My brother has a dualcore pc with, 1024mb memory, 128mb video, a m-audio delta66 and a delta1010.
Most of the time, renoise slows down when he’s playing a song, it looks like the processor runs out of power, but system monitor says there is only 17% in use, buffer of the m-audio delta runs at 128, 256 gives the same problems though.
When we minimize a playing-slowed-down Renoise window to the taskbar, everything runs normal again. If we maximize the Renoise window again, all the music slows down.
My brother tried everything, switching the cards to other pci slots, tuning windows settings to the max, but everytime the same problem starts all over again.
Does someone has some advice? I can make music all the time on my pc, but my brother is only busy with problem solving.
I will ask him about the chipset. I know he tested what happened when he took one card out, I think the problem was still there, I will ask him this too.
I also have two soundcards, no problems at all. (edit: I only use the midi for both cards at one time, the delta cards that my brother has in his pc can be linked, this should be no problem).
Well it really looks like something on his mainboard does not function correctly or it could be something in the windows configuration as well (virus / spyware / malware?). (Or some data-bus synchronisation problem or similar buffer overrun problems regarding hardware).
From experience i know virusses and specially rootkits can cause so much problems on a system without you actually knowing it is there. A rootkit cannot even always be revealed by the generic best virusscanner.
So the first i always do is exlcuding virusses / rootkits and currently there is only one way to quickly find out:
Reinstalling XP to a temporary folder, creating a dual-boot environment and attempt to see if the root of the problem remains is the easiest thing to exclude the Windows environment. Renoise will start in the new environment without having to reinstall it (don’t know about the plugins though!). If it does work out, you probably have a virus or rootkit of somekind and the only advise i can give is to salvage from the disc what you can and then wipe out the system and reinstall completely clean.
(I had a rootkit once and it kept coming back whenever i reinstalled to a dualboot and removed the old instalation. Even the restore folders i removed by hand were not enough to keep it out.)
If a clean windows environment does not resolve the issue, go one step higher:Check the latest mainboard (chipset) drivers if there is anything new, maybe the BIOS of his mainboard has a new flash-update that may resolve firmware related problems.
Most likely one of the above will pop out the root of the problem, but if not:
You both have a PC which makes swapping parts to exclude certain type of hardware a lot easier:
If his soundcards would perform without problem in your pc, it would exclude the soundcards. If his Gfx card won’t cause the same problem on your pc, you could exclude the gfx card.
Vice versa, adding your hardware on his mainboard should then not resolve his issue.
If that is the case there are always a few other windows around to pick and throw the darn thing out through one of those.
We did a clean installation of windows, we don’t use our pc’s on the internet, we use them really isolated from the big bad world and use it only for Renoise.
Swapping the cards from his pc to mine is the last thing we can check, after that we did everything we can.
I adviced him a long time ago to burn the bastard pc with napalm. I have an Athlon 64 2000mhz and have no problem at all. I guess he just has to get another pc and sell this one to someone who uses it to type letters in word and surf pr0n on the web. It’s a good system for that stuff, I’m sure.