Dp4.5, Latency, Stuttering Issues, using mac mini as a DAW: good or bad? Options

[willie63]

I was wondering if someone can enlightened me on an issue I am having with my system.
Currently I am using a mac mini 1.42 ghz, 1gig of ram with m-audio mobile-pre usb audio interface and an m-audio 4x4 usb midi interface.
For software I use DP4.5 with Reason 2.5 and the Garritan Personal Orchestra, a virtual symphonic orchestra using the kontakt player.
I created a file (song) with minimal problem. That minimal problem would be these pops every couple of seconds during playback. I would remedy this by changing the Audio hardware setup in DP4.5 between medium and low or changing the buffer size from 512 to 1024 or back to 512 when the problem re-occurs.
The problem gets worse when I created a new file. I would open some new midi tracks for the garritan instruments (4 tracks) some midi tracks for my modules and for reason. When looking at my CPU performance monitor, it reads at about 75% to 90% usage and a latency issue comes to play. The thing is the tracks are blank!
Is 1gig of ram and a processor speed at 1.42ghz not enough?
The GPO requires 2 GB of free hard disk space. I have 30gb of free space.
A mac G4 at 1.25 MHz is minimum but may not load the full orchestra, and 1 GB of RAM or more is needed to play entire orchestra. I'm not using the full orchestra.
What could be the problem? Any help would be deeply appreciated!!!

Willie63

[keefer.k]

Hi Willie63,

I think a G4 1.42G and 1024MB RAM is sufficient. Where a MacMini is a little lacking is in hard disk throughput. Try plugging in a FireWire external drive (7200 RPM, 3.5 inch disk) and putting your audio tracks on it.

A MacMini is light enough that you could tote it to a retail Mac or Apple store and borrow a drive for a few minutes in the store to make sure this works, or get a demo drive for a few days on a credit card. Good store managers might see this as a training opportunity for their sales staff.

The internal drive is fine for booting and hosting applications, but if I remember correctly, it is a 1.8 inch 5400rpm laptop drive optimized for energy conservation/low-noise/low heat, not DAW applications.

Best luck.

karl keefer
Portland Oregon

[ourmanflinty]

I've seen this before with DP and Atmosphere...it's easy! You'll find that GPO comes configured for 32 or 64 voices or more, turn it down and see what happens. It worked for my customer.

I'd move up to an iMac g5 with that setup though, a g4 will feel the strain especially with D "cpu hog" P, a complex program like reason and a RAM and CPU hungry player like GPO.

[keefer.k]

ourmanflinty,

Good call! I did this while configuring DP4.6 on a G4/450/1.25GB, and didn't think twice, because even Photoshop tries to give you lots of layers of undo in cache to slow down all but the most mighty G5's.
I dropped DP to 16 voices and don't miss anything.
No virtual synth's on my system, and holding out for the last G5 PPC's.

This is a good general recommendation: lower system requirements to just above what you really need to do the job.


Karl