MusicPlayerNetwork.com Forums MPN Archives Craig Anderton's SSS Archives HDD streaming better than RAM streaming?

Hello All,

I am building a new PC centered around Logic Audio
and Cubase 5. I need some feedback to help me decide
on two issues.

SPecs:
Plll 1GHz 512 MG SDRAM
Windos 98 SE
Asus CUSL2-C Mother board.

I will us my PC mostly Sample playing through hard drive streaming
technology like GigaStudio, Halyon, Reality, and soon also
EXS24. I believe this sample streaming from the hard drive
Will give me greater polyphony over RAM based sample
Playback. In other words does HDD sample streaming use
less RAM which then frees the RAM for other uses?
Is this so?



------------------

Check out my web site -- http://www.audiomaverick.com . It is a crude diary of my PC digital recorder. No picture, yet. But, I went with an ASUS CU4VX, last summer.

The biggest IDE drive performance hit I've been hit with is that the onboard IDE controller requires the CPU to do its calculatory work. This really loads down the CPU on multi-track work, and is a really strong reason why SCSI has been better for drive I/O.

You can get more performance, though, for some more bucks. http://www.promise.com offers an IDE 2-drive RAID controller that uses its own onboard microcontroller. You can run the data drive as a single drive, or buy a matched pair and RAID them together. This level of RAID has no redundancy, so a drive failure will be catastrophic. But, you get the summed space of both drives, and double the transfer rates. The controller is running around $100.00 - check out http://www.pricewatch.com .

As for memory issues, Win98-SE has been both good and bad. I switched to WinME (install from scratch, please) with positive results. It will allow you to use the whole 512MB of RAM (Win98 - 128MB, Win98-SE - 256MB) through the OS. Also, WinME breaks the maximum 64GB hard drive size limit, regardless of how you partition it.

Good luck on your project! And, make sure you get a good video card, too. I picked up a Matrox G400-Max, which is now replaced by the G450.

I plan to use the 3ware Escalade 6200 or 6410


As for memory issues, Win98-SE has been both good and bad. I switched to WinME (install from scratch, please) with positive results. It will allow you to use the whole 512MB of RAM (Win98 - 128MB, Win98-SE - 256MB) through the OS. Also, WinME breaks the maximum 64GB hard drive size limit, regardless of how you partition it.


You maen that Windows 98SE cannot use 512MB ram?

Good luck on your project! And, make sure you get a good video card, too. I picked up a Matrox G400-Max, which is now replaced by the G450.[/B][/QUOTE]

Plan to use the G450

The question I need most help with is:

I will us my PC mostly Sample playing through hard drive streaming
technology like GigaStudio, Halyon, Reality, and soon also
EXS24. I believe this sample streaming from the hard drive
Will give me greater polyphony over RAM based sample
Playback. In other words does HDD sample streaming use
less RAM which then frees the RAM for other uses?
Is this so?

------------------