Smenelian

Bought this a couple weeks ago (at the $20 price of course). Some of this library doesn't convert so well to soundfont, namely the instruments with multiple articulations. A great deal nonetheless.

Eh, the C2D is supposed to be pretty good for overclocking. If he knows anyone who is good with that stuff, he could get a serious performance boost. I would also suggest waiting till next month for the price drop that is supposed to happen when the new chips come out.

Well since the Core 2 Duo is dual core and not dual processor...wouldn't it still work in XP Home? I could be very wrong about this but I assumed that was the case. Also, the original poster could opt for a cheaper C2D and overclock it to better than the e6600. I'm all about saving money whenever possible.

What the the advantage of Pro over Home? From an audio production standpoint, of course.

Well, I am seriously considering building a new machine in a few months if I can find enough good deals on parts. I do a fair share of gaming and multi tasking, and my current system is chugging a bit too much for my liking in those areas too. My mobo doesn't support PCIe either...so yeah, won't be worth much for gaming in a few years. The audio issues are just another reason to do it. Does a motherboard specifically have to support a fancy audio device, or will anything with a PCI slot do the job? I have the most recent drivers for my audio. My video card on the other hand...I should get on that. About QLSO's effects...I happen to like the chorus quite a bit. Beats the one in FL anyway. Or maybe since I don't know what half the knobs do in the FL chorus, I shouldn't really be talking.

I should mention that my CPU gets higher than 30%, just that particular example happened to be that amount. Some of my other stuff hovers around 70%-80%. I usually always get popping sounds around that range, even with the latency cranked up to around 100ms. I just keep it around 50ms in most cases, because it doesn't seem to make any difference the higher I go after that. Tons of CPU but few samples? Haven't been able to accomplish that. I don't remember all the specs of my HD, but I know it's 7200 rpm. zircon was saying something similar... I don't normally have any major trouble with QL silver. I think Sytrus and Sampletank are the biggest offenders. Dunno if ST relies on disk streaming or not.

Well, this thread has gotten quite a bit of attention... Nothing has changed except I keep loading more and more things into my projects. I use FL as the host and usually have some random VST instruments thrown in, like EWQLSO Silver, Plugsound, Sytrus, and a couple others. I use DirectWave for a sampler since it works pretty well and it came with the XXL version of FL anyway. On one of my newer songs, I've got about 35 channels, about half of which are VSTs with 1-5 effects in the mixer or on the plugin itself. My CPU usage is about 30% and there is a lot of crackling during some parts. How much more performance can I expect from something like a Core 2 Duo? Let's say one that runs at around 2.8 GHz.

Aside from a midi keyboard that I will get when I have the space for one, I do everything with software. I've done the occasional playing with the typing keyboard, but the latency kills the already unsatisfying experience. So I guess that means I'll need to be looking into a new CPU first. What I really need is a completely new computer. The one I have now is starting to become old and isn't going to be worth upgrading with all the new technology that it doesn't support. Such is the life of those who like to keep up with the times. I tried out Asio4all and it nearly tripled my CPU usage, though I could decrease my latency a bit. Windows blue screened me about 3 times with it installed too, and after uninstalling the blue screens stopped. I'm not hearing a significant difference in that sample, Justus. It may be my headphones (Sony MDR 7506), or maybe I just don't know what I'm listening for.

I currently have onboard audio which has gotten me by so far without any trouble. That is until about the start of this year, when my CPU has decided that my audio projects are too much for it. I have a P4 3.2 GHz with 1 GB of RAM and normally live with about 46 ms of latency, which I know isn't considered good. How much would I benefit from an audio card?