Playback (buffer) overload

GMarcelK · Post by **GMarcelK** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 11:03 am

Hi,

Normally I can find a lot of answers on my DP questions from a simple search. Not this time... so here I go:

I'm facing the problem that in my current projects with 35 mono and 1 stereo track, the playback stops. First a couple of tracks fall out, then the whole project stops. The playback meter (the one under CPU) is red by that time, while normally in the song it's about half way.

I tried many differrent buffer settings, but that didn't solve it.
I should be able to run this many tracks, I would say.

Somebody has any suggestions for improving this situation?

I'm running DP 4.61 on a G5 1,6 with 4GB ram. OS 10.3.9. Motu 828MK2 soundcard.

Thanks,

Marcel

bsmart · Post by **bsmart** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 12:06 pm

Ye don't have enough power Captain, she's gonna blow!

GMarcelK · Post by **GMarcelK** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 12:15 pm

Do you mean that on a 1.6GHz G5 I cannot play 35 mono tracks?

Marcel

taggart · Post by **taggart** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 7:09 pm

Hmmm. It seems you have enough power for your projects. I can run about that many tracks on my humble little system. I was having similar problems on my system. Are you running a lot of effects? It seems I was running a lot of effects inserts. In other words, most of the tracks I was using had their own effects assigned to them. Very inefficient. I started using sends (or simply didn't use effects when they weren't needed) and that really helped...and I hope this helped YOU!

By the way...Marcel...I enjoyed your pics on your website. It looks like you guys are having a lot of fun!

TheHopiWay · Post by **TheHopiWay** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 7:33 pm

How many hard drives of what type are you using? How heavily edited are the tracks? Is your audio interface on the same "bus" as your drives (as in all firewire)? What sample rate?
If the tracks are edited a lot try merging them into new files.
If you're audio files are on your system drive move them to a second drive and read them from there.
If you're using slower drives try breaking up the load over more than one drive.
On my Dual 867 G4 I can easily get 30+ 24/44.1 mono tracks of playback with a good assortment of plug-ins so it's hard to imagine the problem is your G5.

GMarcelK · Post by **GMarcelK** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 11:57 pm

Thanks for your reply.

All tracks/songs are 24/44.1 mono files (SDII)

I tried two things:
- on a Firewire LaCie disk over Firewire800 connection (my soundcard is on a Firewire 400 bus)
- on a 2nd Serial ATA internal disc.

Made no difference at all. Working mostly on the second SATA disc at the moment.

What buffer settings do you use at the moment?

Marcel

Siryne · Post by **Siryne** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 12:16 am

Marcel: This may be out in left field but worth a try. Set the allocation of tracks in your settings dialog box to exactly the number of tracks that you are using. Ie: if you are using (playing back) 32 tracks, give it 32 tracks exactly, no more no less.

Obviously there are so many things that can affect this kind of thing but give it a try and see if it makes any difference.
Peace!

kassonica · Post by **kassonica** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 12:24 am

have you tried setting your buffer to 1024 and work priority to medium

kassonica

two-states.com

GMarcelK · Post by **GMarcelK** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 1:22 am

kassonica wrote:have you tried setting your buffer to 1024 and work priority to medium

Yep. Not too much difference. I wonder why I cannot make the buffer larger than that...

Any more ideas?
Thanks anyway for thinking with me.

Marcel

kgdrum · Post by **kgdrum** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 5:21 am

you need to have i/o and hard drive on seperate firewire buss,try a pci/fw card and put drive or i/o on and see if that helps,i always have i/o on its own buss....

GMarcelK · Post by **GMarcelK** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 5:42 am

kgdrum wrote:you need to have i/o and hard drive on seperate firewire buss,try a pci/fw card and put drive or i/o on and see if that helps,i always have i/o on its own buss....

Right. But is the Firewire800 buss the same as the 400?
And how about the second internal drive? Still not good?

Thanks for helping!

Marcel

Lucid · Post by **Lucid** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 5:41 pm

Try compacting the project. I had this same problem, after I compacted the project everything was fine.

Tim · Post by **Tim** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 6:16 pm

Yes....get rid of unused soundbites.

If there is more than one chunk in the project, do a Save As, then delete the other chunks and unused soundbites.

Make a back up copy before Compacting a project.

Timeline · Post by **Timeline** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 9:24 pm

A couple of things for ya.

make sure tracks are continuos and if they are not, merge them with very short cross-fades and/or fade ins/outs.

Set Machine setup buffers as follows:
Machine 2 x 1024

Under settings:
playback 924
disk 824

Next, copy entire project folder to another disk drive as backup

After you have backed up and merged, go to soundbites and in the pull down menu "select unused soundbites". They will highlight. ERASE THEM>>>

OK now re-compact project and try playback again.

Report.

Good luck.

chamelion · Post by **chamelion** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 9:37 pm

If none of the above has worked, I'd be thinking about getting down to basics. Are your permissions up to date? Tried trashing DP prefs?

I'd remove all your plugs and do some tests with DP running lean and mean. Then start adding your plugs one at a time to see if one of them is giving you grief. Have you checked to see if you're using the latest version of each of your plugs?

Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think the number of plugs you have available ( as opposed to the ones you have open at the time) affects performance. I tend to keep only my 'bread and butter' plugs loaded and add others only when I need them.

Hope you get it sorted.

Geoff