Is my system up to it?

[twystd]

Hi Peter

I'm not sure this is the place to ask these questions, but here goes. I have based my music server on an Aopen mini, with the idea of having a small server right beside my listening position. The computer has a 1.86GHz Pentium M 750 processor with a 2Mb cache, @533MHz. It can hold only 1Gb of 533Mhz RAM, and has a 40Gb internal hard drive, and a combo CD/DVD reader/writer. 

Other stuff: the monitor is a little 8" LCD. I have two 320GB external hard drives, and an external Plextor CD reader/writer. I'm planning on ripping WAVE files on the Plextor, using PlexTools. The signal goes to an optical USB extender with a battery power supply, to isolate the DAC from the computer power supply noise. That feeds a battery powered DDAC1543 NOS DAC with two towers of 12 paralleled 1543 chips. All this goes to a DIY tube buffered line stage, then to a very tricked out pair of SE DIY 300B tube amps, and finally to some very nice sounding (to my ears at least) DIY line array speakers.

My four questions:
1- Will 1Gb ram be enough?
2- Will my small monitor cause problems?
3- Seems as if Vista home basic (less is better I think) is all I need for audio playback, as this is a dedicated music server, am I right?
4- With my setup, which version of your player would be the most appropriate?

Thanks,
twystd
 

[Gerard]

Hi Peter

I'm not sure this is the place to ask these questions, but here goes. I have based my music server on an Aopen mini, with the idea of having a small server right beside my listening position. The computer has a 1.86GHz Pentium M 750 processor with a 2Mb cache, @533MHz. It can hold only 1Gb of 533Mhz RAM, and has a 40Gb internal hard drive, and a combo CD/DVD reader/writer. 

Other stuff: the monitor is a little 8" LCD. I have two 320GB external hard drives, and an external Plextor CD reader/writer. I'm planning on ripping WAVE files on the Plextor, using PlexTools. The signal goes to an optical USB extender with a battery power supply, to isolate the DAC from the computer power supply noise. That feeds a battery powered DDAC1543 NOS DAC with two towers of 12 paralleled 1543 chips. All this goes to a DIY tube buffered line stage, then to a very tricked out pair of SE DIY 300B tube amps, and finally to some very nice sounding (to my ears at least) DIY line array speakers.

My four questions:
1- Will 1Gb ram be enough?
2- Will my small monitor cause problems?
3- Seems as if Vista home basic (less is better I think) is all I need for audio playback, as this is a dedicated music server, am I right?
4- With my setup, which version of your player would be the most appropriate?

Thanks,
twystd
 

Hello Twystd,

The question mbt The "8 LCD: I had such a monitor myself for XX and i never had any problems.

The rest of the questions Peter wil answer ( i think) 

Grtz

[PeterSt]

Hi,

The computer has a 1.86GHz Pentium M 750 processor with a 2Mb cache, @533MHz. It can hold only 1Gb of 533Mhz RAM, and has a 40Gb internal hard drive, and a combo CD/DVD reader/writer. 

The processor is okay, although it would prevent you from playing with Core Appointment (and I myself am far from finished with that !).

The memory ... well, I think you knew it ... not enough.
I don't think you'll ever et away with it;
Engine#1 uses the least memory, but at a downside of not being able to play 64MB+ tracks.
Engine#2 uses the most memory, which you will need when running XP (to avoid the above).
Vista needs 500MB to start with for herself. although Engine#3 would use as few as Engine#1.
So you see ... there's always a pitfall.

the monitor is a little 8" LCD.

As Gerard said; Assumed that it's 640x480 (not lower), the late versions if XX anticipate on this explicitly.

Seems as if Vista home basic (less is better I think) is all I need for audio playback, as this is a dedicated music server, am I right?

By itself, yes. But be careful though. I don't think anyone is using Home Basic so far, and since the Home Premium in addition supports multi media stuff, you never know whether they omitted certain sound stuff. Example : it could be loaded with DirectX9 (not 10) only, and that would NOT work.
Also keep in mind that there would be nobody to ask this to because the question would be really about playing sound in Exclusive Mode and there's no player out there that uses it (but XX). You could put a question on the forum whether anyone uses Home Basic with XX ?

Another thing, which for me personally would be important, is that you'd need the Business versions in order to use Remote Desktop Connection; by this means you could access the tabletop (hehe) from off somewhere else. Btw, more usual is to do this the other way around : just have a sufficiently large machine (could even be in another room), and control all by means of a small machine like your Pandora's Box by means of RDC.

With my setup, which version of your player would be the most appropriate?

None.

But please consider my remark about the RDC thing. You can just keep on running XP on the Pandora, and a new machine would run Vista Business.

I hope this helps a bit !
Peter

[PeterSt]

I don't think anyone is using Home Basic so far

Or maybe someone is afterall : http://www.phasure.com/index.php?action=profile;u=136

[Tony S]

Hi Twystd,

I am using Vista Home Basic as PeterSt pointed out and is working fine even with 1Gb of ram. I do however have to make sure all the extra features are off like Aero and programs that might be running in the background that aren't really needed.

Engine #3 is what I'm using with Q1 at 14 or -4, sometimes inverted. I don't hear any snap, crackle or pops when opening up a window or a program so far. System resources says that I am using around 700MB of ram when running XXHighEnd by itself. It is pushing it but has worked fine.

Tony

[PeterSt]

Thank you Tony !

[Tony S]

Hi PeterSt,

You might not want to thank me for my previous reply, maybe for some of the information. I am getting a little ticking sound when I open up a window or a program, it wasn't happening the other day. It is not loud and is not really bothersome.
sometimes it does it and shortly after it doesn't? When I am using the XXHighEnd player, I am doing some serious listening anyway and not touching-up photos in Photoshop or surfing the Web. I'm am using the 0.9pd version rignt now, maybe it was the 0.9q version the other day that was not giving me those issues. I'll try 0.9q again and let you know.

Tony

[SeVeReD]

When I was first evaluating XXHE I had only 512K of ram, but that was with XP.  When I moved to Vista Home Premium I put in two GB of ram at the same time...

I guess I'm posting wanting to say hi to twystd and say something about file size... doesn't the size of your wav files determine how little ram you can get away with?  I thought I decided to up my ram not only because of Vista but because I ripped my CDs to a single large wav file plus cue file.  But if you've ripped your CDs to multi small wav files you might get away with lesser amounts of ram???  Anyway, something in the back of my mind still is convinced about having one large wav file as opposed to breaking things down... hheheh