PC and hardware recommendations for vegas and acid

Rahman wrote on 4/2/2002, 6:18 AM

hi vergas fam:

anyone out there have some recommendations on PC's (CPU and motherboad)
that perform well with an Echo 24/96 system and vegas?

currently, i'm using an abit 800MHz pentium III, but rendering
and glitching is occuring with 8 trks loaded with about 4 or 5 plugins
each. tried to record additional tracks but playback started to
choke with record enabled on the additonal traks. ( I know i could
pre-render some traks to save proc. loading, but would like to not
have to do that).

Here is the setup:

abit MB w/Intel P3 800MHz
640MB RAM (PC-100)
ATA-66 7200rpm HD
Radion 4x AGP
Echo 24/96 PCI card and breakout box
OS = Win 98SE

The system works well and is stable after "much debug", which was
after 2 years, found to be linked to a driver incompatability with
a second sound card. I have since removed it and ran over it with
my car!

So finally, is anyone using a P4 setup with the echo 24/96?
And, what about MB's that come with integrated sound? Can it
be turned off in BIOS without problems?

Appreciate any ideas and recommendations


thanks

Comments

jbrazier wrote on 4/4/2002, 3:36 PM
Rahman, had those very same problems with my old PIII 450. And it even had 768 mb of RAM. I just bought a P4 1.6 GHz w/ 512 mb RAM (audio: I have a delta1010 - great hardware), now I'm playing back 36 simultaneous tracks, lots of fx on the busses and tons of verb and delay on the individual tracks.

If you're using a MB w/ sound like mine has, you can merely disable (set your prof sound hardware as default if you wish...but note, you may not want windows' little noises leaking into your recordings) it within Windows and you'll have no problems. I just route everything to my delta and it's working fantastic. Everything takes some good hardware, fast speed, and a little patience. I'm thoroughly happy...
Spirit wrote on 4/4/2002, 9:40 PM
I bought the following set up spevcifically for audio. I use AcidPro 3 and have a PulsarII soundcard. I also use VV3 and it all works very smoothly with minimal tweaks....

Asus P4B266 mobo (model without the integrated sound)
P4 1.8 with 512K L2 cache (L2 cache size important for audio - you want 512K)
Seagate Barracuda ATA100 7200rpm 40Gb (for apps)
Seagate Barracuda ATA100 7200rpm 80Gb (for files)
512Mb DDR 266 SDRAM
XP Home

Basically any mobo based on the Intel 845 or 850 chipset is a good option for audio. Stay away from VIA chipsets or your life will be miserable.

Have a look here for more audio advice:
http://www.planetz.com/forums/viewtopic.php?topic=3968&forum=19&29

Also back up in the Planet Z forums and you will find more good audio advice.

good luck

Rahman wrote on 4/5/2002, 6:35 PM

Hey spirit and jbrazier:

Thanks for the input! but still, how about rendering times?
are they also greatly reduced by a fast P4? or are they about
the same as a P3 ? (i.e. rendering speed is independent of proc.
speed)?

thanks again
jbrazier wrote on 4/10/2002, 10:17 AM
Rendering speed is not independent of Processor speed, in fact it's combination of everything your system normally uses for playback (RAM, Proc, HD, etc.)

Just last night, I rendered 36 stereo tracks, full fx, about 3:15 worth of audio, and rendering took me about 1:10....

36 stereo tracks, that's 72 tracks all playing back simultaneously.... I still can't get over that!