New to Traktor, laptop specs.

Hi all. New to the forums and Traktor itself. I am planning to get Traktor Pro 2 along with a DJ controller most likely from Pioneer. But had a question about my laptop specs. Which are Windows 7 64 bit, Pentium Dual Core 2.2 3GB ram and it's a Dell Inspiron. Would this be good with no issues or should I upgrage to a higher spec laptop either another Dell or HP. Thanks in advance. If it's ok I will get the demo when it's available.

 

Those specs should be absolutely fine for running Traktor; nearly all the problems anyone has with running Traktor on any reasonable spec computer comes as a result of computer settings and drivers that affect CPU usage, and cause spikes that interrupt the audio stream which can cause crackle and pop sounds or audio dropout.

There are a number of preliminary steps you can take to ensure that Traktor will run smoothly on your computer, which are all described here on this NI support page:

http://www.native-instruments.com/knowledge/questions/847/Windows+7+Tuning+Tips+for+audio+processing

It isn't really necessary to do all of these at this early stage, as most of them would only be required if you were actually running Traktor and found you did actually have a problem; however I would suggest that something you should do is download the 'DPC latency Checker' (link is on the NI support page provided) and run it to see whether your computer is currently suitable for audio processing. If the results are good, then you shouldn't really need to do anymore for now, as the chances are your computer should be fine as it is.

If the results suggest there might be a problem, you should then download 'LatencyMon' (link also provided) and attempt to identify what drivers and/or processes are potentially problematic (How to deal with all of this is explained more thoroughly on the NI support page)

Either way, as stated before, the specs you've mentioned shouldn't pose a problem at all in running Traktor 2. If you prepare the laptop as suggested in NI's tips, you'll find the only thing you'll need to do once you get install it is find the right latency settings, which only requires simple tweaking in the preferences until you find the right setting for your computer.

I hope you find this helpful, and if you do purchase it I hope you enjoy using it as much as I do - it really is a fantastic piece of software!

 

welcome to the Forums Redd!

you shouldn't need to upgrade for the sake of the specs only. There are people having problems with inspirons, but they can usually be solved with settings and optimizations. No one around here can say that it will work flawlessly, as it's not a mac. When it comes to dell, i love the latitude series (my favorite windows laptops), but this is not relevant in a sense than the inspiron will do the job for sure.

If you will be upgrading, consider a Mac. If you need a stable production laptop, it's your safest choice - always!

As a side note on the Pio controller - i love the S4 and I doubt that the pio will be better. S4 is very high quality, it's cheaper and simply does more. I owned cdj-400s and other pio gear. Also worked with cdj1000mk3 and all-in-all, I love the S4 most of them all. I'm saying this just to share experience, and don't want it to sound as advise.

Cheers!

 

Thanks for the setup information and the tips. At least I don't need to get a new laptop for now. Looks like I will be fine with what I got. I will also consider the S4 also. It's just for a hobby and making mixtapes but still would like to have quality stuff. Do you know when the demo will be available? Thanks again!

 

And the specs are not accurate enough. A Pentium 4 @ 2.4 GHz offers much less power than a modern Core2Duo with 2.4 GHz...

Sorry, that's wrong. Some models (not all) are using a BIOS which is not programmed very well causing high latency through "ndis.sys". No setting and no optimization will be able to compensate this!

On the other hand, we have very good experiences with the quality and the service of Dell. I can recommend it.

 

Goody, "Pentium Dual Core" is not "Pentium 4". it's still weaker than Core2Duo, but there are enough success reports of running Traktor S4 on these CPUs.

as per the BIOS issues - do you speak specifically for Inspirons? Dell provide good BIOS support in general and that would be a surprise for me.

 

I should be fine. I ran that diagnostic and I got mostly all green but 3 yellow bars and one red. But nothing terrible and that latency monitor that I used stated that I had no issues.

 

Red bars almost always cause a dropout, just be sure to get rid of that **** before you get Traktor Pro 2!

 

Yeah that one Red Bar will almost definitely cause some sort of problem, even if it's just a crackle noise every so often...

Go into Device Manager > Network Adapters > Wireless Network Adapter > Driver.

Disable the Driver (you can enable it again afterwards), and then run the DPC Latency Checker again for 5 minutes or so. If you don't get any red bars, it'll mean it's your Wireless Network Adapter that's causing the spikes.

If that's the case, then you'll just have to disable it whenever you want to use Traktor, and enable it again afterwards.