cpu overload

A

anaujiram

Active member
sup i just start make music 4 month ago and now i use alot of plug in and effect i have a a laptop with quad core amd 1.8hz at first i start having crackling so i just get the asio driver and it was ok but now at the half of a song with many plug in at the middle of the song my cpu overload to 100% and just stop then it try to restart but it jump to 100% again and stop i forgot to say that i only have 4 g of ram so now what i want to know is i want to get a audio interface usb something like a m-audio c400 that allow you a better sound quality my question is if its gonna help my cpu cause i have a laptop and the sound card is not design for making music or im gonna have to just get a better computer eventually (still goona buy a external sound card tought ) want to know your opinion about this thx and i use one midi keyboard and one mpd pad
 
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it's possible it will.... however it's also possible it won't.

I noticed an improvement in CPU load when I upgraded my audio interface to a good firewire interface. If you have a firewire port.. it's worth the buy. An interface is a god idea to have anyway.. because you can easily expand your setup.. add microphones... record sounds, and hook up studio monitors. The ASIO driver of the interface should help your CPU load if it's a good brand interface.. but it's not 100% guaranteed. This is so because the CPU strnegth also has a lot to do with this. The AMD processors are not exactly superhigh end chips even if they are quad. You could probably benefit from an upgrade there too. You can upgrade laptops... (i upgraded the CPU in my laptop).. but you must be careful w/ dissassembling it, installing the CPU properly and carefully, and reassembling it. Takes patience more than anything.

I would first see if the CPU upgrade is possible for you. Check your laptop's specs and see what the highest grade CPU it will take (check for what your "socket" is on the motherboard... that's how you can tell why CPU's it will take.) You will definitely see improvement immediately if you buy a CPU that's clearly faster.

After that... add a good brand audio interface. I like the Echo Audiofire4 for firewire based interfaces. I hear the Focusrite Saffire is very good... as well as the MAudio Profire. Either of those should give you a semi-professional setup instantly. If you need USB... i'd look at the Focusrite Scarlet series.
 
ahh I see.... well, your CPU doesn't have a HORRIBLE processor... but yeah... I can see how you feel limited by it.. even though it's quad core it's still only 1.8GHz. I have the bigger brother of this at 3.2GHZ... and while it does run great and allows me to get work done... i still feel limited when my projects get huge.

If you get a new computer... get an Intel processor. They are better all around. Also... build your own desktop if you can. (ie.. if u don't realy need a laptop, which most people don't even though they think they do lol.. especially if it's a music computer). You could just keep your laptop for mobile web browsing.... but have your studio set up on a powerful desktop. I dunno.... something to consider.


Lastly... before you go out and buy a new computer... you can also try overclocking your CPU. You might notice a improvement. I have my AMD phenom overclocked from 3.2GHZ to 3.8GHZ. I felt the difference to say the least lol.

Go into your system BIOS (the startup screen before Windows starts to open). Go into the CPU settings and there's usually an option for overclocking. Try overclocking it by slowly bumping it up a few percentage points. Try 5%, then 10%, etc. Mine is overclocking at about 20% with no problem... but once i go a step higher all hell breaks lose.

The chips have a built-in safety system so they won't explode on u if u accidently push it too hard lol. Just don't keep pushing it too hard. Take it down a notch when you hit the max limit.
 
no problem.

if you still notice issues after u overclock... then you'll ultimately want to upgrade your CPU.
 
anaujiram said:
no i dont how can i use this freeze fonction ?
Click to expand...

Depends on which DAW you're using, but basically what "freeze" does is that it renders a plugin's output into audio temporarily, which is much easier on the CPU than having the plugin work realtime. It still retains the settings of everything in the background, so you can always "unfreeze" to change things around.
 
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