Do I need to upgrade?

[wilx]

I'm having some trouble running EW GoldXP on my G5, so I thought I'd see what kind of systems people are running it on with no problems...


I'm using a Mac G5, dual 2.3ghz, 4GB RAM, the G5's coreaudio for sound.
Logic is on my system drive, and all my samples are on a separate drive.

Here's an example of my current project:

3 instances of EW Gold XP
One of Symph Choirs (just a standard 'ah' patch, no words)

On loading the project, I get this message (sometimes for one GoldXP instance, sometimes for two)

EWQLSO Gold XP

WARNING: memory is getting low.
This may cause dropouts or other artifacts!

The project generally plays OK, although it's clear the computer is doing a lot of work to keep up.

When I try to load an instrument in the 4th slot of my 3rd GoldXP instance, I get the 'memory is getting low' message again.
The loading bar gets somewhere between 10-80%, freezes, and Logic crashes. Every time.

So, assuming this is normal, what should I do for good performance? At the moment my track is crippled and I can't add low brass, any woodwinds or any more articulations.

Should I get more RAM, or even another computer?

TIA

[Benedict Nichols]

I've been experiencing a similar problem:

I can load up 8 brass instruments (sus and stac for tpt, horn, trombone and wagmer) and 2 percussion tracks.

If i try anymore it crashes on me. my specs are macbook pro 2.2Ghz, 4Gb RAM Logic, K3 (or K2)

any suggestions please?!

[Doug Rogers]

Originally Posted by Benedict Nichols

I've been experiencing a similar problem:

I can load up 8 brass instruments (sus and stac for tpt, horn, trombone and wagmer) and 2 percussion tracks.

If i try anymore it crashes on me. my specs are macbook pro 2.2Ghz, 4Gb RAM Logic, K3 (or K2)

any suggestions please?!

Benedict, If you're using a standard MacBook Pro (without the hard drive upgrade) the drive is too slow, it runs at 5400rpm and that will severely limit performance, you should upgrade the internal drive or add a firewire 800 drive.

Wilx, that message is a warning you are about to run out of system resources, if you don't hear any audio artifacts (always the ultimate test), don't worry about it. Adding ram always helps.

- DR

[MellotronGhost]

on my "old" g5 1.8 i was able to run ewqlso gold xp with no problem, well you have to set some limits in number of articulations, but i was possible to run a basic full score, i had my articulations spread out over 10 or so kontakt2 instances.

make sure your additional ram is being properly recognized by the system (see system profiler).
also check how much space you have left on your hard drives. if they are full to the brim it may cause problems. always leave around 5-10gb of free space minimum on them depending on their size.
also, check your kontakt2 dfd settings. you may play around with them to find a setting that works best for you, it really can make a big difference.

[Benedict Nichols]

Originally Posted by Doug Rogers

Benedict, If you're using a standard MacBook Pro (without the hard drive upgrade) the drive is too slow, it runs at 5400rpm and that will severely limit performance, you should upgrade the internal drive or add a firewire 800 drive.

Wilx, that message is a warning you are about to run out of system resources, if you don't hear any audio artifacts (always the ultimate test), don't worry about it. Adding ram always helps.

- DR

Thanks Doug. Im actually running it from an external hard drive by USB 2...it may have more to do with my DFD settings and ram. but i dont really know. could you tell me what the optimum DFD settings are for my setup please? That would be a great help. I realise that every setup is different, but any general numbers/settings would be a great help.

thanks for your time!

[MellotronGhost]

Originally Posted by Benedict Nichols

Thanks Doug. Im actually running it from an external hard drive by USB 2...it may have more to do with my DFD settings and ram. but i dont really know. could you tell me what the optimum DFD settings are for my setup please? That would be a great help. I realise that every setup is different, but any general numbers/settings would be a great help.

thanks for your time!

you need to switch to an esata or firewire drive. usb is not suitable for sample libraries on an external drive. eliminating the usb connection may already solve your problem.

[wilx]

Originally Posted by Doug Rogers

Wilx, that message is a warning you are about to run out of system resources, if you don't hear any audio artifacts (always the ultimate test), don't worry about it. Adding ram always helps.

- DR

Thanks, but as I said in my post, attempting to add any more instruments causes Logic to crash every time I attempt it, so this is quite a big problem for any project that requires more than one or two instances of EW GoldXP.

Originally Posted by MellotronGhost

on my "old" g5 1.8 i was able to run ewqlso gold xp with no problem, well you have to set some limits in number of articulations, but i was possible to run a basic full score, i had my articulations spread out over 10 or so kontakt2 instances...

Thanks. My RAM all seems to be recognised OK, and if you could get up to 10 instances of GoldXP running without problems, then there's definitely a problem somewhere with my setup.Both
Both hard disks have a decent amount of free space on them.

My DFD settings are:

DFD active
Preload buffer size: 0.84mb
Voice buffer size: 0.84mb
Reserved voices: 200
Mem Total: 168.75mb

----

My Logic settings are :

CoreAudio enabled
Device: Built-in audio
I/O buffer size: 512 samples
software monitoring on

Process Buffer Range: Large


Weirdly, the 'dfd' light is only coming on for one of my GoldXP instances (the percussion one) even though all of them are set to dfd (and presumably settings should be linked and uniform across all the instances).


I'd really appreciate it if this could get resolved without me having to buy a new mac! It looks as though I should be able to do what I'm attempting to do (and more) with the system I have, but I just need to figure out what's going wrong before I can sort it out.

Thanks for the replies so far...