Pentium 4 users speak up!

[Bob-sw]

I have a P4 system, and i can't say it's running perfectly, although it runs very well.

1.8 P4
100gigs Hard drive (7200 rpm)
Motherboard? Dell 8200 summer 2001
512megs RDRAM
32mb GForce Video card
Santa Cruz Turtle Beach card

I'm not sure about anything else. I've recorded 7 songs w/ my band and it's been smooth sailing for the most part minus dumb mistakes on my part and DAE memory problems. can anyone tell me what's with that? i have 512 megs of ram, it should run perfect. right?
anyway, i get that message and the Defrag message a lot, but it's only ever those two, so i must be doing well. What runs so much better on the Athalon? they say it's so great, but what's so wonderful about the way the Athalon runs as opposed to the P4? what's that 70-100% gap that i paid an extra $1,000 to be mad about? i'm sure they get as many messages that we do.
mac users get them, pc users get them. and maybe it works faster, but that just means they get that DAE memory message a split second before it shows up on my screen, right? well, anyway, i haven't had a "problem-free" day w/ my PTLE system yet, but i look forward to that day. it would be very joyous day indeed. i'm not in any way saying athalon sucks, i just don't know WHY it's so much better, i'm curious. enlighten me...

[JMS40]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by Bob-sw:
DAE memory problems. can anyone tell me what's with that? i have 512 megs of ram, it should run perfect. right?
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This was posted today in another topic.
http://answerbase.digidesign.com/detail.cf m?DID=5098

quote:
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On Windows ME, upon launch of Pro Tools user gets error message: "DAE is low on memory".
-On WinME systems, the "DAE is low on memory" message is posted if Pro Tools LE 5.1 is installed before Pro Tools FREE has been completely removed from the system.

-In some instances an improper installation of the Wave Driver can also cause this error (it will show up in Device Manager under the "Other" category as a "PCI multimedia device").

How to remove all traces of the previous Wave Driver and reinstall Wave Driver 1.7:

-If applicable, highlight the "PCI Multimedia Device" in the Control Panels>System>Devices Window and click "Remove."

-Open the Windows Folder.

-Choose Tools>Folder Options

-Click on the the View tab and enable "show hidden files and folders"

-Search for the digidesigndalwdm.inf file, place it in the Recycle Bin, empty the Bin and restart windows. This will force the Hardware Wizard to launch.

-Reinstall the Wave Driver according to the instructions in the Getting Started with the Digi 001 or ToolBox XP manual.

ID:5098 Created:02/27/2001


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Digi Web Admin

[Allen Hallada]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by Bob-sw:
I have a P4 system, and i can't say it's running perfectly, although it runs very well.

1.8 P4
100gigs Hard drive (7200 rpm)
Motherboard? Dell 8200 summer 2001
512megs RDRAM
32mb GForce Video card
Santa Cruz Turtle Beach card

I'm not sure about anything else. I've recorded 7 songs w/ my band and it's been smooth sailing for the most part minus dumb mistakes on my part and DAE memory problems. can anyone tell me what's with that? i have 512 megs of ram, it should run perfect. right?
anyway, i get that message and the Defrag message a lot, but it's only ever those two, so i must be doing well. What runs so much better on the Athalon? they say it's so great, but what's so wonderful about the way the Athalon runs as opposed to the P4? what's that 70-100% gap that i paid an extra $1,000 to be mad about? i'm sure they get as many messages that we do.
mac users get them, pc users get them. and maybe it works faster, but that just means they get that DAE memory message a split second before it shows up on my screen, right? well, anyway, i haven't had a "problem-free" day w/ my PTLE system yet, but i look forward to that day. it would be very joyous day indeed. i'm not in any way saying athalon sucks, i just don't know WHY it's so much better, i'm curious. enlighten me...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hey Bob,
It is really hard to see the difference unless you have both side by side. Lets just say that I know of three users with the A7M266 motherboard who haven't had an error in over 6 months. Now that is stability. So maybe all the Windows errors we were having had more to do with chipset and motherboard issues and less to do with Windows.

Performance wise if you run the DAVEC PT Performance test, you will notice a 70-100% improvement in track counts and plugin counts when running on an Athlon with the GA7DX, A7M266, or A7V266E motherboards and and a T-bird or XP processor over 1.3Ghz. Why is this important? Well with Digi001 we are running entirely of the host CPU for plugins. There is no DSP processing. So if you want to do advanced recording with alot of plugins and tracks, you are going to need the best performing CPU. Many of the new plugins are just plain CPU intensive. This summer-fall we are going to have the release of AMDs newest .13micron CPU that will run at twice the speed as the current XP2000. That should put an end to any kind of limitation to plugins and track counts up to 80 Tracks and 400 plugins.

I came really close to buying a Dell P4 last year so I'm not anti-Intel. And for those that already have them then use them for Digi001 without a doubt. But for people looking to buy a new computer it would make sense that you would pick a system that is more stable, almost twice the performance in plugin count ability, and is half the price.

What errors have I seen with the P4?

The biggest issues are with the hard drive controllers. Some of these issues are cleared up when the chipset drivers are updated. Some of them I've never been able to resolve. We are also seeing some of these with the new A7V266E motherboard, but fortunately have found workaround solutions. I've had some P4s that I just threw the towel in after trying many different solutions. Hopefully these guys got them up and running. Haven't seen one this month so maybe the old stock of P4 motherboards are gone. For the PCs sake, I really hope that the P4 performance does get enhanced with WinXP and stability improves. The owners of P4s deserve that.

Allen [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[QuikDraw]

Bob-sw,

That's not the way it's supposed to be! Really, there are lots of us that run PTLE that almost never see an error message!

You've got an Intel 850 chipset which is Digi approved, so that shouldn't be a problem. The first thing I think about when someone has a name-brand computer is all that software that is pre-loaded, much of which is set to load at startup. You really need to make sure that nothing else is running in the background when you run PTLE. All that stuff like virus scanners, scheduled tasks, reminders, etc., take up memory and can cause problems. Get that thing to boot clean. Nothing but Systray and Explorer running.

Did you follow all the instruction in the Quick Start guide? Enable DMA on all your drives, including CD-ROM and Zip drives. Enabling DMA on Zip drives can be a problem sometimes. Also, disable Auto Insert Notification.

Are you using a single hard drive, or do you have a separate physical hard drive for your audio? A second hard drive for your audio will probably go a long way to eliminating those "disk too slow... defrag..." messages. Also, I can't tell from Dell's on-line support info if the drives they use are 5400RPM, or 7200.

Anyway, with proper setup you should be able to get that machine to run with virtually no error messages. Error messages are NOT just another fun part of PTLE! They can and should be eliminated!

Mike

[Allen Hallada]

Good post Mike,
I am using a P3 in one of the studios with an 850Mhz processor. 810E chipset. I have it configured in a similar fashion to the Athlon except was using PTLE 5.1.1 in the P3. After switching back to 5.1 on the P3 I have had much fewer crashes or freezes. I removed 5.1.1 and reinstalled 5.1 and no more freezes on exiting PTLE and it is running great. Hope that helps someone out here.

I like your mentioning of all the crap that comes preloaded on DELL, Compaq, HP etc. That is criminal in my opinion. I remember getting a new HP that ran around 72% resources free on initial startup.

Keep up the great work.

Allen [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[knob twister]

I understand the legitimacy of the DaveC test and have enjoyed reading the results.I would like users to answer one general question; Can you perfectly play back a 24 trk session and generally how many plugs can you use on it. If you can do this, I 'd say you got your money's worth.

[knob twister]

I understand the legitimacy of the DaveC test and have enjoyed reading the results.I would like users to answer one general question; Can you perfectly play back a 24 trk session and generally how many plugs can you use on it. If you can do this, I 'd say you got your money's worth.

[knob twister]

ooops.....that's two questions [img]images/icons/frown.gif[/img]

[hgalay]

My ECS P4 system is getting me the full 24 tracks with 110 plug-ings no problems..

Like QuikDraw, ive also had no problems with this P4 system since i learnt how to configure it properly. And its running a SiS chip set...??? Go figure!!Only cost me 600 Bucks Canadian to built to!!!

Have a good one!!!

[QuikDraw]

So far RDRAM has shown no advantage over DDR SDRAM, or even normal SDRAM in PTLE performance. My system, the only P4 system I've dealt with so far, uses DDR SDRAM and has not been topped by any other P4 system yet, including RDRAM based sytems, in PTLE performance. That may all change when WinXP support arrives. Part of the claimed speed advantage of the P4 is in the quad pumped 400MHz memory bandwidth. With DDR you're limited to 266MHz. That could make a substantial difference!

Digidesign supports P4 systems that use either the Intel 845, 850, or 860 chipsets. The 845 supports SDRAM, and later versions support DDR SDRAM. The 850 and 860 both support RDRAM, with the 860 also supporting dual CPUs.

I've only built an 845 DDR based P4 system. The 845 has been flawless. I can only guess that the other Intel chipsets would probably be great as well. I can tell you this... Digidesign is hyper-careful in approving PC chipsets for use with PTLE! They don't approve a chipset until they've tested it to death! They're so careful that they have not yet approved the best performing (Athlon) chipset known. There are dozens of people on the DUC running chipsets that are not officially supported, but run flawlessly. My point is, if it made it to the Digi compato list, it's going to work very well with PTLE. I trust that.

As to the question of which is the best P4 motherboard for a PTLE system? My board is an Asus P4B266. It has yet to be outperformed by a P4 on the DaveC test. If you insist on a RDRAM system then you'll have to choose your own board. Stick with Intel 850 or 860 chipsets and a manufacturer whose products you've trusted in the past and you should do just fine.

Why not build an Athlon? Just because some schmuck in a magazine wants to sell Intel? It's been proven over and over that if you want the best performing PTLE system available you build an Athlon!

Mike