I thought that I might still have Vegas 5 files, like dll's, left in my machine when I went back to Vegas 3. So, I completely formatted and reinstalled windows, still no luck. Updated windows as far as I could and still no joy. I think I am going to change to Samplitutde, but it feels very clunky compared to Vegas.

So,
given that you had Vegas 3 working and now it's stopped working and you've removed every trace of Vegas 5 why do you still think it's a Vegas problem.
I'm thinking something else has gone wrong, maybe you changed some hardware config when trying to get Vegas 5 to run or something just by chance died.
I mean no skin off my nose either way but so many times I've gone down a similar path, ditching one in favour of the other only to find that it wasn't right either and then being forced to find the real problem.
I used to run Premier 6.5 and it used to crash, not very often but still it did. I've never had Vegas have a dummy spit once but at the same time I know other things on the machine aren't 100% OK either so I'm not bagging either apps. Main reason I went to Vegas as a Video guy was for its audio capabilities.

Bob.

I sincerely doubt it's a Vegas problem. More like hardware. You've not commented on what MOBO, RAM, and other is in your computer. It's surely not Vegas causing the issue with the Delta's etc.
Our studio system consists of 3 Delta 1010, no problems at all. Add to that 2 UAD systems, and a Parhelia video card running 2 LCD's and a monitor wired both for Firewire and Parhelia playback, it's a very robust system. Not to mention the number of harddrives that list to the letter W.
Howzabout listing the mobo configuration.

Perhaps you should look into a PC benchmarking utitlity and run some system tests and see if that causes any issues.

To me it rather sounds like a problem with WinXP SP2. I have Vegas Versions 3,4 and 5 all working on my computer, no problems - just OS is old W2k SP4.

Win2kSP4...that's interesting...I never had trouble there either...hmmm.

I was going to say. SP2 hasn't been out very long. Did this happen before SP2 was installed or after? And Vegas 5 requires the .NET libraries to be installed. Were they installed when you installed Vegas 5 or long before?

JBJones

2Ksp2

not

XP sp2

Sorry,
Cosmo pointed you in the wrong direction of where to find me, I'm no video guy and only usually visit the video forum when I have video questions and ask the video experts.

but for audio......
It definately sounds like you have a system problem. Even with Vegas 3.0 you're track count does not sound like it's up to par. In comparison on my 700Mhz machine with 1gig of ram and a 10K RPM SCSI drive, I can push 70 plus track without hiccups...that's with no FX's but that's the reason for the 1 gig of RAM.

I'm interested in hearing more about your hard drives. What RPM are they? You should have at minimun for your record drive a 7200 RPM EIDE 66....that's minimum. What it really sounds like for your problems is that you don't have DMA enabled on those hard drives. I've run Vegas in the past without DMA enabled and have experienced very simular results as you. Enabling the DMA on your hard drives will usually double the performance of Vegas. So check that first.

The next thing to look into is your video card. I know this seems weird, since you're using Vegas primarily for audio, but Vegas has been known to have performance issues with troublesome video cards. You mentioned that you checked for IRQ conflicts, but a conflict might be hidden from you through Windows dynamic IRQ assignments. So just to be sure, you might want to check your Motherboards owners manual and see if the Video card slot is sharing (ie a "shared slot" with a PCI slot. If it is, then remove that hardware in the PCI slot to another slot, so the video card is not "sharing" anything. Next go to your video cards manufacturers webpage and check for video card driver updates, you might be successful in using "Windows Update" in doing the same thing, but just to be sure, go directly to the Video card manufacturers site. If none of these problems fix your system, I would look into trying a different video card and see what happens. If I were a betting man, right now I'ld say one of your Delta 10/10 PCI cards are sharing with your video card slot.

To me it seems your problem goes back prior to Vegas 3. For your system you should get well over 30 simultaneous tracks of playback. Your RAM is on the low side, especially if you're running lots of plugins. A general rule is the more plugins you use, the more RAM your system will need. You might want to try removing plugins on a problem project, and see if that tends to fix things. Some plugins require a lot of resources, especially if they're a bit buggy, so you might have to do some plugin problem shooting and try to narrow it down to a single plugin.

What video card are you using BTW?

Another possibility like others have mentioned is the SP2 update for Windows XP. The SP2 update "shouldn't" cause any problems for Vegas....but it really hasn't been tested out. If all else fails, I would reinstall the OS and go back to SP1.

Let us know what you find,
Red

This is my opinion only. Vegas 5 puts a huge strain on ram and the first indication is the sound and sound tracks going bananas. This happens as you approach your ram limits. It also may or may not be SP2. Bump you ram up to 2 gig and see what happens. If there is an improvement in operation then consider upgrading the full shot. You nay have sprung a leak in the ram chips. I believe the ram memory compatability problems with motherboards are Vegas's biggest problems. Remember this is only my opinion and I am usually wrong.

JJK

Thanks everyone for the response to my problem.

Unfortunately the machine in question is not the one I am writing this post with, I have a dedicated audio PC at the recording studio and I email and stuff on this home PC so I am going to go in today and find all of the requested information, I really should know it but I want to go get the proper documentation so I give you the right info. As far as I know, I have an ASUS motherboard, an INTEL P4 2.8Ghz CPU, 512 MB RAM (am buying more today, but thought this would help plugin count, not help glitches in recording). I have a NVIDIA Geforce 2 videocard (I also have a GeForce 3 in my home PC, maybe swap them?). I have three harddrives, all Seagate Barracude 7200 RPM IDE drives (i went to the place I buy my computer hardware from, and 7200 is the fastest ide drive they sell - don't they go to 10,000RPM?). Drive one is 80 gig, partitioned into 2 40 gig chunks, with WIN XP on the first partition (system drive) and the second partition just misc. storage. 2nd drive is 160 gig, partioned into 40 gig chunks. Dedicated Audio drives. 3rd drive is just there for backups. I am sure DMA is enabled for all these drives, I will confirm today when I go in the studio to get all the other info.

The problems I encounter were there before an installation of any service pack. I tried service pack 1, no improvement, and then tried service pack 2, still no improvement. If I go back to service pack one, is this a re-install of the OS? Groan...if this is the case I would be more inclined to try installing Win 2k with service pack 4, after some suggestions it is more robust for vegas.

Vegas 5 requires .NET to be installed, and it was not when i tried to upgrade, so I freshly downloaded .net from microsoft. A few other people have suggested their system went haywire with .net installed, especially laptop users.

SPOT - do you sync your 3 Delta's with SDPIF or do you just use the software sync?

What benchmark util do you recommend I try? I have used SANDRA before, what would I be looking for after the scan?

REDNROLL - thanks for your informative response. WOW that trackcount is impressive, with a 700Mhz CPU! I think your SCSI drive has a lot to do with that. My computer shop says I've been buying the fastest ide drive they sell - SEAGATE Barracuda 7200.7 160GIG drives. I am sure DMA is enabled, will triple check today.

I have been given the tip of checking that the Delta's are not sharing anything IRQ wise with the video card by MAUDIO, and I duly followed their detailed instructions on how to check this and found that there was a conflct between a delta IRQ and my video card. It was not apparent at first look because of the way Windows assigns IRQs in XP, but I found the conflict, and changed around PCI slots and disabled thinks like my network adapter to free up resources. After a day of changing and switching, I got no conflicts, checked in BIOS and in msinfo.

All these issues of glitching, skipping and so forth happen without plugins running, so ram shouldn't be a factor to be considered here but I will buy more today to cancel out lack of memory.

Please check back soon for my next post with the exact tech specs of my machine, I am going to the studio now to gather it all. Have to work a few hours too, going to give Samplitude another go but it's just so hard to deal with, my brain works in Vegas mode.

I ran SANDRA on my studio PC to determine exactly what all my details are.

Processor
Model: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz
Speed: 2.40GHz
Performance Rating: PR2640 (estimated)
Type: Standard
l2 On-board Cache: 512kB ECC Synchronous ATC (8-way sectored, 64 byte line size)

Mainboard
Bus(es): AGP PCI IMB USB
MP Support: No
MP APIC: yes
System BIOS: Award Software, Inc. ASUS P4S8X-X ACPI Bios Revision 1004
Mainboard: ASUSTek Computer INC. P4S8X-X
Total Memory: 512MB DDR-SDRAM

Chipset 1
Model: ASUSTeK Computer Inc SiS648 CPU to PCI Bridge
Front Side Bus Speed: 4x 188MHz (532MHz data rate)
Total Memory: 512MB DDR-SDRAM
Memory Bus Speed: 2x 166MHz (332MHz data rate)

Video System
Monitor/Panel: Dell M770
Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce2 Mx/MX 400 (Microsoft Corporation)

IRQ LIST FROM SANDRA
0: System Timer
1: Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 keyboard
6: Standrad Floppy disk controller
8: System CMOS/real time clock
12: Motherboard resources
13: Numeric data processor
14: Primary IDE Channel
15: Secondary IDE Channel
16: NVIDIA Geforce2 MX/MX 400
17: M-Audio Delta 1010LT
18: M-Audio Delta 1010LT
20: Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System
20: Sis 7001 PCI to USB Open Host Controller
21: Sis 7001 PCI to USB Open Host Controller
23: Sis 7001USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller

Is this enough information on my setup?

After tonights vocal tracking session, Vegas seems to not be putting in any more clicks or pops, but it stammers a lot on playback, I'm only reaching about a 30 track count without any plug ins running yet. Edit points are still the worst areas.

Thanks again for any tips.

I'm glad to see you've made some progress, probably due to that hardware conflict.

Be sure to check that DMA setting on those hard drives. It does not turn on by default. On that same 700Mhz system I have a Seagate Barricuda 7200 EIDE66 drive, that my OS and program installs reside on. I tested this drive out for playback capabilities and ran 62 simultaneous tracks before stuttering occured. I'm sure your drives are a newer EIDE100+, so you should get even better performance.

I'm not totally familiar with your mother board, but some motherboards come with an EIDE adapter(grey connector) and a standare IDE (black connector). Make sure your hard drives are connected to that EIDE adapter(primary adapter), and your CD/DVD rom drives are on the seperate IDE adapter(secondary adapter). If you connect a CDrom drive onto the same EIDE adapter that a hard drive is connected too, it will slow the transfer speeds down to the slowest device on that connection (ie the CDrom drive).

Did you go to Nvidia's website and download the latest driver and install it for the video card yet? Do that next.

One thing I noticed on your IRQ settings is that the IRQ's for the Delta's and the Video card are very high in IRQ numbering. The lower the number of the IRQ, the higher priority that IRQ gets. I would reassign the IRQ's for those devices and put them a lower IRQ number. Usually IRQ's 7 and 9 are good for sound cards, I would try putting your video card on IRQ 5. Right now it looks like you have IRQ's 3,4,5,7,9,10,and 11 free. Move those sound cards and video card into IRQ's below 15 and you will be better off.

Red

Red,

thanks for your reply, I too think the pops and ticks are gone because of that conflict I resolved, but it is still very buggy, it is skipping on projects with less than 20 tracks without any plugs.

DMA settings - can I just ask the method of checking if DMA is enabled? I am sure they are but how would I check this?

Didn't know that having my DVD Burner and my system drive on the same cable woulkd slow my system drive down. Could I have my backup drive (not used in realtime for tracking) on the same cable as DVD Burner and have my system drive and my dedicated audio drive on the other cable?

I am sure I have the latest NVIDIA drivers but will update again.

I have been told that having your IRQ's set at lower values is more stable - how do I change them? The only way I know is to physically change PCI slots and hope windows assigns them to the IRQ you are trying to change to. Or do I have to change to "Standard PC" mode to manually do this? Isn't this a re-install of windows?

Thanks again for your help, no-one else seems to have any answers.
Adam B

Hvae you upgraded your bios? I didn't even realize Asus was using SiS chipsets, which is pretty scary. Not as bad as the older KT133/233, but still problematic.

Yes, Flash updated the BIOS last week.

For DMA WinXP:
I'm using WinXP in Windows Classic mode, so this may vary if you're using some other XP theme.
1. Goto Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manger
2. Click on and Expand IDE ATA/Atapi Controlers
3. Right Click on Primary IDE Channel>Properties
4. Select Advanced Settings Tab
5. Under Transfer mode select "DMA if available" for ID0 and ID1
6. Do the same for "Secondary IDE channel".

As far as the IDE sharing, yes. Put the OS and Audio record drive on the same cable. Make sure the OS drive is set to "master" and the audio record drive set to "slave". (check the pin jumpers to properly configure the drives for master/slave configuration).

On the second IDE channel cable put your backup storage drive and the DVD drive on that cable. Set your backup drive to "master" and the DVD drive to "slave".

IRQ assignments:
First try to configure them in the Bios and see what Windows does on the OS side after it boots up. I would do this as the last step after you've completed the above steps and see how your performance has improved....you may be alright at this point. If not then you will most likely have to goto Standard PC mode. You can go from ACPI mode to Standard PC from within Windows, but it is not recommended....especially for a DAW, it will mess things up. It is best to goto Standard PC mode when first installing the OS. Some users have had great sucess with ACPI mode for their DAW, I myself have found better results in Standard PC mode with my Mother Board. It will depend on your motherboards chipset, therefore results may vary. In standard PC mode you will be back down to the standard 15 IRQ's, but it looks like you don't have excessive hardware installed so this should be sufficient for your current DAW setup.

I know it's a pain in the ass having to reinstall your OS and go through all the hardware setup, but just think how much more knowledgable you'll have about setting up a PC for optimal DAW performance when you're done. How do you think I got to learn all this IRQ and DMA stuff to get 70 tracks on a 700 Mhz AMD Athlon PC? I did a lot of reading before I started to build my own DAW and then I did a lot of OS installs, and reinstalls....and reinstalls....etc.

Also be sure your CD Rom or DVD burner isn't on the same IDE bus as any hard drive being used for audio or video. Slowest device on the chain determines speed.

"Thanks again for your help, no-one else seems to have any answers."

Well, I've dealt with some of the users that are posting in your Vegas Audio forum post for the same problem, and trust me, no answers from some of them is probably a good thing. For one they won't have any answers, and two if they do have answers they are usually wrong.

haha! nice red. this is one kick *ss thread you guys have goin here. I just happen to have just reformatted the other day now I'm tweaking far past the normal tweaks. gracias guys.

The sad thing is none of this excellent advice is limited to just setting up a DAW. There's no reason not to get EVERY PC in your stable running to the best of it's ability.

Bob.