Pro Tools 9 on non-Avid-qualified computers: Share your experience!

[SNAZ]

sometime ago I remember Digidesign (still not integrated on Avid) showed, as qualified computer, a Carillon systems from UK, a well done custom PC in rack, 100% silent, 100% effective, this unit was based on Intel motherboards, Nvidia video cards, Intel cpu (included xeon), Kingston memory, Seagate, Zalman, etc, all the best from different areas and windows XP tweaked version.
curiously there was a variation on the version, 7.3 to 7.4 or similar, and machines dissappear from the recomended and tested list. I asked Carillon why and answer was simple: "it is necessary to send another new unit with new software for test".
Resume, recomended or qualified units simple are tested for Avid people techs but if you mount a similar or parallel unit, this will work well also, simply must to follow a route book and apply some tweaking, the rest in only a simple label "Qualified by Avid".

[katerkarlo]

Originally Posted by Rationalizer

Sorry if I misunderstood but I thought the OP was referring to this: http://bit.ly/hcd11l (Pro Tools 9.0 Qualified Windows Computers).

Yes, this is the list I was referring to. Somebody told me if I didn't buy one of those HP or Dell computers I would run into problems.

Anyway, thanks for your comments. This is very reassuring. What about those "qualified components" some of you are talking about? Is there an official (Avid) list of components that are tested with PT9? Or do you simply mean "qualified by user experience"?

What about graphics, for example? I have a Radeon card in my computer. Should I buy a NVIDIA?

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by AxeDye

All you really need to worry about is your OS... Pro tools will work clean with my experience if you have

2.66 ghz dual core, intel preffered or above.

4 gb of ram

Dedicated or disctete graphics card

Windows 7 or OS X


My asus can bounce a session with over 20 rtas plugins with a core 2 duo.

Not exactly accurate. There are some things to consider here. First off, there is a big difference between "unqualified" and "incompatible". Unqualified may only mean that it is untested(there are simply too many combinations of PC parts to test all of them). OS matters, but so does the chipset, firewire controller, hard drives and the cpu itself(Turion cpu's have power management features that make it a bad choice for Pro Tools), regardless of OS). The fact that Avid NOW recommends nVidia graphics merely means that they are seeing better or more consistent performance with them over ATI cards. If you have a working system with non-approved parts, that's great(and put that in your signature so others can see what you have working). Sticking to known working systems or parts is just a good way to save money over having to replace parts when you try something that doesn't work. Sometimes folks get lucky(I certainly have lucked out on a few of my dozen or so builds). In the long run, it is the users(all of us) that will support or expand the list of approved hardware.

[TOM@METRO]

Originally Posted by katerkarlo

Yes, this is the list I was referring to. Somebody told me if I didn't buy one of those HP or Dell computers I would run into problems.

Anyway, thanks for your comments. This is very reassuring. What about those "qualified components" some of you are talking about? Is there an official (Avid) list of components that are tested with PT9? Or do you simply mean "qualified by user experience"?

What about graphics, for example? I have a Radeon card in my computer. Should I buy a NVIDIA?

I run 3 ATI HD5450 fanless cards with no issues.

[hue]

I've personally found that certain ATI cards can cause issues. Somehow my silent 4350 was causing CPU spikes. I put an old NVIDIA 8600 in and CPU spikes went away. Unfortunately this may not be the case for everyone. It's likely an interaction between my particular hardware. That being said, I'm not a fan of the many bacground services that ATI cards require running. Even a driver only install did not seem to help.

[mixupandblend]

using a Dell studio XPS 1645 with i720q processor. PT 8 runs fine on it without any tweaking until you get to large sessions with much automation and 48+ tracks (including busses, reverbs, delays, master compression, etc.). When the session gets pretty big for an LE rig bad things start happening. I've learned how to work around it, but to me, Avid is pretty cavemanish where this is concerned. There really should be more stability. Studio One, Cubase, Reason, these are programms I use with absolutely no problem using MBox 2 ASIO drivers. It is beyond me why AVID can't design a programme that works better across the board. My opinion - there's politics behind there seemingly inferior design.

Honestly, I've gotten frustrated with AVID Pro Tools LE because of their crappy software design in this regard and am exploring other options. However, PT is still the best software I've used out of the leading software (Cubase, Logic, PT), so until I upgrade to a firewire interface like 003 or win an HD system, my best solution is to buy a AVID approved computer and run PT on it for complex mixes.