Pro Tools 10HD vs 8HD + Accel cards

[Southsidemusic]

Albee - I stand corrected

I had the understanding that HD10 was limited to 4GB as I read this everywhere but obviously disc cache is exempt from this limitation.

Thanks for clarifying this so there is no confusion going forward for new members
(and older members) like me here

[LDS]

Originally Posted by albee1952

While I would agree with this "on paper", my own experience suggests its not quite accurate. On my first i7 quad build(6GB triple-channel RAM), I started with XP and LE8.0.5. That rig turned a Dverb test score of 320. The exact same machine with Win 7 x64 turned a Dverb score of 500 with no other change. Point #2; Fast forward to my more recent machine(i7 950, 12GB of RAM). That machine ran well enough with a DIGI003 on FW. When I updated to HDN, I netted another serious performance boost. Not sure why, but its something to make you go "hmmmmm"

It probably has nothing to do with ram though. Windows 7 benchmarks better than XP on the same machine due to changes in the operating system. There is a good chance that on XP, Protools would hit a wall when using just 2GB of memory. Likewise an audio interface that uses an FPGA to handle the audio routing & I/O (like HD native) will run more efficiently than one that doesn't. If the operating system and the audio interface put less strain on the CPU it only makes sense that you should be able to utilize that processing power elsewhere - like more plugins!

There is every chance (and good reasoning behind it) as to why your system may have experienced improvements including simple efficiency gains in the way an application addresses and uses the ram available to it. But the issue with 32 bit and ram addressing isn't just some theoretical thing. Its a hard line system limitation.

A 32 bit word can represent 4,294,967,295 values. That means a 32 bit application can only ever use 4,294,967,295 memory pointers. And there are 4,294,967,295 bytes in 4 gigabytes of ram. Adding a ram cache doesn't change that. A ram cache is simply a hard drive within ram on the computer. It will alleviate any issues that are caused by a hard drives read and write speed, but it doesn't alter the applications ability to address just 4gb of ram at absolute maximum.

[YYR123]

Originally Posted by LDS

HD10 does add a few nice features to Protools, but nothing that is really going to give your system a boost big enough to get around just having a HD1 card. Spending the $500 on DSP, and hosting your sessions as much as possible on the DSP will give you a huge increase in power for the money..

To the OP, this right here....

More cards first then
Disk cache

[Drew Mazurek]

Of course all of this depends on the plugins most used. More TDM cards only make sense if your plugs can use it. If however, you use mostly Slate for example, then your money is better spent upgrading the computer.

[Barry Johns]

Originally Posted by Parks

Mac Pro 1.1...not a very powerful computer. I was under the impression that PT10 used the ram for audio cache'ing or whatever, would that not be an improvement over processing power?

I too am using a Mac Pro 1.1. You also have other options with that computer, I recently upgraded my CPU to an eight core. It's less than $200. And it was very easy to do. Made a huge difference, doubled my Gerkbench scores.

Other than Disk Cache,, there's really no advantage with your computer, by upgrading to ProTools 10,unless you're doing serious sessions.

If I had known as it was going to do what they're doing with the subscription nonsense, I would've never wasted my money upgrading to ProTools 10.

For users on HD native, ProTools 10 brings a lot of additional resources. But using ProTools 10 with TDM, doesn't bring you that much, IMHO.

Cars are getting really cheap these days, I just bought another spare for 200 bucks on eBay. Which is PCIe.

EDIT: I did forget to mention clip game, and I you do use it quite a bit. However for an extra thousand dollars to upgrade to ProTools 10, it's not worth that.

There is a guy on eBay right now, that has an HD cord card and ProTools nine HD it's all transferable, and I think it only asking like $600 for it. That could be another interesting way to get to ProTools 10. For another $600. If you were to find it that compelling.

[YYR123]

Originally Posted by Barry Johns

Cars are getting really cheap these days, I just bought another spare for 200 bucks on eBay. Which is PCIe.

There is a guy on eBay right now, that has an HD cord card and ProTools nine HD it's all transferable, and I think it only asking like $600 for it. That could be another interesting way to get to ProTools 10. For another $600..

It's amazing to see the prices these days....halfway tempted every now and again.

When I wanted an extra card (PCIe) they were still in the thousands.....

[Parks]

Thanks for the input guys...

I mix records for a living, so occasionally yes I get "crazy" sessions. I just mixed a song that was 90something stereo tracks (so 180+ voices) BEFORE I started adding production. On my 10 laptop it ran fairly painlessly, but moving to the HD system required a lot of bouncing/stems.

I feel like I've seen comparison charts that said that 10 HD increased track count but maybe I'm wrong...

[LDS]

Originally Posted by Parks

Thanks for the input guys...

I mix records for a living, so occasionally yes I get "crazy" sessions. I just mixed a song that was 90something stereo tracks (so 180+ voices) BEFORE I started adding production. On my 10 laptop it ran fairly painlessly, but moving to the HD system required a lot of bouncing/stems.

I feel like I've seen comparison charts that said that 10 HD increased track count but maybe I'm wrong...

A HD1 system only gives you 96 voices. I am pretty sure that doesn't change between HD8 and HD10. A HD2 and beyond will give you 192 voices.