General suggestion for PC, windows, MBox2Pro users

[whitesail]

Hello, since I’m MBox 2 Pro owner and Mac is pretty expensive for me the following will concern PC and windows configuration.

Since I consider PC-configuration to be much lottery whether PT will run or no have tested several configurations and found out that 965 chipset and Core2Duo is the most stable solution in the middle price class. Had no opportunity to measure the exact processor time but may be will later.

I’m not an expert but I suppose that if you experience troubles (get 9092 and other related HD errors) trying to play or record track there is no need in spending/wasting time on tuning your system. Simply your PC hardware is most likely not compatible with ProTools. Another words if PT works, it works without system tune. If it doesn’t, tuning won’t help.

Tuning is really necessary to get maximum speed and stability in work. The majority of advices given by digidesign tech. shows viewable performance improvement.

Greg.

[spkguitar]

There's a HUGE difference between "tuning" your system and having/using compatible and recommended and necessary parts.

It is very important when starting to use Pro Tools that you have what you need to run it. I looked at your other post from 2 days ago and you didn't really post enough information to say one way or the other whether your system is compatible or not, but one thing that stood out immediately is that you only listed one single physical hard drive in your system. While running Pro Tools sessions on the session drive may work at times, Digidesign strongly recommends using a separate physical hard drive for Pro Tools sessions. A partition of the system drive wouldn't be the same. That single fact right there could be, and most likely is, what is causing your errors.

A large percentage of users with -9xxx errors aren't using the proper hard drives as recommended.

After that no one here would be able to give any other advice without you posting the details of your system. Instructions for doing so, as well as a ton of other suggestions, are in the General Troubleshooting thread.

[whitesail]

Actually this post doesn't concern my recent problem.

Can give you vivid example that tuning ( msconfig setup, 2 hard drives, raid option, and many other stuff mentioned in troubleshooting ) is far from being necessary to run protools.

Came to my friend , used his machine to test whether PT will run. He had 3 drives, ( by the way I also had 2 - simply didn’t mention that ) two identical and one differing, with raid on, millions of network programs running - downloaders, skype, icq, emule, mu-torrent... Nod32 was running too.

I've installed PT and run it without any problems!!! On a totally rubbish OS full of trojans and other mess. PT ran as if is was paintbrush! I dont believe in any tuning advise for starting PT after that!

I will listout my configuration in a corresponding post.

Greg.

[spkguitar]

If you take the attitude that the recommendations, requirements and configurations are crap, you are going to be one frustrated and dis-satisfied Pro Tools user.

[spkguitar]

Can give you vivid example that tuning ( msconfig setup, 2 hard drives, raid option, and many other stuff mentioned in troubleshooting )

Yes, I can.

On both of my Pro Tools systems, if I run sessions from the system drive, I get continuous buffer errors. If I run the same session from a separate physical drive (internal or firewire, following the recommendations) I get no errors.

If I run the same exact session on a RAID enabled drive on my studio system, consistent errors.

If I run the same exact session on my laptop system while the wireless network card is enabled, I get consistent errors.

The list can go on and on...

Digidesign had similar results while testing and it is why they make the recommendations that they do. They don't make the recommendations for just no reason, y'know.

[whitesail]

Firstly, everyone has his own point of view, and your expirience is as important as mine. I only share my experience with others, nothing else.

I didnt say advises given by tech support is crap - where did you find that???

The only thing I wanted to mention is that I find 965 and core2duo to be the most stable decision.
Aslo MY EXPERIENCE shows that tuning is much time waste - if your configuration is OK PT runs, if not , it will not. YOUR EXPERIENCE shows that it isn't so - you gave you examples - thanks, I ll try to start the project on a separate drive. ( Buy the way cant set the letter R in the workspace - I m returned a message: Q can not be.... because it is not a valid audio volume - any suggestions?)

======

Physical Storage Devices
Hitachi HDT725050VLA360 (ATA) : 466GB (C:) (E:) (G:) (Z:)
Hitachi HDT725025VLA380 (ATA) : 233GB
_NEC DVD_RW ND-3551A (SCSI) : N/A (D:)

Logical Storage Devices
Hard Disk (C:) : 20GB (13GB, 66% Free Space) (NTFS) @ Hitachi HDT725050VLA360 (ATA)
PTmedia (G:) : 98GB (97GB, 100% Free Space) (NTFS) @ Hitachi HDT725050VLA360 (ATA)
Íîâûé òîì (E:) : 251GB (251GB, 100% Free Space) (NTFS) @ Hitachi HDT725050VLA360 (ATA)
Distr (Z:) : 98GB (97GB, 100% Free Space) (NTFS) @ Hitachi HDT725050VLA360 (ATA)
CD-ROM/DVD (D:) : N/A @ _NEC DVD_RW ND-3551A (SCSI)
Íîâûé òîì (Q:) : 233GB (233GB, 100% Free Space) (NTFS)

========

Greg.

[Earl D]

As pc performance evolves the tuning recommendations become more optional and relate to achieving max track counts in recording and mixing vs a more trivial test. JMO

Earl

[spkguitar]

Buy the way cant set the letter R in the workspace - I m returned a message: Q can not be.... because it is not a valid audio volume - any suggestions?

That usually means that the drive was initialized as a dynamic volume. Pro Tools does not support dynamic volumes; only Basic. If the drive was initialized as a dynamic volume, you will have to backup all of the data from it, re-initialize as a Basic volume, and then restore the backed up data.

As I said originally, there is a HUGE difference between tuning your system, and running it as recommended, with required parts and configurations. Running sessions on a Basic volume is not a tuning issue, it is a basic configuration issue.

If the basic requirements, recommendations, and configurations are followed, tuning is not usually necessary.

Also, from the post of your hard drive configuration, you have your system drive partitioned into 4 parts, and one of them is labeled "PT Media". I'm assuming you are using that drive for Pro Tools sessions? Digidesign recommends against using the same physical drive for sessions and anything else. If you are running sessions on a partition of the system drive, you will eventually have problems, mostly H/W Buffer problems.

It's hard to tell what the partition and separate drive with the Russian labels is supposed to be...
new? something?

So you see, the "if it works it will work, if it doesn't it won't" train of thought is just plain wrong, and is what I was originally trying to point out.

[whitesail]

Well, I will partly admit your right when the program starts. Not till that time.

No you didn't get it right, PT Media WAS used as a partition for PT sessions, not now, when I still get the same errors, having made the separate drive Q as a basic one.

( reformated , reinstalled PT , deleted folders ment to be delited )

To make it clear: The OS and protools located on C, Q is used for PT sessions ( without success though)

Logical Storage Devices

FIRST ONE:
Hard Disk (C:) : 20GB (13GB, 66% Free Space) (NTFS) @ Hitachi HDT725050VLA360 (ATA)
PTmedia (G:) : 98GB (97GB, 100% Free Space) (NTFS) @ Hitachi HDT725050VLA360 (ATA)
New Volume (E:) : 251GB (251GB, 100% Free Space) (NTFS) @ Hitachi HDT725050VLA360 (ATA)
Distr (Z:) : 98GB (97GB, 100% Free Space) (NTFS) @ Hitachi HDT725050VLA360 (ATA)
SECOND ONE:
New Volume (Q:) : 233GB (233GB, 100% Free Space) (NTFS)

[spkguitar]

When you made the new "Q" drive, did you copy the sessions to it? Or did you move them?

In other words, are the sessions still intact on the PTMedia drive? If they are, are you sure that the sessions on the "Q" drive are actually accessing the audio files on the "Q" drive, and not still accessing the audio files from the PTMedia drive?