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20 track mix session brings DP to it's knees?
Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 10:25 pm
by soundscore
Is this normal? I have a G5 dual 2.0 w/4 gigs of ram. AND a UAD card. In mixing a recent vocal session, the program was running so slowly it felt like a G3. I raised the sample buffer to 1024. Sure I was running some plugins, but I was bussing tracks to one reverb to keep the count down. My UAD card was showing about 65% of use. And the CPU green bar in the performance meter was half or under. Not running other programs. System 10.4.
I did have A LOT of tracks AND I was running picture via firewire output of video window.
Anybody else disappointed in a similar scenario. I just upgraded from my G4 and felt like I should have gone for the quad or dual.
thx in advance. JUD
Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 10:31 pm
by Frodo
Try setting your host multiplyer to 2 instead of 1 in the Hardware Settings.
Or, try keeping your host multiplyer at 1 and raise the buffers themselves. If you are mixing, you shouldn't hesitate to raise them to 1024.
Your computer is plenty powerful-- and you are well stocked in the RAM department. I think it's more a matter of settings.
Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 10:35 pm
by chrispick
Yeah, I'd say always mix at 1024 or higher.
What sort of drives were spinning the audio playback? Were you running VIs and/or samples at the same time as audio?
Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 12:38 pm
by KarlSutton
also are you streaming the video from a separate hard drive?
Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 12:41 pm
by Rusty Shackleford
If you have not already done so, try adjusting your processor performance setting in the system prefs--energy saver to 'highest'. That made a difference on my DC 2.3 G5.
Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 1:11 pm
by rockitcity
I did have A LOT of tracks AND I was running picture via firewire output of video window.
I'm thinking the video is probably causing a bottleneck. Was it an H264 Quicktime? Those really put a load on the processors. You might need to get a PCI firewire card to split the video to its own seperate bus (or another internal SATA drive for the video).
20 tracks should not be a problem with that setup.
Re: 20 track mix session brings DP to it's knees?
Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 1:11 pm
by Shooshie
soundscore wrote:Is this normal? I have a G5 dual 2.0 w/4 gigs of ram. AND a UAD card. In mixing a recent vocal session, the program was running so slowly it felt like a G3. I raised the sample buffer to 1024. Sure I was running some plugins, but I was bussing tracks to one reverb to keep the count down. My UAD card was showing about 65% of use. And the CPU green bar in the performance meter was half or under. Not running other programs. System 10.4.
I did have A LOT of tracks AND I was running picture via firewire output of video window.
Anybody else disappointed in a similar scenario. I just upgraded from my G4 and felt like I should have gone for the quad or dual.
thx in advance. JUD
What version of DP? Version 5.11 may be the answer if you're using a previous version. Especially if you're using an old one like DP 4.11.
There are many threads about optimizing your Mac or DP. But none make so big a difference as 5.11.
Shooshie
you guys rock. Here is some feedback..
Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 6:09 pm
by soundscore
frodo - Im already on 1024 but haven't tried HMultipier of 2 yet.
chrispick - ATA drives. not running VI's and samples
karlsutton - streaming video from separate drive yes
rusty - havent checked the fastest performance setting but will.
rockitcity - what is H264 qtm? (65 bit) I have a separate drive for video.
One thing I thought of was that to run picture from a "client" monitor (mirroring) I have always needed to convert the qtm to DV (maybe this is an erroneous assumption). DV's are BIG ASSED files....like 140 MEGS for a 60 second commercial. Maybe that is the problem.
can you mirror a regular quicktime out of movie out? that would reduce some file size considerably.
I will try all of this. The one good thing during the "seige of the long and winding night" wherein I wen't back 2 versions of both computer and DP was that it didnt crash. Not even once. So if I can get the performance up, I may have a winner.
Also I am running DP 5.11.
Thx again, JUD
Re: you guys rock. Here is some feedback..
Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 9:06 pm
by buddhabelly
The file size of the video isn't important. It's how CPU intensive the codec is that the movie is. DV has low CPU over head, low streaming rates but big files. But is a good codec to use. If you use it with conduction with a FW DV deck or camera, all the strain of decoding the movie goes straight to deck, no CPU use. H264 on the other had is one of the most CPU intensive codecs around, but you get small file size. A compromise might be Motion JPEG, but if your putting the DV out over FW to a monitor (TV or whatever) I'd stick with DV.
soundscore wrote:frodo - Im already on 1024 but haven't tried HMultipier of 2 yet.
chrispick - ATA drives. not running VI's and samples
karlsutton - streaming video from separate drive yes
rusty - havent checked the fastest performance setting but will.
rockitcity - what is H264 qtm? (65 bit) I have a separate drive for video.
One thing I thought of was that to run picture from a "client" monitor (mirroring) I have always needed to convert the qtm to DV (maybe this is an erroneous assumption). DV's are BIG ASSED files....like 140 MEGS for a 60 second commercial. Maybe that is the problem.
can you mirror a regular quicktime out of movie out? that would reduce some file size considerably.
I will try all of this. The one good thing during the "seige of the long and winding night" wherein I wen't back 2 versions of both computer and DP was that it didnt crash. Not even once. So if I can get the performance up, I may have a winner.
Also I am running DP 5.11.
Thx again, JUD