Beginner: What do I need to connect to a DAW?

Elektron Gear Other Elektron Gear
#21

Good to know, thanks for that piece of knowledge

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#22

I have the exact opposite experience, with both nVidia and AMD/ATI graphics cards.
Especially with hardware accelerated plugins like Fabfilter.

#23

Is this a PC or a laptop? What specs? I am really curious because you’re literally the only one I’ve heard saying that :slightly_smiling_face:

Also, I think it depends on iGPU. I’ve heard newer Vegas are very good though. I tried one myself, by the way.

For the acceleration part I think it largely depends on your RAM. If it’s low, you’ll have a bad time, because such system shares RAM. Also, there might be a bit of throttling if the CPU struggles. If it’s a high end PC with more RAM, the experience should be buttery.

Well, all in all, I guess it can happen. Windows PCs are like that :rofl:

#24

Both PC and laptop, any specs really. Had the same experience on old Pentiums.
Laptops are a bit weird in that they can switch between iGPU and dedicated if they have both.
My current system is a Z170, i7 6700K @ 4.4GHz, 48GB @ 2800MHz(CL 15-15-15-35), GTX1060 6GB, RME FF 802. It can run for at least a month with minimal performance loss.

The problem with integrated GPU’s is that they always depend on system memory.
No matter what you’re doing, that memory bandwidth is shared with the CPU.

So besides a dedicated GPU having it’s own memory, it’s also way more powerful than any integrated solution. You might not notice this on a recent system with a single 1080p screen, but with higher resolutions or multiple screens the difference is obvious in use.
All GUI animations and dragging around plugin windows is a lot smoother and causes a lot less audio glitches under heavy load.

Even a cheap GPU should do better than the intergrated one.

The trick with nVidia drivers is to not install their GeForce Experience crap and disable the telemetry(yes, nVidia also want your data).
It’s all that background stuff that’s messing up the DPC checker.

This goes for all hardware in a Windows system, don’t install the crappy tools that come with it unless you need them.
Some standard rules for audio PC’s are: no RGB, no WiFi, no BlueTooth, no webcams.
Use drivers from Windows Update(if they are available) for all motherboard hardware like USB and network.