question about buffer for live tracking

[necjamc]

I am going to be live tracking my band this week. It's 16 tracks 24, 48. Now there will be no inserts at all, and no live monitoring. Will I get better stability if I set the Playback buffer higher (1024) and the RTAS CPU lower 1 core 85% let's say. This is on my laptop, a DELL Inspirion 1545 2.0 gig core 2 Duo, 7200 RPM system drive (scorpio Black) 7200 RPM FW 400 external Audio drive, 3 GB memory. Pro Tools 8.01 M-Audio Pro fire 2626. Win Vista basic, (New install (not Dells) no programs installed on the machine other than PT and OS.

[necjamc]

nothin? I'm thinking my questions are not generating any thoughts.
I'm testing it now but I'm unsure if raising the playback buffer to 1024 or higher is going to lower the strain on the computer. It's running at 3 % cpu, and 22 % on the disk.

[necjamc]

I tested it and it ran 46 min, with no problems, buffer set to 2048

[caruso7r]

Originally Posted by necjamc

I tested it and it ran 46 min, with no problems, buffer set to 2048

I thought this was answered in another thread for you but in any case I'm curious why you think 2048 is better. EDIT: Sorry I realize this thread is older then the other one. But I'm still curious as to why you think 2048 is better then the lowest setting possible. I'm not joking about this and I realize that no one will monitor through headphones right?

[necjamc]

Originally Posted by caruso7r

I thought this was answered in another thread for you but in any case I'm curious why you think 2048 is better. EDIT: Sorry I realize this thread is older then the other one. But I'm still curious as to why you think 2048 is better then the lowest setting possible. I'm not joking about this and I realize that no one will monitor through headphones right?

I only thought that the higher buffer would give less chance for errors over such a long time, I don,t have to worry about latency and at 64 samples its stopped recording on me I appreciate the input ill try at 256

[sunburst79]

I would make a test run at and find out what the lowest buffer you can record with without errors is. Since your not using any plugs your unlikely to get any CPU errors but might see some disk errors if the disk is getting full.

If you could record 18 tracks for say 40 minutes @ of 128 with no plugs the next buffer size up shound ensure that theres no errors. Keeping in mind that any real stress on the system is going to come from the disk and the hardware buffer is not going to have any (IMO) real effect on that.

[necjamc]

cool, I have a clean 500GB FW drive. I will test it tonight. I have recorded at 128 with no problem, but since I am not going to be able to see how it's reacting I was nervous. It's alot of work to set it all up, and then to find out I set it wrong to record Thanks for the response guys.