I upgraded - Yes, I did it!

Post by **Neil B** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 11:44 am

Well, thanks to all, I took the plunge and left my comfortably stable PIII 700, Win 98 and snail like speed behind.

I got a P4 3.6 Intel, PCI-E, 915 board (okay I'm ducking before you throw anything at me

), 2*1 Gb memory - dual core, 2 *250 Gb Sata hard drives and the system unit has 4 fans, one of which seems to be an extractor fan.

So I'm running on Win XP with Scope 3.1c and Cubase VST32/5.1r1.

A couple of 3rd party freebie pulsar synths gave the blue screen of death so they've been consigned to the past.

Cubase is stable, although I'm having problems adding my additional Mtron banks (GMedia are going to sort it out).

Other than that - great.

Quick tests:
Atmosphere loading a big strings patch (72Mb)
On the old PC - 90 seconds
On the new PC - 1 second (really)
Convert to 32 bit (same patch) - 1 second

Kontakt loading lots of choirs:
Old PC - groan, don't want to play
New PC - no problems

Normalise a 5 minute track
Old PC - 4 mins
New PC - 3 secs

Export a 5 minute song (mixdown) in Cubase
Old pc - 20 minutes at least
New pc - untested - expect to be about 1 minute.

Cubase CPU meter loads with big synths, CPU hungry VST's et al - early stages of testing but nothing has gone above 2% yet -
Superwave P8 would be 80% with one note on the old pc.

For some strange reason, the sound is clearer, brighter, better stereo panorama (or is it my ears playing tricks)???

I'm still in the process of data transfer from the old machine to the new, and restructuring whilst I go along so that I have a clean, structured machine again.

Am I happy? Yes, so far

Can't wait to start writing again.

Thanks to everyone for their contributions.

Oh and by the way if any Brits are interested:
The setup above cost (no screen, keyboard or mouse) 520 pounds UK. I'm satisfied with that. In one of my previous jobs I was responsible for the company buying one of the first ever PC's with a 10Mb hard disk and green screen - An IBM PC AT. Brand new it cost 10K.
So at 520 quid I'm a happy bunny

_________________
Neil B
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

[ This Message was edited by: Neil B on 2006-08-17 12:47 ]

Post by **garyb** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 7:34 pm

congrats!
have fun!

good to see the 915 chipset giving no problems. i would expect it to...just giving the news of the day. sometimes there are bad motherboards.

[ This Message was edited by: garyb on 2006-08-18 01:55 ]

soul-synthesis · Post by **soul-synthesis** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 10:25 pm

isnt technology just great!! have fun!

Counterparts · Post by **Counterparts** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 1:02 am

A slight performance increase then

emzee · Post by **emzee** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 6:23 am

Can you say "whiplash"?

Ben Walker · Post by **Ben Walker** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 6:57 am

First Broadband, next a P4 processor!
Wow, what's next on the list, Neil?

hifiboom · Post by **hifiboom** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 7:17 am

really? how could you work with something like this: "PIII 700, Win 98" for such a long time?

I nearly upgrade every 1 or 2 years. Its like getting new shoes for you sequencer...

Last one was an AMD, next one will be a Conroe, I`m sure...

So congratulations....
By the way: having more power and memomry also does help to make your system more stable....

with 90% on your CPU and windows scratching on your harddisk because of memory overflow, its easy to crash a sequencer like Cubase....

Post by **Neil B** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 8:39 am

Gary - It was you I was ducking from

Royston - just a slight improvement eh? Damn, I can't cut the lawns while I do a mixdown anymore:D
Mind you, with the old PC I could've driven down to you in Bath (?) and back.

Ben - Broadband was part of the plan in a roundabout way. I got the broadband on the home/office/internet pc so I could do the downloads I needed (if required).
Whatever next?? Well my wife is getting on in years now

Mind you, older women are great - they say "thank you" after

HiFiboom: A few years ago people on this site/planet were using PIII 700's and producing better quality music than I am now.
So instead of blaming the kit, I stuck with it, deciding to learn the technology I'd got. So, as it's a part time hobby, I was quite happy to cut the lawns while I did a mixdown.
In the end though it got a bit too frustrating and knocked the flow of writing for six because of the time lag.
Anyway, I can't keep upgrading every 1 or 2 years on a pension - my wife would kill me

EmZee : "WHIPLASH" - yeah I can say it.

Anyway, all data ported, all systems configured. Just need to backup the new machine/structure now (a note there for Scope4Alive) and then I can get stuck into using it all again.

hifiboom · Post by **hifiboom** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 10:30 am

Hey Neil,

don`t take it to serious, what I said....
I`m just doing jokes...

Pc power is improving that fast...
You can hardly stay up to date...

But at the moment I would not like to work with anything less than 2Ghz on a actual sequencer with audio and FX.

The future will be even more extreme, with Quad-Core-CPUs, there won`t be that much limitations to an audiouser...

And yes: at all it doesn`t help to produce better sounding music, its just nice for workflow...

Post by **Neil B** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 10:58 am

Hi Hifiboom
Sorry if you mis-read me - I wasn't taking it too serious. Okay I'm sick of porting data and installing and just a little bit tired, but I didn't mean it to be serious.

Maybe you missed my original topic asking for help on deciding to upgrade. I wrote:

"My PC has reached retirement age. It's a Pentium III 700 running Windows 98, with Pulsar II and 3.1c
Software-wise I use Cubase VST 5.1/32, Wavelab 4, Recycle and a few other applications.

First of all I have to say that I'm happy with the software and I'm also on a budget.
I'm not one of those people who upgrades for the sake of it, nor am I the sort of person who wants to buy every new VST synth/effect/widget that comes out.

My philosophy is that when I can produce music to a standard that you guys were achieving 4 or 5 years ago (on a similar setup), and when I've learned and exhausted everything I've got in my armoury, then I may get a bigger wallet out.
In the end it's a hobby which gives me pleasure.

Basically, I'm more or less comfortable, but there are problems to keeping the setup that I have:

The PC is underpowered.
Synths such as Vanguard (some patches), Superwave etc overload the CPU at times, particularly on big pads.
I can't upgrade Atmosphere to the latest version because 98 isn't supported by it.
There are a few small additions I'd like to buy but again 98 isn't supported. "

etc etc.

So, in the end, everyone has helped me make up my mind and move forward (even though Gary advised against the 915).
I was simply thanking everyone who helped, perhaps helping others thinking of upgrading (and I've received PM's to that effect) and finally to close off what has been an ongoing topic for a few weeks.
I felt it only right that I should inform those who've helped of the difference in my old and new pc. Perhaps they can all pat themselves on the back for helping a luddite out.

No offence taken - no sharp reply intended.
Enjoy your weekend

Post by **garyb** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 12:36 pm

On 2006-08-17 20:34, garyb wrote:
congrats!
have fun!

good to see the 915 chipset giving no problems. i would expect it to...just giving the news of the day. sometimes there are bad motherboards.

[ This Message was edited by: garyb on 2006-08-18 01:55 ]

what i was trying to say was that i would expect that motherboard to work. i was just repeating the news that some users had reported problems.