Latency and Performance issues

[InJoy]

Hi

I have an

Acer Aspire 5738ZG
intel pentium T4400 2.2GHz
4 gig memory
running 7 32 bit

Motu Audio Express
APC 40
MK249C Controller

Nothing else installed and i get the problems with no VST's

I use the asio setting which doesn't allow me to change the buffer size. Is that normal?

i have 80 ms latency and live in general is unresponsive very long to swap out instruments like 5 seconds sometimes and sometimes it will crash when draggin in an inst.


i tried to use it with my library on an external drive and it still acted the same way.

but if i have 8 tracks running with effects a normal load the cpu meter rarely peaks over 50% but it will still be slow to swap inst.

i really want to use this in a gig but need better performance.

where is my weakest link?

i was told i could up the ram to max 8 gig on this laptop

i could maybe put in a SSD hard drive

but the processor can't be replaced in this unit thus i might not get any more performance?

Is that true?

The guy at the shop was also very surprised that Ableton recommends we use an external HD

Why does the external drive not slow things down?

would a usb key work the same or does the external drive need to have it's own power source and spinn 7,200rpm's?

I can't afford a new laptop now but would put 300 euros or so in this one if i knew it would help.

Would the ram boost and a SSD drive make a difference worth spending about 250 euros on?

Any suggestions would be great

Thanks

J

[trevox]

Not sure about why the VST's are causing such an issue, but on performance...

I think your weakest link is most definitely the processor. Extra RAM may not improve performance at all as if you are not getting into virtual memory territory with the amount of stuff you have loaded, upgrading could potentially have no effect. And given you have 4Gb, my initial thoughts are you should be okay there.

On HD's - the suggestion is to read/write audio to an external drive, not store your (non-audio) library, apps or plugins on it. The reason they suggest using an external drive for audio is that files on your OS drive are constantly being read and written to. If you are trying to read/write audio in realtime to the same drive, the read write heads are being asked to do too much which can lead to bad results. On a small amount of tracks, this shouldn't matter too much though. Also, if you are using an external drive, try to avoid USB drives as they eat up CPU resource. Firewire uses it's controller to access the drive directly, so it is a much better choice. Or if you can add a second drive internally, all the better, though this is not an option in a lot of laptops.

In terms of getting a SSD, IMO it is the biggest (relatively cheap) upgrade you can make. You will still have the same problem mentioned above, but at least the drive is a LOT quicker. One thing to watch out for when buying a SSD drive is the random read/write times rather than the contiguous read/write times. Reason being that your OS generally want to access/read from/write to a lot of small files very quickly rather than access/read/write large files. The contiguous speed is only really useful when copying or moving larger files. I did a bit of research and in terms of performance at a low cost, the Intel X25M came out tops. I got he 80Gb one for my OS and apps only and it works great. From pushing the power button, my machine is booted and has Live open and ready to go within 20 seconds!

I would suggest getting the Intel X25M - generation 2 or 3 (you'd probably get an 80Gb one for less than €150) - put your OS and all installed apps/plugins on this. Then get an external firewire drive and use that for all audio. If you don't have firewire on your machine, you can get a PCMCIA card for pretty cheap. All that should be within your budget and I would say is about the best you could do without upgrading the whole laptop.

Hope that helps.

[InJoy]

Thanks Trevox

Brilliant response, your right about not being able to put fire wire on this rig so i will check on a PCMCIA card.

with a PCMCIA card i will need a new external drive, correct?

What should i be looking for here?

for internal they had a 120 gig SSD don't know the make but i will find out, it was goin for 195 euros.

i guess i look for max random speeds? any numbers to go by?

you wouldn't touch the ram, correct?

one more thing on what goes externally and internally, obviously anything installed to internal.

if i keep all my audio aiff's externally i normally keep the matching .asd file together but you say i shouldn't this asd file needs to be internal as well as all presets?

that kind of makes sense, a pain having to seperate the asd and audio but if that's what works then cool.


Thanks

J

[trevox]

with a PCMCIA card i will need a new external drive, correct?


What should i be looking for here?

If you have no external drive with a firewire port, then you will have to buy one that does. Or if you have a drive already, you could just buy an external HD enclosure with firewire.

for internal they had a 120 gig SSD don't know the make but i will find out, it was goin for 195 euros.

i guess i look for max random speeds? any numbers to go by?

Best to do a bit of research as I bought mine a while ago. Look for benchmarks of the drive you were looking at and compare to the Intel X25M - I don't work for Intel, but it was by far the best for my needs at a decent price! "Tom's Hardware" usually gives some good benchmarking info though - might be a good place to start. You'll find it easily by googling it.

you wouldn't touch the ram, correct?

You could try, but could be a waste of money.

one more thing on what goes externally and internally, obviously anything installed to internal.

if i keep all my audio aiff's externally i normally keep the matching .asd file together but you say i shouldn't this asd file needs to be internal as well as all presets?

No. I store any document or file on a separate drive if it is not part of an application. Shouldn't affect anything whatever you choose. In fact, I don't think it really matters if you have your Library external either. I kinda look at that as my configuration of the application - that's why I leave it there!

that kind of makes sense, a pain having to seperate the asd and audio but if that's what works then cool.

As above, doesn't really matter!

[InJoy]

Thanks again gonna change that drive for sure and read up on the PCMCIA card

Respekt

J