must PC be dedicated to gigastudio?

[csduke]

I run Giga on a PC with my sequencer (but only for a short time more images/icons/smile.gif ). The sequencer slows down when the system heavily loaded but, you can make an AWFUL LOT of music that performs perfectly running one PC. Make certian you optimize your OS for DAWs (see Tascam and others). It is usually the NFX that are the problem. I run a PIII @ 866MHz for this work.

I haven\'t allocated two partitions but have created two Hardware Configuration (one normal and the other giga). I choose one at startup. This capability is built-into Windows. The difference between them is which drivers are installed e.g. no USB enabled for giga etc. When I am more serious about perfect performance and I the sequencer is stalling a bit (though never clicks) I will disable as many background tasks as I can via msconfig.

[Francis Belardino]

You should not partion your drive. This will not help in the Giga world. The best performance will come via a C system drive... D audio drive and last an E giga drive.

Make a world of diff images/icons/smile.gif

[Ian Ash]

Francis,

Are you saying that it is better to use three completely separate harddrives, rather than partitioning one HD? I think you are and it makes a lot of sense. I would think that putting in a new harddrive just for gigastudio and having aseparate one for other audio would significantly reduce the peripheral resources needed.

Let me know if this is what your advocating.

Thanks,

Ian

[Francis Belardino]

With out a doubt that is what I am saying images/icons/smile.gif

Trust me.
images/icons/rolleyes.gif

[Francis Belardino]

BTW (home studio NOT audiovisionsonline)

VIDEO:
Dell p4 2.5 ghz 512ram 40 gig 7200 HD
2 firewire cards (capture/playback)
1 80 gig firewire drive
Creative Audigy 2 Platinum eX (5.1 AISO MIXING)
Vegas 4.0

Mackie control for scruuuuuubin

AUDIO/GIGA:
Dell Cel 4 1.8 512 ram
5 port USB 2.0/pci card
120 gig USB 2.0 HD (GIGA FILES Don\'t tell the wife how many I have)
40 gig 7200 HD for audio capture
20 ig 7200 system drive (c)
Delta DIO (digital out to Vegas Digi IN Audigy 2 Platinum eX)

[falcon1]

Francis,

do you get 160 polyphony with your audio computer?

What motherboard are you using?

No trouble with gigastudio or audio?

[ninriggs]

You can use a partitioned drive.... just make sure that the gig files sit on the fastest drive you have in the system. I have a 40 gig ibm drive split in two. Giga is installed on the main 20 gig partition with the system... the gig files are on the other partition.. I have another 60 gig in there for everything else....

I have no problems with this setup.

I would recomend the fastest drive for gigastudio but it doesnt have to be on its own....

[ninriggs]

Another thing i might add is about the type of PC you use... Be carefull when choosing components for your \"audio\" pc as some boards/cpu\'s/hdd\'s work better than others...but dont take this too far...

There will ALWAYS be a bottle neck in the machine that you use.. even with the fastest machine and components you will still find that something in the system will be slower than something else..

Its a shame that solid state hdd\'s have not come in to the mainstream market... They would be an excellent solution for gigastudio... from what i remember from an article i read they could make them really small with almost limitless amounts of space.. Using light reacting crystals that change when activated so can represent an On or OFF state.... with it being light the data transfer rate would be fantastic..

....prob still take hours to defrag though.... images/icons/smile.gif
oh well.

[Scott Cairns]

You can run Giga on a general purpose machine. Just get Partition Magic (or something similar)<font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">Dont forget you can right click on My Computer and select \"Manage\" under Win2K/XP and use Disk Managment to create partitions.

Also, instead of having a dual boot machine, has anyone tried creating seperate profiles when they log into their machine? You can install apps and configure your system to only show up in one profile.

I haven\'t actually tried this, it\'s just a thought. images/icons/smile.gif It would be handy to create a \"DAW\" account with a minimal installation of the music apps you require.

Also, I dont think there would be a big advantage in installing Giga on another hard drive. The application itself still has call on files; DLL\'s, Com objects etc, that reside on the C: drive anyway. I\'m no expert in this but it might be that the program performs even BETTER on the C: drive as it is a quicker call to Windows.

Regards, Scott.

[Ian Ash]

I recently read someone\'s comments saying that Giga studio had to be run on a PC dedicated to that software - in other words NOT running anything else. Is this true, or can you run it on a PC that is setup for general use with other software?

Thanks,
Ian

[pantonality]

Hi Ian,

You can run Giga on a general purpose machine. Just get Partition Magic (or something similar) so you can set up a partition with just the music aplications installed. That way when you want a general purpose system you boot up as general purpose, when you want to do music you boot up the music partition. When you want to switch from one to the other just reboot. The reason for this is that office (especially Micro$oft Office) and internet applications tend to interfere with other programs that need to sompute in real time (music). Good luck.

Steve Chandler

[falcon1]

pantonality,

do you mean that it\'s a must to make two (or more)partitions and installing OS on each?

[Francis Belardino]

Guys images/icons/smile.gif

You may want to check out a post on the issue in the sample CD section of this site.

Bruce Richardson, goes into more detail and why not to partion. Partion magic?? Yikes!! No!

images/icons/smile.gif Happy Gigain\'

[csduke]

Partitions will not improve performance. As a matter of fact, they probably add an extra layer of software to every disk request (though probably minimal). Only drives on separate IDE channels will make a difference in performance. This is what multitasking OSs buy you.

[Vertigo50]

WHOOOOOOAAAAAAAA there partner! Why on earth would you partition your drive? Partitioning means that you\'re splitting up the data at the beginning of the disc from the data at the end of the disk, so if you\'re using data from both partitions, your disc is having to jump back and forth between the two. (Not exactly, but theoretically) Why would you want to do that? Get seperate drives.