laptop specs - why am I still having trouble?

[clare_bear]

Hi All

A slightly different twist on the 'what specs for music production' question.

I'm just temporarily using a higher spec laptop than my own, and I'm testing all the music production stuff on it, to see if it's powerful enough (for when I need to buy a new one - soon I should think!).

I'm running Tracktion 2, with Jamstix and a few plug-ins, but nothing major.

This laptop's specs are (it's a Dell Precision M6300):
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.40GHz
2GB RAM
150 Gb Hard-drive

I'm using a Toneport UX2 as the soundcard (at least I think I've set it up right!), but when I try to run a project with quite a few plug-ins on, Tracktion's cpu meter still goes into the red - the same as it does on my lower spec laptop (2.5Ghz Celeron processor 1.5Gb RAM).

Surely, the dual core processor should make a big difference? Any advice?

Cheers

[Nis]

I think Tracktion 2 doesn't take advantage of the dual core. Programs have to be specifically written for dual core processors (they have to be 'multi-threaded'), otherwise they just use one core. When T2 came out, the dual core processors didn't exist (or weren't very popular yet). In version 3, multi-core support was added.

[echosonic]

Depends what settings you use ...

If you are using a lower sample buffer (64 or 128 samples for instance), you are asking the CPU to throw around data much faster and in smaller packets, therefore putting more stress on the system. Test the CPU settings at different buffer sizes to see whether the new machine ...

Also, multicore support only came in with Tracktion 3 and even then it needed to be patched to do so. Make sure you are running the up-to-date version.

[clare_bear]

Originally Posted by Nis

I think Tracktion 2 doesn't take advantage of the dual core. Programs have to be specifically written for dual core processors (they have to be 'multi-threaded'), otherwise they just use one core. When T2 came out, the dual core processors didn't exist (or weren't very popular yet). In version 3, multi-core support was added.

Oh, excellent, thanks for that. That saves me messing around! I may well upgrade to T3, so I'll check that out.

[Nis]

It would be interesting to see if the T3 demo performs better on the dual core system. It lets you load your old projects, so you can make a direct comparison between the two. Also, I think that in the windows task manager you can choose to show activity graphs for each core separately, so you can see if both are used.

[clare_bear]

Originally Posted by Nis

It would be interesting to see if the T3 demo performs better on the dual core system. It lets you load your old projects, so you can make a direct comparison between the two. Also, I think that in the windows task manager you can choose to show activity graphs for each core separately, so you can see if both are used.

I'll give the demo a go, and let you know!

And thanks echosonic, the buffer size doesn't seem to make a huge difference, but its worth me remembering that - especially on my laptop.