vsti's taxing my cpu

[dahkter]

Hey y'all,
I"m running a Pentium 4, 2.2ghz, 1gig of ram.
When I load up three vsti's, it basically locks up, the CPU is maxed out.

For those of you with newer PC (AMD or Intel Dual Core), are you able to run multiple vsti's (I'm talking cpu intensive ones, like NI Massive, FM8, Addictive Drums, etc)...

I'm thinking of upgrading and curious what sort of performance people are getting out of their computers (or any workarounds).

 

[KurtisRich]

mine's a 2.33 Ghz Dual Core 2 with 2gb ram..... i run a shitload of vst's fine.... try upgrading your ram to 2 gb. it helps

 

[Sacred One]

yea, i got a 3.0 dual core with 2 gig of ram, works fine, try freezing some of your tracks

 

[dahkter]

mine's a 2.33 Ghz Dual Core 2 with 2gb ram..... i run a shitload of vst's fine.... try upgrading your ram to 2 gb. it helps

Believe it or not, the max mine can hold is 1gb, it's a Dell 2400, it's about four or five years old...methinks I need to upgrade...

 

[Sacred One]

yea, upgrade to a bigger comp, that can take on a big load, stock up on ram and you should be kool

 

[woodoothevoodoo]

Yeah Ram helps alot with certain tasks...big romplers ect, but dude I have a Dell 1600 1.6ghz 512RAM , and even I can run more than a handfull of vst's!!??? I recently upgraded to 2GigRAM and it helped alot but still your processor is quick and you have enough RAM to do more.....remember that youll have to do alot of tweaks to any computer before its gonna be good for audio. PC's are setup to give most power to the graphics processing by default , you gotta change this and your hidden processess, and your page file, and services, and visual display......it goes on and on!! Have a look for XP tweaks for audio on the net, you may be suprised how much you can improve your setup.

 

[Gran-Dad]

Upgrade

Upgrading to a dual-core with more ram would solve that problem.

 

[Scholar]

actually vsti's run more off ram then cpu, it sounds like you have some services running behind the scenes,does your music PC get on the net? if so run a anti virus prog and make some tweeks http://www.musicxp.net/ hope this helps ya.

ONE!!!

 

[konceptG]

actually vsti's run more off ram then cpu, it sounds like you have some services running behind the scenes,does your music PC get on the net? if so run a anti virus prog and make some tweeks http://www.musicxp.net/ hope this helps ya.

ONE!!!

VSTi's run off CPU, unless they're samplers then they runn off both. Synth plugins like FM8 or Absynth are very floating point intensive which has everything to do with the FPU in your processor and nothing to do with RAM.

 

[Scholar]

VSTi's run off CPU, unless they're samplers then they runn off both. Synth plugins like FM8 or Absynth are very floating point intensive which has everything to do with the FPU in your processor and nothing to do with RAM.

well there you have it, yeah Samplers are what i was thinking of. in any event you can get a pretty nice upgrade for $300.00 over at www.tigerdirect.com or www.newegg.com I'm also using a P4 2.4ghz and its time to upgrade!

 

[LDB]

Hey y'all,
I"m running a Pentium 4, 2.2ghz, 1gig of ram.
When I load up three vsti's, it basically locks up, the CPU is maxed out.

For those of you with newer PC (AMD or Intel Dual Core), are you able to run multiple vsti's (I'm talking cpu intensive ones, like NI Massive, FM8, Addictive Drums, etc)...

I'm thinking of upgrading and curious what sort of performance people are getting out of their computers (or any workarounds).

U definitely need a dual core processor and to max your ram out.

 

[konceptG]

So... Last night, right after submitting my response, I fired up Cubase and made a little electro-ish track using nothing but synth-type VSTi's (no samplers at all).


AMD Athlon XP2000+
MSI K7 Master-S motherboard (Onboard U160 SCSI)
1GB Kingston RAM
M-Audio Audiophile 192


I ran Cubase SX3 with 1 instance of Waldorf Attack (running 6 independent channels), 2 NI FM8 instances, and 3 Novation V-Station instances. I was barely over 50% CPU and I was still running smoothly at 6ms latency with no pops or clicks. Then I added a couple of fx, Waves True Verb, Waldorf D-Pole, and a couple of delays. Still no issues.

I did, however, manage to bring it all crashing down rather harshly.

The one VST that I have that's been a sore spot for me is NI's Massive. My laptop can handle it without a problem (Dell Inspiron 630m w/2GHz Pentium D). I even have a number of drum and bass tracks that use it without a hiccup (http://www.soundclick.com/projectganymede - track called "Horizon" uses it). However, I can't mix any of those tracks on my desktop because I need a faster processor to do it.

So... right after I created something that I had really considered keeping and expanding on (and hopefully have released), I opened up Massive to add one sound from it to the composition.

It locked my machine up HARD after I started to record. I lost the whole track.



Moral of the Story: For sample based music, even if you use a couple of virtual synths in the form of Lounge Lizard, B3, or Korg M1/Wavestation, what you have is more than adequate. You just need more RAM to handle the sample loads. If, however, you're more into electronic music or want to use VST's that can tax the hell out of your processor, you need to upgrade the CPU (not necessarily the whole machine). These days, a fast P4 processor that will work on your PC shouldn't be more than $50. What you will need tho do, though, is take a look at Dell's website to find out the fastest processor your PC will handle and buy it. If you're lucky, you can drop in a 3GHz P4 and that should be fine for a good while.


now... after writing the above paragraph, I rolled over to Dell's site.

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim2400/en/sm_en/specs.htm

Your PC is capable of running a 3.06GHz P4. Find one on ebay or locally and buy it along with more RAM.