Three Pulsar 1's on my pc...good or bad?

wernercarrasco · Post by **wernercarrasco** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 9:49 pm

Hey,
I'm new to this forum, but not new to the Pulsar world.

I have been having a lot of pops and crackles, even when the CPU performance scale in Cubase SX 2 (and now 3) is very low. (%30 percent Aprx).

The crackles have kinda of evolved from being just a few to more and more each week or month.

Also, when a project is first opened, the crackles are horrific until after I have started the song and stooped it and play it through a number of times. Almost like as if the program needs to warm up, and then after a long while (up to 10 minutes of starting and stopping) the song seems to stabilize.

I am using a number of VST instruments and effects such as Waves bundle, etc. I am also using reason.

I do remember a time when i could really push the CPU bar to almos 80% or even 90% without a problem.

Would the fact that I have 3 Pulsar 1 boards in there create a PCI problem?

I have Hyperthreading, Pentium 4 3.0 Gz, 1 Gig Ram, 10,000 rpms hard drive. 1209 mgs graphics card.

I feel my computer should be doing great. And it was..except lately.

Any ideas?

Most of the unistalling, installing, I have done, including going back to 3.1 Pulsar.

I would really appreciate any remarks re a possible cause

thank you,

werner

wernercarrasco · Post by **wernercarrasco** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 11:14 pm

Hey,

Thank you for your input.

Stardust, I didn't quite follow what you said. It sounds interesting though.

i AM planning on getting a Pulsar 2 in my system,...see if that helps.

i really appreciate your suggestions.

werner

wernercarrasco · Post by **wernercarrasco** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 8:49 pm

It's really kinda weird.

I took out one of my pulsar card 1 (remember i have three)

As i expected it, it didn't make much difference.

I reinstalled again some of the music software (Cubase 2 and 3, and reason as well as Pulsar 3.1)

Nothing has really helped. I get crackles even when all I am doing is playins some notes on reason. WITHOUT any other vst instruments or wav files loaded (Reason in rewire mode, of course)

I would like to comment on one thing, though. Earlier in the piece soon after i got my pc, i went through the normal set of DAW optimization guides. Followed the advice on them. What i found is that, I cannot set the pagefile set to a custom size, as it is recommended. Even manipulating any performance settings caused me to get a 'windows delay writing error' failure'. This meant that, i virtually had to reformat the hard drive twice, and resintall everything from scratch..only to find that, if i fiddled with the performance options (virtual memory, etc) I'd once again got the delayed write error and had to reformat.

I wonder if my crackles and pops are related to this somehow, or, alternatively, could there be something wrong with the hard drive?

I'd appreciate any comments.

thanks,
werner

wernercarrasco · Post by **wernercarrasco** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 8:52 pm

sorry,
i ommitted to say that if i freeze the vst instruments, then i can work with vocal track (wave files) without much problem..an ocasional crackle here and there....
so..it seems most of my issues are vst instrument related (reason included)

thanks,

werner

wernercarrasco · Post by **wernercarrasco** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 4:11 am

Thanks stardust, for taking the time.

One question, how do you know if the 3.0 gz is working. How do you check the latency, etc, ot rather WHAT should the latency be?

Also, in describing all the things I have, I should tell you that the CPU readings both in Cubase AND on the taskmaster (Alt+Control+Delete) is usually quite low.

Thanks again,

werner

8-Bit · Post by **8-Bit** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 4:41 am

Ya know, I used to have interesting problems like that too. I thought it came from overall system performance, but i'm sure its not completely related.

Someone said "look into a faster HD", but you have 10k/rpm.. Thats rippin. Don't worry about that. You should consider getting more ram if you don't have 1 gig.

Also, turn off hyperthreading for a try, that might help.

Lastly, try to readup on steinberg's site and see if you can contact them for tech support. Chances are that they know how you can get cubase to operate more smoothly.

Cheers,
8

Shroomz~> · Post by **Shroomz~>** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 5:40 am

Werner, you haven't mentioned your exact OS stats. E.G' - XP (tweaked or not), are you on the internet with this DAW ? ?
Take all parameters into account & start refining back to basics. Disconnect your DAW from the net (if need be), back everything up, run a fresh install of your OS and then follow step by step guides to removing background internet & network 'services' that aren't needed on a standalone DAW. Follow the 'IT pro's' word on XP tuning before makinng those common DAW tweaks.
When doing all the tweaking, be sure you know what you're switching off or changing, as XP's 'services' can be a bugger to set back up if you go wrong.

The big idea being that you are REALLY streamlining this workstation, before even thinking of audio warez. Speaking of which, legel warez can be another way of eliminating problems. ie- running as few cracks as poss'

Reinstall Cubase, Reason etc & try again

Good luck

Shroomz~> · Post by **Shroomz~>** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 5:43 am

just noticed, you DID say you ran 'the usual DAW' tweaks, so discount that first bit