Pro tools latency

[obsuleet]

I have pro tools 7.4 le. I have 2 gig of ram(1.7 in vista) and for some reason the latency sucks horribly when i'm recording vst's and i have to keep adjusting the hardware buffer up and down to get a decent low level of latency. What should the playback engine be set to? I really don't get what the playback buffer and cache size are. Should the"ignore errors during playback/record" box be checked. I know i need to get a external hard drive for pro tools but will that effect the latency?

[albee1952]

Latency is generally due to 3 things. 1-conversion from A/D and D/A, 2-your buffer setting and 3-plugins (if you are using any while recording, and different plugins have different amounts of latency from 0 to over 8000 samples). The lower the buffer setting, the lower the latency(this is all much the same with any host based DAW system, not just Protools). You didn't mention what interface you are using. With Mbox, you need to learn how to use the mix knob and mute the track you are recording to so you hear the direct sound with no latency. Or use the lowest buffer setting(64 or 128) that is available. With the Mbox2 Pro and the 002/003 units, there is an option called Low Latency Mode which makes latency a non-issue no matter what buffer setting you use, but does not allow for active plugins on the record-enabled track(s). If your computer keeps stopping and telling you to increse or decrease the buffer, this usually indicates some system tweak is not correct(one common problem is that hard drives are operating in PIO mode instead of the required DMA mode) so review the getting started guide to make sure you have all the tweaks. Also you should disable any services and devices you don't need when running PT. If you use that computer for everyday stuff, you might consider a dual-boot setup. You don't NEED to have an external hard drive but you DO NEED to record to a seperate 7200 rpm drive so for a desktop computer, adding another internal drive is pretty cheap. I do have a firewire drive but my computer has 5 internal drives as well. Don't know if any of this helps but it may steer you in a new direction.

[obsuleet]

I've been doing every thing to optomize pro tools but i'm stuck on something on Adjusting Processor Scheduling

To Adjust Processor Scheduling Performance:
1 Choose Start > Control Panel.
2 In Classic View, double-click System.
3 Click the Advanced tab.
4 Under the Performance section, click the Settings button.
5 In the Performance Options window, click the Advanced
tab.
6 Under the Processor scheduling section, select the
Background Services option.
8 Click OK to close the Performance Options window.
9 Click OK to close the System Properties window.
10 Restart the computer for the changes to take effect

There's a button that says background services but i don't see memory usage anywhere!