Erratic CPU Usage with Kontakt & XP

Does anyone else notice a similar condition?

I have an HP laptop
1800+ athlon
512 mb ram
30 gb hard drive
windows XP
USB Quattro

I am using Kontakt 1.2.1 standalone and as soon as I launch it, my cpu usage starts on this curve of shooting up to nearly 100% and then falling back to 3-4% with a very regular period. Kontakt has been running fine for quite a while, but I recently installed Cubase SL and the whole thing went to hell. That's really a separate question altogether, but I'm interested to know if others have experienced this periodic spiking CPU response using Kontakt, and if so, if it has affected actual performance.

 

Hi zeroplate,

hmmm no problems like that on my system. I just tried it.
Seems to be settled at around 8-11%

cheers
Michael

 

quattro

Thanks for looking into it. It appears that the vast majority of my problem was related to the Quattro. I ditched it this weekend for a Layla and it's been smooth sailing since (holding my breath).

 

Cool. I always seem to hear good things about the Layla.

cheers
Michael

 

USB sound

Has anyone yet found a USB sound card that actually works with a DAW?? All I seem to hear are horror stories..... FireWire sounds like a far more promising connection scheme.

 

usb

Unfortunately, I just don't think USB is the answer. I haven't tried a lot of different set ups, but from the anecdotal evidence on boards like this and others, USB just doesn't appear to be hefty enough to keep up with that much streaming data going in and out. It may work in some applications, and there may be better implemented tools than the quattro, but I think it's probably just an unfortunate reality that firewire or pcmcia solutions that cost more are going to be the only true solutions.

I used the quattro for quite a while with Kontakt running stand-alone, and it was passable. It would click and pop now and then though, and was very troublesome if you didn't have the unit fired up and plugged in when you started the computer.

I've only been using the Layla for a couple days, but I can already tell a massive difference. It was very easy to set up, it worked with all of my audio software that the quattro did not work with, and the 8 outs are certainly a step up from 4. I have to set the buffer higher on it than on the quattro- it gets cranky with anything less than 1024 samples, but it seems to be working just fine.

 

Actually I have USB Tascam-224 and it's been treating me really really good. I always liked Tascam and as I expected this unit never game me any problems whatsoever. I'm thinking about taking it back and exchanging it to a smaller version Tascam-122 though because I thought I would use those knobs but I never did and will never do I just use my mouse. So what you hear is not true well I can't speak about other units but Tascam USB units are good as far as I can tell.