optimizing macs for PT: please help me clean up my drive.

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jislober
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optimizing macs for PT: please help me clean up my drive.

Post by jislober » Thu May 15, 2003 10:26 am

Ok, I think I'm doing something wrong. I got a g4 867, I seem to be able get way fewer plugins on PT than a friend of mind with a g3 about half as fast. I figure some of it just has to do with the fact that older versions of PT were designed for these older macs. I know a big part of it is not having my extensions set right.

Also, could someone please tell me how I can clean up my startup drive with Norton without having use a startup disk? for some reason the G4 I have didn't come with startup disk, as far as I can figure out. Just these backup copies of software, and hardware diagnosis disk. I have norton on my computer, but of course you can't defrag the startup drive. I know there's a way to defrag the startup drive without having to use a startup disk. Can anyone help me>

Thanks

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Re: optimizing macs for PT: please help me clean up my drive

Post by audiofriction » Thu May 15, 2003 12:39 pm

some settings within the program are important, like raising the % of CPU available and increasing the hardware buffer size (i keep it high and just keep "low-latency recording" permanently activated.)

also, there is a utility to make a startup disk, i think... look in Applications(OS 9)/Utilities i think.

anyway, have you checked out the FAQs at www.digidesign.com and done all you can to optimize the machine?

well, i just looked for you. damn i'm nice.

i think this stuff is the most important:

---
- Your CPU should have a minimum of 128 MB of RAM (192 MB recommended) If you plan to use other audio or MIDI applications with Pro Tools additional RAM is highly recommended. Not having the minimum or recommended system memory will cause your system to not launch, crashing during the launch of Pro Tools, system crashes, or DAE memory error prompts.

- Make sure your memory setting are as follows. Pro Tools preferred memory should be set to @20,000-35,000k. DAE preferred memory should be set to @30,000-50,000. Pro Tools and DAE minimum memory setting should be left at its default. You can confirm this by entering a zero into the minimum field and pressing enter on the keyboard, this will default the minimum memory setting. DAE's playback buffer size (Finder/DAE/File Menu/Set Playback Buffer Size) should be set to #2 The Disk Cashe setting in the memory control panel (Apple Menu/Control Panel/Memory) should be set to 512k or lower.

- Make sure virtual memory is turned off (Apple Menu/Control Panel/Memory)

- Set your monitors to display 256 colors (Apple menu/Monitor's & Sound/Select Monitors/Select 256 colors for the color depth, then close the dialog). This effects the performance of your system and can directly effect PCI bandwidth issues and produce DAE 6042 errors during playback.

- Enable the default set of extensions. Pro Tools requires that certain essential MAC OS System extensions be enabled in order to run properly. -Open the Apple menu/Control Panel/Extension Manager -From the Selected Set pop-up menu choose the MAC OS base set -Select "Duplicate Set" from the bottom right hand corner and name the duplicate set. -In Extension Manager scroll down and turn on OMS preferred device in the Control Panel Folder. -In Extension Manager scroll down and check DigiSystem Init, Digidesign DSP manager, and OMS in the Extension Folder.

-Turn on any third party extensions that you might need. -Restart the CPU with the new extension set selected.

- Make sure you disable (usually done by disabling the appropriate extension) any third party applications that are running in the background...Norton File Saver, Disk Light, Virus software etc. etc.

jislober
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Re: optimizing macs for PT: please help me clean up my drive

Post by jislober » Thu May 15, 2003 1:23 pm

Thanks a lot for the info. You are nice.


I've done all the basic stuff with the virtual memory; I think the main problem might just the extreme fragmentation. Thanks for the tips on application for making a startup disk. :shock:

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Re: optimizing macs for PT: please help me clean up my drive

Post by audiofriction » Thu May 15, 2003 2:19 pm

is your HD really full or something? drives usually only become significantly fragmented when they have to start putting little bits of data here and there. Unless you at one point had (way) less than half a Gig of free space on there, seems unlikely that it's very fragmented. is Norton telling you that it is?

but actually, your HD isn't really going to affect your ability to run RTAS plugins (unless your HD is just really, really jacked for some reason). it's CPU power, not HD space that matters. big factors are your processor speed (which is plenty) and probably amount of RAM. But of course your processor could be being used up by other junk running in the background.

you probably already know this, but you should install a separate HD for your audio files anyway. in case you haven't looked into it, they are ridiculously cheap and it's easy to do. make sure it's 7200 RPM though.

lastly, don't forget that different plugs use vastly different amounts of CPU power... maybe your friend is getting mono 10 D-Verbs, but you are trying to run 10 stereo Rennaisance Reverbs? that would probably take 100 times the power, literally. just taking a stab in the dark here...

good luck.

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Re: optimizing macs for PT: please help me clean up my drive

Post by SLiM BiLT » Thu May 15, 2003 6:18 pm

Wow. Audiofriction, you have cleared up a lot of my questions, too.

However, while we are on the subject...
you probably already know this, but you should install a separate HD for your audio files anyway. in case you haven't looked into it, they are ridiculously cheap and it's easy to do. make sure it's 7200 RPM though.
OK. I have one, but am wary of the installation procedure. Physically hooking it up is no problem but I don't fully understand the procedure for initializing it. Do you know of a good resource for info on this process? (Mac, OS9)

Thanks,

Al

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Re: optimizing macs for PT: please help me clean up my drive

Post by ScottTernan » Thu May 15, 2003 7:31 pm

More Ram will get you more pluggins. Max out your system, it's cheap why not. Norton is ok but disk Warrior is the cat's ass. www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
all you need to do is burn your system folder onto a disk along with disk warrior. start up your computer while holding C , this will allow you to defrag your startup disk. good luck :D :D :D

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Re: optimizing macs for PT: please help me clean up my drive

Post by @?,*???&? » Fri May 16, 2003 1:47 pm

Pro Tools requires 2 hard drives. One solely runs the program, the other acts a data archive. They suggest the data archive drive should be 7200rpm at minimum. There are many 10,000rpm and 15,000rpm internal drives available now. You can even run 2 drives as the data archive and the computer will write to both drives in round-robin fashion if you've selected to do so. You'll still have the the original disc to run the program. That means your computer will have 3 total drives.

Another thing under the preferences, choose 'limit hard drive space to 60mins'. Unless you're recordng a song that's an hour long, you should have no issues with this. With the larger hard drives, i.e.120GB, you can scatter information all over the drive and that will continue to slow down your computer.

Another thing to do it is optimize your buffer in your DAE. Double click on that in your system folder and it will open sans Pro Tools application. Set it for the largest size.

Another thing to do is disable the 'Apple Guide' in the extensions. Apple Guide is a reference for those finding their way around on the Mac early in their career. It eats up system heap space and can slowdown a computer significantly.

The last thing to do is make sure your video monitor is set to 256 colors. I've seen this limit me on at least 1 plugin at the final mix stage.

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Re: optimizing macs for PT: please help me clean up my drive

Post by joel hamilton » Tue May 27, 2003 11:04 pm

Since rtas is cpu dependent,

You can do all the above, AND:

Hide tracks you are done editing for less redraw and cpu usage for display, set the edit window up under preferences to be black and white, and "blocks" so no redraw is needed when zooming/scrolling.

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Re: optimizing macs for PT: please help me clean up my drive

Post by moogrocker » Sun Jun 01, 2003 7:31 pm

I'm surprised no one mentioned getting a program to clean up your drive. Windows is nice because they give you a progam to do it, Mac is not as nice because you have to go out and buy one. I didn't realize this for a while and thought since mac's we so much more advanced that they automaticlly just cleaned up the drive for you every once and a while and didn't tell you about it. I've got a 120 gig drive and eventually it started going at a snails pace then I was clued in to buying Disk Warrior. Once I pulled up the defragger like 80 percent of the drive was fragmented! Once it was cleaned up it ran a load faster.

Disk Warrior is only like 50 or 60 bucks and its an investment well spent.

John

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FYI

Post by friendlybunny » Sun Jun 01, 2003 10:52 pm

I should add that disk warrior is great for os9, but do NOT use it in osx and do NOT defrag your drives if you are using osx.

OSx handles files differently than os9 and defragging can ruin the way osx sees your files.

You should occasionally "repair disk permissions" in osx. This "disk utility" program that comes free in osx is located in applications-utilities, and it can be used to "repair disk permissions" on your drives. That should improve performance as well.

-fb

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Re: optimizing macs for PT: please help me clean up my drive

Post by soundispatch » Mon Jun 02, 2003 10:02 pm

Jeff Robinson wrote: Another thing to do it is optimize your buffer in your DAE. Double click on that in your system folder and it will open sans Pro Tools application. Set it for the largest size.
jeff,

This is the first I've heard this called 'optimizing'. Are you doing this specifically to run more plugs, or is there another reason? It certainly slows down playback/recording response.

-cal

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Re: optimizing macs for PT: please help me clean up my drive

Post by soundispatch » Sun Jun 08, 2003 8:06 pm

audiofriction wrote:- Make sure your memory setting are as follows. Pro Tools preferred memory should be set to @20,000-35,000k. DAE preferred memory should be set to @30,000-50,000. Pro Tools and DAE minimum memory setting should be left at its default. You can confirm this by entering a zero into the minimum field and pressing enter on the keyboard, this will default the minimum memory setting. DAE's playback buffer size (Finder/DAE/File Menu/Set Playback Buffer Size) should be set to #2 The Disk Cashe setting in the memory control panel (Apple Menu/Control Panel/Memory) should be set to 512k or lower.

The rules must be different for LE systems, but these numbers just can't be correct for my setup. The preferred memory can't be set lower than the minimum memory for both ProTools (55000k) and DAE (55000k). These are the lowest settings I can manage. Also, a disk cache setting of 512k? This seems highly unusual. The default is something like 8160k. Can it really be that different? You can't just type in that figure and go with it either. You have to repeatedly click the arrow button to do it. It would take a good 15 minutes, I swear. Anybody else experience this?

O this lonely forum...

-cal

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Re: optimizing macs for PT: please help me clean up my drive

Post by Nozzler » Mon Jun 09, 2003 8:35 am

ScottTernan wrote:More Ram will get you more pluggins. Max out your system, it's cheap why not. Norton is ok but disk Warrior is the cat's ass. www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
all you need to do is burn your system folder onto a disk along with disk warrior. start up your computer while holding C , this will allow you to defrag your startup disk. good luck :D :D :D
More ram will allow your DAE to store more plugins but it won't help with the amount of plugins you are able to use in a session. I've tested that theory a few years back and instances are nearly the same. The only thing that get you loads of plugin is cpu/drive speed. Nothing more. Also, i know many of the protools people here have drives that are quite fast and can run 24 tracks off of one drive but try using two drives for 24 tracks. Put 12 tracks on Drive A and 12 on Drive B. Your RTAS count will be fully optimised. One last thing, a 24 bit session will give you 1/5 the plugins a 16 will give you, but now i've opened a whole new debate. What sounds best for you is all that is important.

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