Digirack002 A Laptop And Dwindling Cpu, Are there any External Processing units Options

[rufusrat]

I have a Ti 15inch Laptop
1GHz PowerPC G4
512K L2 cache
1024MB DDR333 SDRAM
60GB Ultra ATA/100
10.2.6 OS X

I have all sounds and songs saved to an external 200Gig hard drive.

I'm running Protools off my DigidesignRack 002- I have about 6- 8 tracks and a few Plug ins (say 4 to 6; not much in my book) And I'm running out of CPU. I just don't understand how just a few plug ins can run my CPU down to nothing.

I want to know what I can do. Is there any way of getting an external processer to take the load off my computer?

If any one can help I'd appreaciate it greatly - this power outage is really holding me back.

Thank you!
rufus

[Synthetic]

what kind of plugs are you running? even though it seems you don't have that many plugs going... it only takes a few of really CPU intensive plugs like reverbs and soft synths etc to bog down a fast computer.

also... depending on your drive... it can slow you down too

it takes a fast external drive to keep up with audio especially once your in high-definition 24bit/96 khz range. as a tip, i think sometimes huge drives can be a disadvantage... for instance, i replaced my OEM internal drive with a drive twice as big but same brand and speed.... the new drive was noticeably a little slower than older drive and I think its due to the more area it has to look through on the disk for reading/writing, the slower the drive... but this is just my theory and i could be wrong... i run 4-6 plugs on my Digi001 on a G3 350mhz with around 20 tracks going on a 30gb Glyph firewire drive and its sluggish but works. If I add a reverb... i have to cut 2 or 3 other plugs out

This post has been edited by Synthetic: Tue 7 Oct 2003, 16:49