VSL & Gigastudio & Win XP - please advise me!

[Chompy]

Hello folks.

I've just spent today playing with the sample tools on the Demo Cube CD - breathtaking stuff. The performance tools in particular allow for a level of expression I never thought possible from sampled instruments. So, VSL is the way forward for me.

BUT! I've been hearing some negative impressions of the combination of VSL and Gigastudio under Windows XP.

If I buy as planned, I will be runing VSL 'Complete Orchestral Package' on Gigastudio 160 version 2.5, on a dedicated Windows XP machine. I will not be sequencing on this machine - I will purely be using it as a MIDI-triggered sampler. I intend to get as much RAM as the machine can house - 1.5 GB if possible.

If you have experience using such a setup, please let me know your impressions, as I am about to take on a huge project which, as is so often the case, needs to be done in a relatively short period of time. If I am likely to encounter crashes or performance irregularities then this will obviously have a detrimental impact on my ability to complete the project!

Please let me know your thoughts.

Best,

Ben

[Iwan Roth]

Chompy,

The problems with Gigastudio and XP vary greatly between different users.
I have a dedicated Gigastudio machine running XP and it works fine. But you have to be aware that for most users, with some inexplicable exceptions, Gigastudio can not use more than 1 GB of RAM, even if you install more in your machine...., which is really not much when using libraries such as VSL or Garritan.

Igor

[Chris Luke]

[:D] Gigastudio 160/ Win XP / 1GB DDR Ram = Rock Solid. I'm running plenty of large samples with no problems. I'm pretty sure that Gigastudio will run out of polyphony BEFORE it uses more than 1GB of RAM.

[Simon Ravn]

Chris, polyphony has nothing to do with the RAM usage. I could easily use more than 1GB RAM, especially with the new modern libraries like VSL, DDBE, GOS, SI Strings etc. e.g. I have a strings template on one machine and I have to load lite patches and patches without release triggers for a lot of them to make them fit in 1GB RAM.

[robgerman]

Greetings Chris:

I am also using an XP (home ver) PC, P4,2GHz, 768MB Ram, M-audio Delta 410 and Midiman Midisport 8x8 with Giga, Sonar and VSL Orch Cube and it runs great. I too am also about to invest in another dedicated Giga PC with more Ram but similar in every other way. The Giga manual recommends Pentium or AMD, so I might shy away from a Celeron Processor. (no technical basis for that, just echoing their docs) By the way, it appears you will have to acquire an extra Giga "site key" for installing on an additional PC to the tune of $350.00. Ouch! Good luck on your purchase and project. [:)]

Rob

[robgerman]

Oops.. I meant that last post to Ben (Chompy)... [:O]ops:

[William]

I'm wondering if the users of Gigastudio who are rock solid have tried the alternation tool yet. Some of my system's problems seem to start with that. I'm still unable to use GS with a Mia card on a p4 512ram with two hds reliably. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated - thanks.

William

[cm]

hi@all,
i'm sure you all have read various threads in the tascam-forum and others
some users complain about XP and GS, some not

the crux with XP is, that it is much more sensitive regarding hardware than any operating system before (you know: certified drivers, special security-context for hardware-related operations, ect)

so what hardware- and software-vendors sometimes like to tell users (*our piece works with _everything_*) is simply not true - there are several hardware-compatibility-lists (unfortunately not for gigastudio except the asio-thing)

if you buy some el-cheapo-thing to run advanced software - which i'm sure does not apply to the users of the vienna symphonic library - you will probably run into some problems and you have a good chance to never find out, which component is *the bad guy*, wether it's hardware or software

keep in mind, that GS is a - hmm - *grown* software over a couple of years and the evolution of hardware and operatingsystems literally exploded during that period, so imho it will last some time, until everything works in a way, users want it operating

my two bits only, christian

[Chris Luke]

Simon,

Yes I understand the two are not related but I've found with the larger samples with multiple layers etc. that I've used up 160 voices before RAM was depleted. Then I guess you're saying Gigastudio on a single machine CAN use more than 1GB RAM?

Thanks.

[Chompy]

Hello again and thanks for the replies.

I am going to take the plunge and go for the purchase. I can't really afford to wait any longer anyway, but, it does sound like for the most part the combination of VSL, XP and GS is fine.

As to the additional hardware, I'll begin by trying a Creative Audigy 2, because they sent it to me as a freebie. [:D] If that's not good enough I'll try an M-Audio Delta 44.

The MIDI I/O will be a Midisport 4x4.

I can understand how polyphony and ram are unrelated. You could potentially have the ram maxed out with only one note playing. [:)]

Anyway, cheers again for the replies.

Ben

[Roman Beilharz]

Hi,

I'd like to chime in just to clarify that RAM/polyphony/machine thing once more for all:

1. The more RAM your machine has, the more SAMPLES you are able to load into your machine/the more articulations you are able to call up instantly. For people, that like to create tracks that sound as perfect as possible right from the scratch - like Simon and me, it is very important to have as many articulations at hand as possible. Others - like William - render their tracks one by one after the arrangement has been mocked up or scored. They don't necessarily need the largest RAM possible for that. 768MB will be just fine. Note that the WAVE LENGHTH is in no way related to the SAMPLE COUNT, so the size of a GIG doesn't tell you anything about its SAMPLE COUNT.

2. Unfortunately Gigastudio is currently not able to allocate more memory than 1GB of RAM. This might get fixed in 3.0, but they are NOT CERTAIN whether it WILL BE FIXED, since it seems OS-related. So CURRENTLY 1.256MB RAM is a perfect value for an XP system giving the OS enough headroom to run stabil at high load. A machine with 1.256GB RAM in practic behaves like this:
If you tried e.g. to load all Garritan-Strings into one machine you would already hit the ceiling having loaded around 75% of all Garritans (leaving out the "Lite's" and the "All Violins"). If you like to use all VSL instruments simultaneously in perfect shape, you will have to buy as much GS-machines as possible. With two or three GS-machines you won't run mad [:)].

3. POLYPHONY is in no way related to RAM and/or SAMPLE COUNT. It is e.g. possible to reach the max of 160 voices with only the Gigapiano loaded, which consists of around 600 samples eating up around 40MB of RAM. On the other hand it makes sense to have tons of articulations for a string quartett loaded using the maximum amount of RAM, while the polyphony of your arrangement might stay moderate and might even rarely hit 60 voices. To get a constantly streaming polyphony of 160 (80 stereo)-voices, you will need at least one modern 7200RpM-drive (IDE is just fine) for JUST THE SAMPLES (no OS here!). Since I use XP (with two fast sample-HDs), I am able to get those 160 voices permanently without glitches. Win98SE gave me fine performance, but above 140 voices I had pops and chokes.

Hope this helps!


Roman Beilharz

P.S.: Audigy - OUCH! Try it, try it, but I wouldn't expect perfect results. From that day I started to use RME Hammerfalls ONLY I never had ANY problem with Gigastudio I/Os or audio-drivers again...

[Chris Luke]

Thanks Roman....explained perfectly!

[Matt 1]

Hi there!

Just to mention:

I run Giga on XP with 2 Giga RAM!!! Giga recognizes the RAM - therefore I can load up to 76% of 2G!!! It works great.... [[;)]]

[Chompy]

Thanks again for all the replies.
All the kit is ordered and I absolutely can't wait to get up and running - should be in four or five days.

Final spec is:

VSL Complete Orchestral Package
AMD 2Ghz CPU
1.5 Gb RAM
40Gb system drive
100Gb second HD
Windows XP
Gigastudio 2.5
Midisport 4x4
And the Audigy... just to see if it works or not. Our financial director is already looking daggers at me. [;)]

14 DVDs eh... how long does it take transfer all that to HD...? [[:|]]

[cm]

@Chompy said:

14 DVDs eh... how long does it take transfer all that to HD...?

depends on your DVD-drive (it's speed and if it supports UDMA or not) - with an older one i get 16 MByte/sec here, so the complete 98 GB would take me about three hours
christian

[William]

I have yet to hear a reply from the smugly satisfied users of Gigastudio about whether they are running VSL with alternation tools and fully loaded sample sets. I'm talking about using Vienna's massive orchestral sets complete with alternation utility. Have you done this, and did your system continue to function using all the tools currently available after several days of use?

[Chompy]

hey William - assuming I become smugly satisfied in the next few days, I'll post to say what works / doesn't work with my setup. [:)]

[William]

Chompy,
Thanks, please do. My system is somewhat similar to what you've described though I recently added a 250 gb external drive. I have a new idea that perhaps I've got a driver conflict even though the conflicting ones were supposedly removed.