Hi all

I just have a simple question...how should I set my system up?

I have:

Mac G5 Dual 2Ghz
Digi002
Internal 160Gig HD (with Tiger on it)
Internal 160Gig HD (spare)
External FW HD (Currently my Audio Drive)

I get Drive too slow errors and I still get CPU errors which I hate and was the reason for upgrading to the G5.

What is the best setup? The G5 has 2 Firewire posts, 1x 400 Mbit/s and 1x 800 Mbit/s ( I know you guys know this ).

The Digi002 has 2x Firewire 400Mbit/s Ports.

I can have my audio drive as the Internal main drive, internal secondry drive or external Firewire drive 400Mbit/s or 800Mbit/s.

I also have a 6 pin to 9 pin firewire cable.

Any ideas?

Is it better to run the 002 on the 800Mbit/s port or the Audio Drive? what need to work faster?

Any help will be much appreciated.

Cheers
Cybercampbell

Hi at this point in time according to sound on sound magazine you can't run pro tools with tiger they said this sohuld change in the near future, it appears digi design are a bit slow on catch up.

Take care
Flash

not according to this

Cybercampbell, are you running 6.9.2 ProTools LE?

I would recommend you use your secondary internal drive for Audio and connect your 002 via the Firewire 400 port.

Try using seperate ports for your firewire devices. If your drive is fw800 capable then put that on the 800 bus, the 002 was designed for 400 ports so stick that on there.

Out of interest, how many tracks and at what bit depth and sample rate are you running when you get drive too slow messages, and what drive were you using at that time, the external, was it chained off the back of the 002?

Also what version PT software?

Thanks for the advice.

I'm running PT 6.9.2 (Tiger compatable)

at the moment i'm running the digi002 on the FW400 port and I have my sample libraries running on and external drive on the other FW400 port and I have the master drive (containing the OS) as my audio drive.

Is it better to have the Audio drive on the secondry drive?

I only have 512MB of RAM...could that cause the problem?

am I correct in saying that because the digi002 has a FW400 then there is no point running it on the FW800 port in the G5 (with a 9 to 6 pin lead)? or would I get better performance from the FW800 Port?

I usualy run at 24bit and I get the error message even if i'm only running 10 tracks.

I sometimes run Reason 3 for some basic programming and that seems to make the problem alot worse....but the thing is that the CPU monitor in PT is not even half way, even when Reason 3 is wired in. I launched Activity monitor and the PT is between 30 to 35% and Reason is ony about 1 to 3% usage....how come I get CPU errors in PT?

Here are all the details acording to Activity Monitor:



Here are the error mesages I get in Protools:



I get this and I don't even have any plugins inserted!!
and the buffer is set full...like this:



which sucks when I need to record due to the latency

I also get these alot:





Here is a Hardware overview of my machine:



And my Ram overview:



Is this enough Ram? could this be causing my problems? is there better Ram then this?

also...I thought I would add that I've tryed having both 0%CPU usage in Reason as well as 70% (full) and this made no difference.

and also tried ticking and unticking the box "Use Hi-Res Samples" also no difference.

WHat should I set here in the reason prefs for the best performance?

I hope this make sense.

Cheers
Cybercampbell

Wow lots of info!
Are the refils on the same drive as the PT audio? Are you using samples in PT as well as audio tracks? Basically spread the load, move the refils and the reason sound files to a different drive , like the spare internal. This internal will be much faster than the firewire drive anyway. The 002 will not run any better on the fw800 bus. The drive might, is it a fw800 drive?
The running out of cpu power is a funny one but try lowering the limit ok? Try 50%. Lower latencies also up the ante there and tax the cpu. Lower the limit in Reason too to stop them both competing for space. At leat till things stabilize and then move them up..You also have a few widgets running there, get rid. You need to strip the system down to minmize possible conflicts, I don't use tiger yet ( PT TDM mix on quicksilver DP800, PT 6.4.1, 10.3.8 and PT 5.13 on OS 9.2.2 ) but I'll bet a pound to a bucket of ferrets that they like a bit of resource when it comes time to update and they will get right up Pro Tools nose especially when sucking data off the net and waiting for busy servers etc, constantly bothering the OS for cpu time it's like running hundreds, well, you know, a couple, of progs at a time all fighting for net and cpu and memory and your poor DAW is trying it's hardest to grab bandwith to protect your session.
You can up the DAE buffer size from level 2 to higher, this will make drive acces easier as it buffers more and reduces drive access overhead, it'll make playback slower to start on heavy sessions and it will need more RAM. With your track count though I'm tempted to say lower it to free up ram and move the audio to the spare internal, much faster than a fw400 drive..
No it's not enough RAM, nowhere near, this half your problem. 512 was hardly enough in OS9 with Pro Tools and DAE. Tiger is very hungry, so is PT, so is Reason. You have a cpu based audio engine in PT that is trying to allocate ram for its hardware buffers and each track needs it, plugs need it, os needs it, programs need. Double it at least, much more if you can afford it.
Pro Tools and Reason like to pre-allocate themselves resources so they can guarantee performance. So when the cpu tells them there's not enough availiable they cry, even if they don't need it right now. You're lucky, back in the day everything used to just freeze...

To summarize...

More RAM and leave the widgets in your beer can

You will get better performance running your audio from your secondary internal audio drive.

If your FW drive has a firewire 800 port on it use it if you need to use this drive.

You will not get any better performance running the 002 on the firewire 800 port. Definitely use the firewire 400 port for the 002.

I would also advise you to increase your RAM to 1.5 GB (i.e. add 2 x 512MB).

Have you searched the digidesign user community forums?

Just a thought......could the amount of plugins in my plugins dirrectory have anything to do with it?

Cheers
cybercampbell

ignor that last post....i didn't see the new answers.

I'm on to it and thanks for all the help.

action i'll take:

1. Add 1 gig of RAM (2 x 512MB) totaling 1.5 gig
2. Make my secondry Internal drive my Audio Drive (beter then FW 400/800 external)
3. increase the DAE buffer size from level 2 to higher in PT(to the highest or half way in between?)
4. Put the CPU usage limit to half way in both PT and Reason
5. Run all my samples (for Kontact in PT) and Reason Refills from the External FW800 Drive.
6. Get rid of all the Widgets

Cheers
Cybercampbell

Wow I just noticed, lookit all the virtual memory being used!! No wonder, you're choking the poor thing. Ha ha hold on i'll get a calculator...no no I've stopped counting at 4gigs!!

OS tiger will use virtual memory even if you have 8 gB fitted but your ratio is like 8 to 1!

Add as much as you can afford, a couple of 1gig sticks at least but things will improve with just another 512...

What should I do about the virtaul memory...is it helping or hindering?

What about the dock (which I hate!!!!) does it use allot of resources?

can I get rid of it?

I also run Butler which I like...but they say it uses almoust 0% CPU.

should I ditch it too?

and what about dashboard....what's the story with that? If I run no Widgets then can I get rid of it?

Cheers
Cybercampbell

The dock always gets in the way doesn't it? Try just ditching the widgets, wothout them I don't expect dashboard will do much, if you can quit it, then do. Things like dock just re-launch as soon as you quit them.

You have Kontact too, another RAM demander unless you stream off disk and then it'll be the same disk as the other audio I bet...

Digi set a limit of 24 16 bit 44.1 tracks off a firewire 400 drive, this equates to 12 88.2 16 bit tracks, or 8 24 bit 88.2 or 16 24 bit 44.1, in practice you can get a little more but it will hiccup every now and again. So with PT and Kontact and Reason pulling data off that drive you'll soon max it out.

Spread the load and more ram. I think in a properly set up system on a screamer machine like yours you'll be able to run widgets too but lets see how you get on...

good luck

AHHHH!!!!!

I've done those things but it's still giving me the CPU error

I do have Kontact but I havn't had it running on the G5 yet....More lovely problems to come then? when I do get it it going is it best to run the samples from the FW drive or internal?

It won't play the audio from the internal drive for more then 1 second unless I have the CPU at 99% in PT.

I'll keep trying things.

Thanks for all your help. I'm in South London...maybe I should get you around

Cybercampbell

No that won't help -- although the ports are separate, they use the same controller. (Note: This is true of the PowerBook G4, I haven't yet found the reference for the PowerMac G5)

Rule of thumb is that you should not stream audio data and hard drive data through the same controller. Therefore, use your internal drive for the recording on current projects. Later on, you can move it to the external Firewire to make room and for backup.