Pro Tools 6.0 Memory!!!

[snapple]

I just got Pro Tools 6.0 and I only have 384MB of memory in my 400Mhz apple G3 B & W. I cannot play my previous track heavy recordings! I just ordered a 512 memory because 512 is the recommended requirement! WOW this thing requires a lot more memory that Pro Tools 5.0!!! I have waited a long time for PT6 only to have wait for my new memory to arrive!!! BUMMER! [img]images/icons/frown.gif[/img]

[dkrz]

Your computer as well as mine are unsupported (you probably know this already...)
Here were some of my findings. The G3 400 B&W and Yikes machines have the same MOBO and would perform mostly the same when using PT6.

With 640BM ram these were my initial findings-

Screen redraws are horrendously slow. Constant "hardware interrupt error messages" -9013, -9092, and many more...

All buffer and CPU hardware settings had to set and the highest levels. Starting and EVEN stopping took many seconds. In fact I though my computer froze because when I hit stop, it wouldn't stop after about 10 seconds. I hit the space bar so many times I lost track of wether I was telling it to start or stop.

Forget about plug-in use and/or dense automation:
Playback 10 stereo tracks with two d-verbs = running out of CPU power error messages after about 10sec. regardless of; Buffer, CPU and/or DAE settings.
In addition, any attempt at going to menus or performing basic editing tasks during playback yields the same result. Even in very lite sessions.
Under my OS9 - PT5 system, similar/same sessions will run with total ease with tons of CPU room to spare...

I thought that maybe, CPU management would be more efficient in X, but looking at the relative amount of CPU meter activity in the -same test sessions- on both systems, demonstrates that PT6 on OSX uses up MUCH more CPU juice. Almost twice as much as in OS9!

What is interesting is that PT5.2.1 runs so much more efficiently compared to 6 on X.
I run huge sessions all the time with lots of plugs and very dense automation with relative ease in OS9.

OSX is a very over bloated OS being both CPU and RAM hungry.
A major problem is that are PCI Macs have PCI graphics cards. OSX needs AGP cards that can take advantage of the Quartz Extreme feature in OSX. Quartz passes off screen redraw calculations over to the AGP card's memory. In OS 9, screen redraw is managed differently. Heck, I have trouble just scrolling my Explorer browser windows in OSX.. so scrolling 20 multi colored tracks in PT6 is virtually impossible (and very painful).

There really are no system tweaks for OSX besides turning off energy saver, turning off software update and turning down monitor resolution to thousands of colors.

Unless your into learning UNIX code and playing with the command line console all day, other (normal user) tweaks just don't exist.

I won't be using 6 at all since it is basically unworkable on this system. I have ordered a Duel 1.25Ghz from Apple. That should do the trick... [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

dk

---------------------------------------------
-PTLE6 - 001(slot 3)
-G4-400PCI 640MB ram
-OSX install on separate partition on 10gig stock internal drive
-100gig Oxford 911 Firewire OWC dedicated audio drive (4 partitions)
-Duel monitors: Stock Rage 128(slot 1) & "unsupported" Voodoo 5500pci(slot 2)
2906 Adaptec SCSI card(slot 4) (OSX drivers installed) --> Lacie 8x CDR & Iomega Zip 250 externals.
-HP 952c USB printer
-Midisport 2x2 USB interface

[Dale-c]

It does seem to be in the graphics card because I have an iMac that is doing pretty well with only 320 megs of RAM. It is a 400mhz but it does have AGP graphics. Must make a big difference.