PTMP Demo for testing PC Compatibility

[Sonny in London]

Hello M-Powered forum.

I've just ordered my phat Allenstein PC and am getting my speakers soon (Mackie HR624s or Dynaudio BM5As) to begin building my Pro Tools home studio.

Thing is, I haven't got enough money left over to get my LE hardware (002R if the 003 doesn't drop soon) until my next payment comes through, but I need to get started straight away.

My first thought was to get the MBox 2 for now, then either sell it and get the 002R/003 later or keep it for future laptop use.

However, I see that amongst the proposed new supported M-Audio devices in PT7 is the Mobile Pre USB interface, one of which I bought my girlfriend a year ago and which I currently use on her P4 desktop. This means that I could fork out a measly £200 for PT M-Powered and be away ready to go with my surrent soundcard, ready to upgrade in the future and hand PTMP over to my other half for her music stuff on her own PC.

However, even though my spanking new machine won't be a problem, I don't know whether her PC will handle it once I've handed it over. It needs more RAM and a new hard drive anyway, but my main worry is the chipset, which is not one of those listed as supported on the compato page. I think that this is because it's slightly older.

My question is; if I upload the PTMP demo onto her PC now, will it give me a fair idea of whether her computer will be up to the full version? Will it inform me of any compatibility issues that I might have with the real deal, without having to buy it first? This would be a great way of finding out and to give her a taste of what might be in store.

Incidentally, what's the limitations with the demo version? no export or save I presume?


Thank you, kind ones.

Sonny
xx

[Marty Bampot]

G'day Sonny,

My situation is a bit like yours. I have an older PC with a Delta-66 and needed to get Pro Tools quickly to do mixdowns of recordings done at my mates 002 studio. I opted for M-Powered because it appears that the M-Box is a bit more picky about chipsets than PTMP. I couldn't afford a PC upgrade at the same time, but had successfully run the PTMP demo, so I took the gamble.

The upshot is, I am happily creating mixes from sessions of 16 tracks on my PIII-800 with 512MB of RAM. Sometimes screen redraws get a bit slow, and I have to be prudent with plugins, but cunning use of sends to share effects and making unneeded tracks inactive at different times helps it all along.

I'll probably have to get that PC upgrade before I get V7 though.

Cheers,
Marty.

[DigiTechSupt]

The demo version should give you a good idea of how well it will run however, keep in mind that on unsupported systems, sometimes the real problems don't crop up right away. We've seen unsupported/incompatible systems work for a few weeks or months and then they'll start having all kinds of classic symptoms of an incompatible system and there's nothing to be done about it.

So - test it, but be sure you're aware of the possible risks of running on an unsupported/incompatible system.

[Sonny in London]

Very useful indeed. Thank you both.

If it works this will be wonderful. The addition of this sound card to the M-Powered line is a real boon for me and my girl and should aid our home studio advancement significantly.

I will let you know how the demo runs for anyone who's interested (plus, I will add the specs of my computer too).

Sonny
x

[R1ch]

The demo version should give you a good idea of how well it will run however, keep in mind that on unsupported systems, sometimes the real problems don't crop up right away. We've seen unsupported/incompatible systems work for a few weeks or months and then they'll start having all kinds of classic symptoms of an incompatible system and there's nothing to be done about it.

So - test it, but be sure you're aware of the possible risks of running on an unsupported/incompatible system.

Yup,

I've had first hand experience with this.

Demo worked fine it was absolutely rock solid but as soon as I installed the full version it was a nightmare from there on.

[toolshedgraphx]

New to 001 and I cannot hear hear playback!! Also how do you play Windows Media Player thru this card