BJC - what happens if you 'lose' the overclocking and the RAID ?

Also a 'stack of DAL cards' sounds like a potential mess. How does the setup go with just one installed ?

geoff

Hi Geoff,
By 'lose the overclocking and the RAID' I'll assume that you mean, 'what do you get from them'.

The overclocking was provided by the person who put together the system -who was a PC guru - as a way to get a little more performance out of the system. He's big into overclocking and found the CPU still stable with a bit of overclocking. I know it's a potential instability, but since I'm stable I've decided to live with it and I like the added boost. Of course I could get a motherboard and CPU that's much faster than this setup without overclocking with currently available parts. (This system is 2 years old). If I turned it off, I'd just lose a bit of CPU performance.

The D drive is RAIDed for speed and it really makes the system scream. I attribute a big part of my performance from this. C drive has OS and all system files, D drives has all audio files. Wicked fast. If I lost this, I feel I'd suffer a big performance loss.

I have worked with both single card and multi-card setups using the Card Deluxe. The single card installation is great. The Card Deluxe has amazing converters built into it. The drivers on the card are OK but on the odd occasion will hang (i.e sound card will hang, not the audio app or OS). There is a secret key sequence in the Card Deluxe driver window that let's you reboot the driver without rebooting the machine. It takes about 5 seconds from the task bar.

I appreciate the replies...but this is kind of turing into an inadvertant post hijacking really.
Please talk about your system stuff in another post - I want to keep on the topic with this. K?

The point - which is becoming quite inarguable in my findings - is that V3c is still the more stable and streamlined version over V4e. I'm not going to V5 ANYTHING until I could see V4e up to the same standards as V3c. It hasn't happened (and now we're at v5).
I'm worried SONY can't continue the well known past history of SoFo of improving application stability to the point of near perfection (nothing is perfect). One reason sofo apps stood out in my opinion. For example, V3c, on SoFo's watch became one HELL of a stable and powerful version by "c" rollaround. It STILL IS the better app in terms of all this. Is that going to continue with SONY?...and V4? v5? I'm not seeing it. I remember reading release notes in the sofo day of improvments on application streamlining ALONGSIDE added features. Is this continuing?...or are we just settling on added features without further review of application and better coding for an efficient daw application?

It's nothing against any of you repliers here,and I understand the immediate response - but It's not about the systems. It's not about the drivers, anything like that.
I've been building daws for way too long now, so let's not go there. I havn't the time or energy to type in the how's and why's here.
Basically, the comparisons of each application version are blatent between several strong DAW systems, all telling the same story - V3C still is the more stable and streamlined app. I'm hoping this will change (with v4 or 5) soon (or has changed in the new V5 version).
As I said, the majority of my A\V projects are quite extensive and large in scope (pretty taxing and requiring power systems). So far V3c is the only one I can trust now. Get to work, no odd UI issues, no crashing, no dicrepencies between same projects in terms of amount of plugins, no odd issues cropping up. Just get to work and get it done with minimal hassle.
That is more important to me in the end.

What I want to know is:
- between those who have long term experience in all versions - IS V5 NOW up to V3c standards as per above?
and more q's now....
- what is this ms.net service that needs installing with V5? Why is is necessary? What function does it provide? Does it further bloat resources?
- Do we have the choice to use MME drivers as well as asio in V5?

Lastly, no I'm not going AMD anything for a DAW. I build AMD systems for internet boxes, office-dumb systems, and gamers...but I prefer Intel\ntel with PC Daw systems. Just my preference now after years of maintaining and building DAWs around here. Especially if I'm OC-ing a system - then I definitely stay intel.
** this is no slam on AMD, I could care less about AMDvsIntel stuff so look elsewhere or start an new post if you want it to go there. If you choose to use it for a daw and you're happy - cool, cool...that's great.

JoeD to sum it up more features impose a performance hit. I realized a slight performance hit moving to V4 but it was worth it in my estimation, it knocked me down about 3 tracks, I had to increase my Delta buffer size for MME but the ASIO support was huge, no more crackling in full duplex mode.

I can't remember the added features now but I do know I wouldn't go back to 3. You are basically answering your own question when you say "more stable and streamlined app.", if you want to play you gotta pay.

I have no crash issues with V4 at all unless I get crazy with VST wrappers.

The only gripe I have with versions beyond 3 is the inability to use Acoustic Mirror realtime in ASIO, no MIDI so I have to continue using Sonar and V4 doesn't support WDM. Does V5?.

BTW both PCs are Athlons.

MJ

bgc

By "lose" I mean if you remove the overclocking and the RAID, does that fix your problems. Both are potential sources of complications.

What use is a 'performance boost' if your applications don't all work ? Some applications (and newer versions) may use parts of the CPU previously untapped, and that fail with overclocking.

So I suggest you lose at least the overcloacking to see if that makes a difference. Also, is your RAID software, hardware, what ?

geoff

Veguser,

These problems seem pretty unique to your computer. Is it vaguely possible that there may be something not right there ? For me and many other V4 was completely stable, as is V5.

Not many of us are still using the same PC or OS as we were with V3, so direct comparisons are pointless. What is the point is that many (most) of us find the current versions of V4 and V5 completely stable.

"What I want to know is:
- between those who have long term experience in all versions - IS V5 NOW up to V3c standards as per above?"

IMO yes, not to mention the hugely expanded functionality.

"and more q's now....
- what is this ms.net service that needs installing with V5? Why is is necessary? What function does it provide? Does it further bloat resources?"

To comply with current Win standards, I'm pretty sure most new applications *require* .NET . Bloat resources, probably, when whatever is does is active. Are you short of resources ?

The only way for you to be convinced must be to DOWNLOAD THE DEMO and try it. If it doesn't work for you, that reinforces the possibilty that you do have a system problem. If the added functionality doesn't give you a stiffy, then stick with V3 .

- Do we have the choice to use MME drivers as well as asio in V5?

Yes.

geoff

I have to disagree with a lot of the rosiness. V3 you never EVER worried about whether your recording was gonna gap( at least right after the first fixes).

V4/5 and Sound forge 6/7 act in a completely different manner than the earlier apps. there is just somethiung totally different in the feel of them. There is a stickiness that happens in a lot of functions, such as adding new fx in the inserts, and it just feels wrong. The gapping and glitching issues, in the early versions of V4 and V5 when using "open copy in sound forge" for instance.

There must be something special going on, where some computers see these problems and others dont. But then the trouble becomes that I cant have a system reccomended to me, with the features I need, that is guaranteed to work. There are just too many variables...And I can never seem to make a good repro file for Sony to test, as my problems for the most part are intermittent, and the ones that arent, dont show up on their PC's

Frustrating.

Still, with V5 you get:

Control Surfaces
Buss to buss routing
A LOT of customizability
and the inklings of the beginnings of a truly professional routing and monitoring system