Pc specs, buying tomorrow?

ops, sorry, running now at 128, which is fine with everything, even with Tantra, but when opening the GUI, I get occasional clicks.

I tried 256 now, then no clicks in Tantra with GUI open

Here you can see the CPU load is 28% (Tantra on, GUI closed)

However here CPU load is 41%, occasionally spiking to 48%

Both images are with the 256 buffersize. To me, it’s a bit too much of a buffer for it to feel good, 128 works, but I’d love to be able to get down to 64, but it’s maybe not possible…

Anyway, thanks for any comments on this.

Frode

I had a very bad experience one year ago. A super fast gaming PC that had serious driver collisions preventing any possible audio use.
My experience was so bad that after 6 months of fighting I sold that bloody PC and bought a Mac.
Never buy before a serious test with LatencyMon.
If that program shows bad latency caused by system drivers, leave that PC on the vendor bench and try another one.
I got the feeling that new Intel chips are sensible to that because BIOS settings often do not allow to exclude some “sleeping” cycles, typical solution to prevent too high temperatures.

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Why not build a rack mount PC? I’m an AMD guy – not Intel. You could get an AMD Ryzen 5 5600G 6-Core 12-Thread which runs almost identical performance stats – for alot less. I couldn’t read the price on the link you posted as it comes up in German (I think it is German). I have another AMD chip in a 3 space rackmount case that I built… and I run firewire at 48K and 64 samples – no glitches with about 85 rackspaces in my gigfile. I wouldn’t get anything < 1TB hard drive. You’ll chew up 512G before you know it.

Gig Performer CPU meter is specifically measuring cycles used for audio processing. There should not be anything significant in the audio processing thread beyond stuff needed to well, process audio.

If that CPU meter goes up significantly when the plugin editor is open, then I guarantee you that the implementation is seriously flawed and you should report this to the developer. Whoever wrote it is most likely trying to modify the visual stuff from inside the audio processing thread, thereby seriously holding up audio processing and that is why you’re getting clicks.

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I would only consider a PC with a base frequency of at least 3GHz, 1.8GHz is really not a lot. But, it is perhaps enough for your bass cabinets and FX, I don’t know…

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Yeah, I just got off the phone with the store, apparently they have misquoted the specs, so it’s actual clock is 3.0ghz with a max boost to 4.8ghz.
I guess I’ll be buying this, as it seams to have more than enough power to run gigperformer with a console plugin, some effects, eq’s, compressor etc…

Thanks for all the input folks!

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I play bass, so don’t use sample libraries etc, only plugins like bass amp, consoles, eq, comp & efx. I’m thinking the 512gb will suffice in this situation? I guess I could also hook up a usb 3.2 ssd if I need more space down the line…?

For example, Band in a Box uses lots of .WAV files. My current install of 2022 BiaB Ultra with all of the Extra packs uses 151 GB of drive space. I use it for creating backing tracks to practise bass to. I have it installed on a 2TB external Thunderbolt 3 drive (Drive D:, my samples drive). I’d recommend getting a 1TB or 2TB Samsung T7 USB 3.2 drive and make it your D: drive from the beginning. I have two of the T7 2TB drives (E: for work files and F: for backups). They work great and are not nearly as expensive at the Thunderbolt SSD. Amazon has the 1TB at $160 and the 2TB at $260.

I hope it’s OK for me to ask this, could you share a picture of your setup?
How do you do this screen-wise?
I saw a build online somewhere where the pc was built in a suitcase with screen attached to the lid, so it looked like a somewhat oversized laptop .
I ask because I bought the laptop yesterday, and I’m not being able to get good numbers in latencymon.
My desktop is and, and it’s a beast.
The store I bought at has a 50 day refund policy, and checking prices , building a similar pc to my desktop but in a rack, would cost only slightly more, so it’s tempting to do the return thing…

Certainly! Working right now but after work I’ll post pics and a rundown on what I use.

I am sorry to see I was right… Very recent windows notebooks seem to be unable to have serious LatencyMon performance. Which means audio dropouts.
Where desktop machines with same technology are perfectly able to manage that.
My last idea was to built a NUC with a portable touchscreen.
I got a i7 NUC at home as HTPC and it is perfect for audio

You have to optimize it first, have a look here:

If your laptop goes to the PDT-DOWN frequency of 1.2GHz your are dead, you have to optimize the CPU for performance.

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Hi,
Actually, i finally managed to get the high performance power setting to appear so I could set the course and usb power settings.
I tested the system for a while this evening, and no clicks or dropouts, the tantra plugin behaved better than on my older laptop, even with the gui open, so I guess a few more days of testing before deciding to either keep or move on. So, a bit more optimistic now. But it fails the latency mon test, in that the bottom graph goes too high. Acpi I believe is the issue. No clicks though…

Yeah, the 1.8ghz thing was an error on the shops web.
It’s actually 3.0ghz.
And been optimizing the whole day, and no crackling now, but still fails the latencymon test…oh well…it runs better than my old laptop which passes the latencymon test, go figure…

It was not an error of the shop this lower frequency exist and is supposed to be configurable.

Source: Intel Core i71185G7 Processor 12M Cache up to 4.80 GHz with IPU Product Specifications

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Would it work ok if you just play more slowly?:exploding_head:

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Good tip, @npudar should add it in the optimization handbook :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: :+1:

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It sounds like you’ve ironed out your problem and are testing. I won’t clog the discussion with more variables. If you would still like my build info, I can post – but otherwise sounds like you are on your way.

Yes, I would love to see your build info.
I have a 50 day window to test and see if the laptop is viable, I’m a bit insecure as it fails the latencymon test every time, but so far it does what I need it to (process my bass in realtime) without clicks at a good latency. But it’s good to check out some other options in case I do decide to return it. Thanks! :slight_smile:

I have a 3 rack space case that I mounted a PC in. For a CPU I have an AMD Ryzen 1800X 8-core processor with an .M2 500GB HD and 16GB of DDR4 memory. I run windows 10 along with a program I installed (free) WinPatrol which let’s me run “headless”. I.e… I turn my computer on and it boots and runs GP without any intervention needed. So basically my PC is just another switch I turn on at a gig.

I got my PC 2nd hand for $400 that was a desktop. I bought a $100 3 rack-space case and moved the guts into it. In addition I added a firewire card (about $20), a Firewire interface (M-Audio 410 - about $30 on Ebay). I have a wireless router (<$30 – I have several and I could give you 1 if you pay for shipping) that I connect to it so I can use an IPAD to login to it at a gig – but I don’t need to do this.

In addition - I always carry a wired keyboard and mouse with me at gigs – and a small 7-inch VGA monitor (about $70). 99 times out of 100 I don’t need to do anything but turn my PC on… But windows sometimes will need a keypress or something when it boots (like a CHKDSK that runs out of the blue). In that case you need to get into the computer before it boots and hit enter a couple of times – but again this is like 1 time out of 100. – Better safe than sorry so keyboard, mouse and small monitor are a backup.

We’re probably getting a little off topic here of GP-- I hope the admins don’t mind. Anyway we can chat offline if you want to delve deeper into what I do – mjlupo@yahoo.com.

What I have is just 1 of thousand’s of setups that work. Mine works well (with Firewire) and let’s me keep focused on GP and rackspaces without worrying about hardware and glitches.


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