Why am I getting bad results on davec test?

[Matt Whritenour]

Hello everyone,
Thanks in advance for any help.
I dont know why I am getting such bad results when running the davec test.
I was only able to get 19 tracks and the only way I could get that is if i changed my buffer size to 1024 or the one above it. If i had it at any other buffer sizes it would either say to free up some plug-in's or to increase my buffer size. I feel like I should be able to get a lot more tracks because I see people that have slower processors and slower ram and they get better results than me.

Here is my system

Dell Dimension 8200
P4 2.4 gighz
512meg PC800 Ram
Not sure what type of motherboard. I can probably find out in the bios if u need that just ask me and i will reply with it
GeForce 4 TI 4600 - running dual monitors
Digi 001
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum EX
Network card - Which I disabled before running the test
USB 2.0 card
Windows XP Pro
Pro TOols 5.3.1
80 gig system drive 7200rpm
30 gig audio drive 7200rpm
120 gig external harddrive for backup 5400rpm
DVD drive
CD Burner

I probably listed stuff u dont need but I figured it wont hurt.
Is there anything I can do that will help my scores?
It's just that i see people with lesser systems that get way better scores than me.
I just recently defragged my audio drive. I wanna do my system drive soon. But i cant see that
helping too much. I dont have a lot of junk installed. I have a couple games that i play but if I am using Pro Tools I will restart my computer first...

Well thanks for any help.

[tele_player]

first, and just to be thorough... are you sure you're doing the davec test correctly? Specifically - make sure you're using 24 bit, 44.1k, and be certain to use the correct plugins.

Other thoughts, things to try, things to verify:
- try single monitor, at lower screen resolution and color depth?
- got another video card around? try that?
- try doing the test on the system drive?
- are you certain your drives are using DMA?
-remove unnecessary cards and devices, such as Audigy, network

Most of these are just to see if anything changes - for better, or worse. It might give an idea of what's slowing you down.

[ThatHitSound]

WHATS YOUR VIRTUAL MEMORY SET TO?

[Matt Whritenour]

First My virtual memory is set to 768megs.. the most i can set it to is 1536..
and it is only on my system drive.. should i have it on my audio drive too?

then do i really need to remove my network card or can i just disable it?
because i already tried disabling it... I can try disabling my audigy but i need that a lot
of times when doing recordings.. because i rig that using the spdif to get a 9th track for a rough guitar and i use my yother 8 inputs for drums.. but i have no problems doing 9 tracks so even if I just use it when i do the drums then disable the audigy when i get into higher tracks..
I checked and i am using DMA
I dont have another video card
I can try a single montior with lower color depth. but i love my 1280x1024.
there are also settings for windows and for my video card that i can choose
to have better performance instead of better graphics that i can try out...

so the only questions now are do i have to remove the cards or is it ok to just disable them?
and, should i set my virtual memory to the max, and should i have it set on each drive?

thanks and i will try a couple other things

[tele_player]

You should set your virtual memory to 'no paging file'. You don't need virtual memory with 512M of ram, at least not for PTLE. I don't know what other programs you use.

Color depth is not the 1280x1024, that's resolution.
Removing the unneeded cards might help you find out what's happening - I'm not suggesting leaving them out. We're just looking to see if anything changes. Try the simplest possible system, and see if it performs any better. Then start adding things back in.

[Matt Whritenour]

i know 1280x1024 is resolution.. u said about lowering it.. but i like it too much
that i wouldnt wanna change my resolution...my color depth is on 32 i can try 16...

I just really need a computer thats only for recording. because I dont do just recording i do a lot of stuff with graphics so I like everything looking as best as it can.. u know?

[tele_player]

I'm not suggesting any permanent changes, I'm suggesting changing things around to determine what isn't working. From there, you can decide what to do.