Technical PC questions about shared memory

[twangchief]

Hi All! I think my new hangout will be here since I 'retired' from playing live for awhile.

I'm planning on buying a new PC for audio and midi recording. I'll probably will be using Reason 3.0 along with CoolEdit Pro or Ableton Live. I'll be getting a fast Pentium 4 or Pentium D with at least 1 gig ram so I don't think speed and memory will be an issue.

My question is on graphics. A fews years ago the recommendation was to avoid shared graphics memory and to purchase a seperate graphics card. Is shared graphics memory still an issue when the processor speeds are so high now and with 1 gig or more of ram?

Thanks for your comments.

 

[Trevorus]

It still is not quite as fast as a separate video card. I have a computer with shared onboard memory for video, and I noticed a nice speed jump when I popped in an AGP ATI card that had 64MB to itself, and it is definitely faster than my onboard.

 

[simisker]

An integrated graphics solution should be fine in this day and age, yes. Just make sure the graphics chipset is either ATi- or nVidia-based [mainly for reasons of support - both these chipset manufacturers kick out driver updates very regularly].

Image quality may suffer ever-so-slightly with onboard graphics, but unless you're going to be using very high resolutions you won't really notice. Similarly, speed shouldn't be an issue - even onboard solutions tend to have memory subsystems and RAMDACs that can cope [again with the 'less so at higher resolutions' caveat, though].

There are a couple of reasons why you might still want to plump for a discreet graphics card, though: Firstly, onboard graphics chipsets tend to be cooled by small noisy fans which kick out a whirring that you may consider invasive [a passively-cooled graphics card, on the other hand, would create no noise of course]; and secondly it opens the door to multi-monitor use. Once you've used a setup with an arrange page on one monitor and mixer page on another monitor it's very difficult to remember how you coped with just one display!

[EDIT: I'd also push for 2GB of memory, by the way - more headroom for those virtual instruments, processors and effects!]

 

[WalterBush]

A modern onboard graphics setup should be fine...until the first time you open up 32 tracks, a 5.1 master fader section, and several busses for mixing, all with meters pumping up and down while your CPU and memory keep the audio running smoothly. Meter ballistics were a problem for me until I upgraded to an ATI Radeon 9600. If you don't think this situation will ever come up, then I wouldn't worry unless you like really complex GUIs on plugins--vintage VUs with tons of knobs, modelled reflections, LEDs and such work your graphics pretty hard as well...

 

[twangchief]

Thanks for the comments!!

I should have stated that I'll probably never have anymore than 8 tracks of audio and minimal real time effects. Maybe 4-5 virtual instruments.