Most stable PT version for HD2 on 8 core XP?

[tonygoodall]

After more than 10 years running protools mixplus and HD2 smoothly on non-recommended PCs, I finally bought a recommended Dell T7400 and put 2 quad core 3.2GHz Xeons in it, with 4GB and XP. It's a nightmare, as soon as I get near 1.5GB memory use for PT (with PT8 cs3), it crashes to BIOS reboot. I have tested all the memory - this PC has no problems I can detect.

I can't find anyway to stop it caching plugins after unloading them, so I have to close it all down after deactivating some tracks just to recover the memory

Trying to get value out of these 8 cores seems impossible, since I cannot get past 50% CPU before memory blows it up, unless I set up 300 Dverbs or dozens of Elevens. Also it sometimes says it has RTAS errors when it's loading the CPUs less than 10% - this a machine with 8 cores and a 1600MHz bus. It's not much more stable than when I tried it with windows 7.

I fancied trying an 8 core Mac, but it is way too pricey since I'd need to move to PCI-e cards.

I'm using NI Komplete, Kore 2, arturia, IK stuff, Korg, BFD, KitCore, velvet, etc + loads of digi plugins. Kore & kontakt hog the most memory.
Rarely can I get more than 5 RTAS instruments active at the same time

should I go back to PT7.x ??? or is 8.0.1 worth trying?
Or should I just grit my teeth until 64bit arrives??

Anyone know if the Track "freeze" facility is coming?


Cheers
Tony

[MEAT]

Go back to 7.4.PT8 is most likely your problem.