Have these things ever happened to anyone?

[PRS4LIFE]

I was wondering if any of these things have happened to anyone while using Pro Tools LE v5.3.1 on WindowsXP.

1. Have you ever been in the middle of a session doing something then need to go to the transport window and have it not be there. Then go to the windows menu to see if its checked to make sure its there, and have it be checked saying that its up! Then click it and uncheck, then click it again to make it come back and it doesnt come back, and the only way you can make it come back is by closing the session and then re-opening it(happened to me a couple times).

2. Has anyone ever been in the middle of a session with either a very small amount of plugins(even ones that dont take up hardly any cpu power)or none at all and get the running out of cpu error telling you to increase the buffer size? Happened to me a couple of times also. I've opened up the system usage window and it showed hardly any cpu usage at all but for some reason the red light was still lit. [img]images/icons/confused.gif[/img] hmmmm any thoughts?

[Lalaman]

Do you have any outboard gear S/PDIF connected to 001? If yes, according to my experience this can cause different error messages, be it buffer size related or about graphic issues.

When I have PT launched with S/PDIF connection it even slows down Internet.

Lalaman

[Paul_m]

I've had both those problems. I notice #2 happens a lot when I have the midi click giving the two measure delay, which seems kind of odd, but consistently causes the increase buffer size.

#1 really drives me batty. Closing the session is usually the only way that I can get it back. Sometimes it is underneath your windows toolbar, so if you put the mouse over the top edge of it and pull it down so you can't see it, you might find it there. Is there a shortcut to bring the transport back to the center of the screen?

Paul

[Lalaman]

Is there a shortcut to bring the transport back to the center of the screen?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Yap. It is Ctrl + 1 ( on the numeric keys ).

[Calvin]

I don't do hardly anymore than 3 tracks because most of time I am just mastering stuff. I don't do a whole lot of real recording. [img]images/icons/frown.gif[/img] But I am running out of cpu power all the time with just 2 or 3 tracks and the waves mastering plugs. I know that the mastering plugs are pretty intensive but I shouldn't be out of power that quick. I am running a anthalon 1600+ and it just barely seems to get by. I think something is messed up on my system. Could it be that I only have 4 gig left on my system drive and 10 gig on my audio. I would think that it could still run fine but I don't know.

Another thing that I hate alot is that if you run out of cpu power by putting a pluggin on, if that pluggin takes up most of the center of the screen, you can't see the little message that shows up behind it. Usually I have to click out of the program by cliking on the start menu or something, then click back into pro-tools to get the message to appear so that I can click ok and go on about my business.

[Swaphappy]

Yes to #2

Check your I/O output settings.

I was running out of CPU power and only able to
do 4 tracks with the DaveC test.

It was because of S/PDIF
It caused a performance degradation of 21 tracks!
Ouch. [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]

My outputs were set to Analog 1-2, S/PDIF L_R (Stereo)
That only got me 4 or 5 tracks on DaveC.
When I set my outputs to Analog 3-4 (Stereo)
I was able to get up to 25 tracks.

[Lalaman]

Originally posted by Calvin:
I don't do hardly anymore than 3 tracks because most of time I am just mastering stuff. I don't do a whole lot of real recording. [img]images/icons/frown.gif[/img] But I am running out of cpu power all the time with just 2 or 3 tracks and the waves mastering plugs. I know that the mastering plugs are pretty intensive but I shouldn't be out of power that quick. I am running a anthalon 1600+ and it just barely seems to get by. I think something is messed up on my system. Could it be that I only have 4 gig left on my system drive and 10 gig on my audio. I would think that it could still run fine but I don't know.

Another thing that I hate alot is that if you run out of cpu power by putting a pluggin on, if that pluggin takes up most of the center of the screen, you can't see the little message that shows up behind it. Usually I have to click out of the program by cliking on the start menu or something, then click back into pro-tools to get the message to appear so that I can click ok and go on about my business.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Hi Calvin

have you checked this yet?

Make sure no extra programs are started up when you launch Windows.
Go to your START MENU, RUN, type MSCONFIG and hit OK.
GENERAL tab is already selected, checkmark SELECTIVE STARTUP. Uncheck PROCESS AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS.
Select STARTUP tab, and deselect everything but your:
SYSTEM TRAY, SCANREGISTRY, and any other absolutely essential items. If there is a question about an item, disable it. You can always re-enable it simply by checking the box in the future and rebooting.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Greets,

Lalaman

[Swaphappy]

Oh Yes and another thing
that does #2 [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

DVerb plugin with certain settings like Plate
for example.

Sucks the CPU power big time.

DVerb is the basis for the updated Davec test
by JayMan because it knocks the number of tracks
down by half. And that's with default settings
on DVerb. It's a CPU hog.

I'm not blaming Digi.
We all know that the reverb effect is caused by many reflections of a single sound.
Therefor one DVerb track is like multiple tracks
overlayed. So it will take a lot of CPU power to
produce this.

[Calvin]

Hi Calvin

have you checked this yet?

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Make sure no extra programs are started up when you launch Windows.
Go to your START MENU, RUN, type MSCONFIG and hit OK.
GENERAL tab is already selected, checkmark SELECTIVE STARTUP. Uncheck PROCESS AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS.
Select STARTUP tab, and deselect everything but your:
SYSTEM TRAY, SCANREGISTRY, and any other absolutely essential items. If there is a question about an item, disable it. You can always re-enable it simply by checking the box in the future and rebooting.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Greets,

Lalaman

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I did this once before on a previous install with windows xp, and started having problems with it. I would love to do it, but unfortunately my computer is also used to surf the net and I am not sure what processes to keep up and running for that. I have a second hardware profile that I use to disable my linksys ethernet card when I am planning to do audio and this helps but my system still seems to barely get by. If I knew what processes I needed to be able to use my computer to access the web in windows xp pro, I would shut everything else down. [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img]

[Lalaman]

I think you can turn firewall and anti virus off from start menu as long as you remember to turn them on manually before entering Internet. ( Don´t know if I remember wrong, but think that some sorts of these application can turn on automatically together with either browser or the internet connection, but I´m not sure right now.)
Also don´t remember what troubles it exactly gave me, but opening a second hardware profile meant quite annoying results to me. I think I even asked on the DUC about that without receiving an answer back then. So I didn´t try that feature again.

Maybe someone can chime in and tell some more about it.

Lalaman