I use Crl/Alt/Delete in XP? It's a whole different look. I never have primary programs running when I'm tracking but on the "processes tab" there is background stuff running and Systray and Explorer aren't named as such. Even though there seems to be little CPU usage should I close this stuff if so which needs to stay open?

3. Should I try a dual boot kind of thing? I'm really "fuzzy" on just what this is and how to set it up.

I WANT SOME FREAKING STABILITY ....HELP!

Thanks,
Rusty K
 
Hey I like the lava lamp,

Thanks for your response. I'll check out the link you gave me.
My puter was built for me. If I had it to do over again...well let's not get into that.

About the only thing I haven't upgraded is the motherboard. I'm sure there's a better option than the Mainboard EPoX 8kTA3 but I can't afford to change it out right now. I need to make the best of what I have for a while.

Rusty K
 
hey subtractor,

I just did a clean install of my OS and reinstalled my programs on drive C. I have about 10 gigs of space left on the C drive. I can't use my puter for audio only....maybe someday.

I just printed the article and I can already see that it will take some clarification. He assumes I have more computer savy than I do, terminology mostly.

Rusty K
 
Skipping during playback and recording. The recording skip is really a pisser. A recorded track last night was out of sync. A couple of white noise clip events upon clicking the play button. I'm worried this could screw my soundcard. Lots of skipping during realtime processing/mixing. It used to not do that.

Rusty K
 
What kind of hardware are you using?
I had that same problem with my us428 and fixed it by getting a windows messenger update for xp.
 
Hardware? you mean besides what I described on my initial post? I running a 24bit LynxOne soundcard. I have a SCSI burner and a Lexmark X83 printer.

Update?
R
 
subtractor,

What about the ctrl/alt/delete question I asked. What do you do with the "processes tab" background stuff?

R
 
First off... XP is a totally different beast than 98, so you can't use the same optimization... but there is optimization that can be done.

Go to either TweakXP.com or Black Viper's site.

Tweak XP will give you a billion different tips on how to optimize XP and turn off all the "fluff". And Black Viper's site will show you how to shut off all the unnecessary services.

Services are the background components of XP that basically make it work. Services are all those things running in the "processes" tab that you see when you hit Ctrl-Alt-Del. XP (and all NT based Windows versions) separate "programs" into two groups.. "applications" like Excel and Word and what not.. and "processes" which are the background programs that are running, as well as the executables that drive the "applications". Once you do the optimization on Black Viper's site (which is basically to disable all the services you don't need) then you'll see a lot less "processes" running.

You aren't going to have systray any more, but you'll still see Explorer. It's called "explorer.exe".

Quite frankly, though... I've never used a more stable Windows O/S than XP. 98SE was nowhere near the stability of my current setup using XP, so I'm amazed that you're attributing so many of your problems to XP.

Keep in mind that there are other incompatibilities that could be causing your woes. I used my Delta series card for a week with constant instability until I found out that it was a simple setting in n-Track that I needed to change and since then, not a single problem.

WATYF
 
I've had a lot of problems with XP (including an illegal operation on my first install attempt) but now useing msconfig to shut everything off for recording works wonders....

now for your problem...

1. you only have 10 gigs of free space left? well thats probably going to lead to really nasty defragmentation (audio should be on it's own disk drive) and low performance. data is saved from the outside- in on harddisks so the drive has to be going a billion miles perhour to keep up when the disk is full. Those performance ratings were done on an empty disk.

2. You probably have your graphics cranked for playing games... turn it down as far as possible and when tracking zoom all the way out so screen refeshing when the "now time" tracks over the edge of the screen interrupts the processer less often... tweakXP will solve most of your problems.

3. your sampleing rate may just be too high.
 
Thanks guys,

Zek....I have a second 80gig HD (storage) slaved to my 14.2gig C drive (programs). XP has never told me that it need defragging but I do it anyway.

I've only had XP about a month and no games have been played. I don't know what the default setting are for XP graphics but I'll be tweaking.

Sampleing rate? you mean 44,100?

WATYF....thanks for the links I'll check them out. I've already started tweaking away some of the "fluff" but I want to have all the info I can get.

Hey man XP is way more stable than ME which is what I was running at first. It would sometimes take me 15 min just to get my computer to shutdown. XP is smooth as silk.

Hey I'm using ntrack as well. What settings changes did you make to help smooth out your audio.

Much thanks...whenever I get down on this puter stuff HomeRecording comes through for me. Gotta Luv It!

Rusty K
 
Subtractor,

I've got the link on fav's but I'm gonna hold off to see if the tweaking helps first.

Thanks for all your good advice....and and any more you might have.

Rusty K
 
Yes subtractor,

My wav editor plays just fine....does this point to a software problem?

It's not really pops....it's more just blank spaces and skips and occasional out of sync.

Alex....thanks for the link, I'll check it out

Rusty K
 
When I needed that update, I couldn't get any audio without pops. So you may not need it, but it probably won't hurt anything either. I'd just use it as a last resort.
 
Update

Good day,

Well I got a good bass track recorded today. I wanted to see if any of the tweaks made a difference.....not much so far but I haven't gotten to the registry stuff yet.

I did go to my soundcard mixer and switched digital format from AES/EBU to S/P DIF.....didn't seem to make much difference. Could someone explain the difference between these two formats and how critical the choice is?

This is pointing more to software/OS compatibility and the need for some tweaking there.

Thanks,
Rusty K
 
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