Solved Playback/Buffer Problems on my system

[jtrentes]

If this duplicates anyone elses' post, my apologies in advance.

Like many here, I began to experience stoppages in playback and BTD, followed by various error messages regarding the buffer/latentcy settings.

My machine is built on a Lanparty UT nf3 250Gb motherboard, 1gig RAM, System drive 80GB SATA Maxtor, Audio Drive 250GB SATA Maxtor. Running WinXP SP2 and PTLE 6.9 with all recent updates. (Digi002r)

I'd run and post a sandra summary, but it isn't really necessary for this tweak.

I noticed that if I tried to stream a session from the audio drive I got the problem, repeated halting of playback/recording with error messages. Then I tried copying the same session to my boot drive and streaming it from the boot drive. The problem vanished. Everything worked swimmingly well even with latentcies set down to 128 on a dense mix with lots of native plugs running. (Even though this isn't recommended for optimum performance)

Try it. If this clears up the problem for you, then you may have your SATA/IDE controllers set incorrectly.

Goto: Control Panel>System>Hardware (tab)>Device Manager>IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers>(open your controller driver properties dialog)>Primary Channel>Transfer Mode.

Find the channels your hard drives are connected to. If you have Transfer Mode set to "PIO Mode", set it to "Serial ATA DMA" or "DMA" if you are using IDE drives. Set both the boot drive and the audio drive this way.

Then open PTLE and try streaming a session from the audio drive.

If your problem is solved, feel free to send me a PM exalting me for my dogged determination and just plain intellectual prowess. )

Or just send me a check...

JT

[SumOdRsn]

Or you could have just read page 8 of the Getting Started Guide that tells you to make sure your hard drives are set to DMA mode and not PIO.

Intellectual prowess. HA!

[graveleye]

good job. Now go record something will ya?

[jtrentes]

good job. Now go record something will ya?

Ok.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page...m?bandID=15678

JT

(P.S. System still working great. The only times I get buffer errors is when trying to patch in UAD-1 effects during playback and that's a known problem and no big deal. Will post a SiSandra summary later for general consumption.)

[jtrentes]

Summary of my system.

(If anyone has any suggestions for improving this configuration, I'd be grateful to hear from you.)

JT


Processor
Model : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3400+
Speed : 804MHz
Model Number : 3400 (estimated)
Performance Rating : PR1206 (estimated)
Cores per Processor : 1 Unit(s)
Threads per Core : 1 Unit(s)
Internal Data Cache : 64kB Synchronous, Write-Back, 2-way set, 64 byte line size
L2 On-board Cache : 1MB ECC Synchronous, Write-Back, 16-way set, 64 byte line size

Mainboard
Bus(es) : ISA AGP PCI USB FireWire/1394 i2c/SMBus
MP Support : 1 Processor(s)
MP APIC : No
System BIOS : Phoenix Technologies, LTD 6.00 PG
Mainboard : DFI Corp,LTD LP NF3 250GB
Total Memory : 1GB DDR-SDRAM

Chipset 1
Model : Nvidia Corp nforce3 CPU to PCI Bridge
Front Side Bus Speed : 2x 804MHz (1608MHz data rate)

Chipset 2
Model : Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Athlon 64 / Opteron HyperTransport Technology Configuration
Front Side Bus Speed : 2x 804MHz (1608MHz data rate)
Total Memory : 1GB DDR-SDRAM
Memory Bus Speed : 2x 160MHz (320MHz data rate)

Video System
Desktop Monitors/Panels : 2
Monitor/Panel : ViewSonic VX710
Monitor/Panel : ViewSonic VX710
Adapter : Matrox Millennium G450 DualHead - English
Imaging Device : Hewlett-Packard ScanJet 3300C #4

Physical Storage Devices
Removable Drive : Floppy disk drive
Hard Disk : Maxtor 6Y080M0
Hard Disk : Maxtor 7Y250M0
Hard Disk : OEI-USB MMC/SD USB Device
CD-ROM/DVD : SONY DVD RW DW-D26A (CD 48X Rd, 48X Wr) (DVD 6X Rd, 6X Wr)

Logical Storage Devices
1.44MB 3.5" (A:) : N/A
System (C:) : 76GB (38GB, 49% Free Space) (NTFS)
Archive (D:) : 234GB (168GB, 72% Free Space) (NTFS)
CD-ROM/DVD (E:) : N/A
Removable Drive (F:) : N/A

Peripherals
Serial/Parallel Port(s) : 2 COM / 1 LPT
USB Controller/Hub : Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller
USB Controller/Hub : Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller
USB Controller/Hub : Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller
USB Controller/Hub : USB Root Hub
USB Controller/Hub : USB Root Hub
USB Controller/Hub : USB Root Hub
USB Controller/Hub : Generic USB Hub
USB Controller/Hub : USB Mass Storage Device
FireWire/1394 Controller/Hub : VIA OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
Keyboard : Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard
Mouse : PS/2 Compatible Mouse

MultiMedia Device(s)
Device : NVIDIA(R) nForce(TM) Audio Codec Interface

Printers and Faxes
Model : HP DeskJet 840C/841C/842C/843C
Model : Adobe PDF

Power Management
AC Line Status : On-Line

Operating System(s)
Windows System : Microsoft Windows XP/2002 Professional (Win32 x86) 5.01.2600 (Service Pack 2)

Network Services
Network Drivers Enabled : No