PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

I have just figured out that cubase sx 2.0 takes a lot of processing to record a track. (I'm using SX2 still because I have no real use for the features of sx3/4).

I just did some work for a mixdown and I have say, 20 audio tracks, 20 midi tracks, 20 automation (midi) tracks. Everything works fine when I'm playing the sequence. I can watch the scope mixer in the other window and the meter levels change, the sliders move when appropriate (I'm using automation to make very occasional adjustments to the mix, that's all). When I try to record the mix, I can see that the scope mixer is not redrawn at all, and the automation data is sent very sporadically . But when I hit stop, it all gets sent at once, I'm guessing that recording is putting a significant drain on system resources. (I have scope up to 90-95% but Cubase's performance monitor isn't showing more than 50%). The midi instrument data is sent on creamware in/out 1, and the automation is sent on creamware in/out 2.

I guess one option is to get another PC and hit record on that machine when I hit play on the PC running the sequencer. A bit of a PITA obviously. Is there anything that I could have misconfigured that would cause SX2 to hog resources while recording? Does SX3/4 take less resources (haha, why do I even ask the question). I'm running a 1.4Ghz system with 768K, Windows 2000. Possibly I'm asking too much from my system?

OK. After trying a bunch of things, I figured out it all comes down to the asio driver that I'm using. The 16 bit ones work great, as the bit # goes up the system gets sluggish. I was using the FLT driver, which happens to take the biggest toll on the system's speed. I guess in the future I'll work with 16 or 24 bits (or else limit my asio tracks), but for this project I'm stuck using the floating point drivers, thats what all the audio is recorded in.