Here is my system:

Athlon 2200  (1.24 Ghz)
1Gb PC 3200 DDR Ram
WinXP Pro w/SP2
Sound Blaster Audigy Version 1 (newest drivers)
E-Mu X-board 25


I can't get anything to play right.  Everything is set up correctly as I have tested the sound, but if I have more than one staff playing at any given time, i lose notes..... lots of them.  It just doesnt sound like it can keep up with the amount of notes being sent to the Kontakt player.  Does anybody have any suggestions on how to get this thing to run better?  I have VDL1 and it was great, but I'm a pit arranger and would really LOVE for VDL2 to work like it should. 

Have you spent any time adjusting your soundcard settings (in the VDL2 soundcard settings window), or your DFD settings? Have you read up on any of those items on the forum here? Oftentimes, those are the biggest performance enhancers. If so, you should include those details so folks might be more able to help you with some advice specific to your system. Be sure to be patient as you learn some new skills along the way. In most cases, it's a simple matter of user-knowledge that will help streamline your performance.

[quote author=Jim Casella link=topic=1086.msg4570#msg4570 date=1145255763]
Have you spent any time adjusting your soundcard settings (in the VDL2 soundcard settings window), or your DFD settings? Have you read up on any of those items on the forum here? Oftentimes, those are the biggest performance enhancers. If so, you should include those details so folks might be more able to help you with some advice specific to your system. Be sure to be patient as you learn some new skills along the way. In most cases, it's a simple matter of user-knowledge that will help streamline your performance.
[/quote]

I have adjusted the Creative Asio settings down from 10ms to 50ms and that seemed to help a little bit...  I will have to look into the DFD thing.  I'm not quite sure what that is, looks like I have some reading to do.

Ok, so I tuned DFD off after reading in the manual ";DFD is recomeneded for anybody with less than 2gb of ram"; and it didnt seem to do much of anything.  In all actuallity, it sounds the same as before. 

BJ, not to be assuming, but how about some other things...  such as:

What are you using to play through - Sibelius?  How's your video card?  Have you stopped rendering page turns?

Have you defragged?  Have you shut down unnecessary programs?

Turning DFD off is incorrect; you should be turning it ON if you have less than 2g of ram.

What happens when you have just one instrument loaded into the player?  Still just as bad?  Better?

You've already said that you're trying to look into running two instances of the player in the other thread...  this tells me you're loading up the max already.  Yes?

Let's just make some assumptions here...

XP = ~300MB of ram
Music notation program = ~100MB
S/T/B/C + Marimba + Vibe + Xylo...  More than 600MB if you're using the full editions.

I can see why your machine would have problems.  Not to mention, 1.24G isn't hefty either.  Start scaling back to the basics on a lot of your stuff, and find your bottleneck.

[quote author=drumcat link=topic=1086.msg4578#msg4578 date=1145314575]
BJ, not to be assuming, but how about some other things...  such as:

What are you using to play through - Sibelius? [color=Red]Yes [/color]How's your video card? [color=Red]Geforce 5200[/color] Have you stopped rendering page turns?

Have you defragged? [color=Red]Yes[/color]  Have you shut down unnecessary programs? [color=Red]Yes, the only programs running are VDL2 and Sib.[/color]

Turning DFD off is incorrect; you should be turning it ON if you have less than 2g of ram.  [color=Red]I guess I read that wrong....back on it goes.[/color]

What happens when you have just one instrument loaded into the player? [color=Red]No, one is ok.  It seems to handle the info much better.[/color] Still just as bad?  Better?

You've already said that you're trying to look into running two instances of the player in the other thread...  this tells me you're loading up the max already.  Yes?  [color=Red]Yes, I am running the basic pit multi.[/color]

Let's just make some assumptions here...

XP = ~300MB of ram
Music notation program = ~100MB
S/T/B/C + Marimba + Vibe + Xylo...  More than 600MB if you're using the full editions.

I can see why your machine would have problems.  Not to mention, 1.24G isn't hefty either.  Start scaling back to the basics on a lot of your stuff, and find your bottleneck.
[/quote]

Also check out the ";Tuning Tips"; at:
http://www.musicxp.net/

Since your processor is on the slow side, some of these tuning tips (geared specifically to help audio on XP) may help.

Drumcat is correct, DFD is recommended for systems with less than 2gb RAM (that's you). With DFD active, be sure you've set DFD options to ";small instruments"; and then set the ";reserved voices"; field to 256 (the maximum). Be sure to click ";apply";. It's adviseable to do this BEFORE you load any instruments so you won't have to wait for your instruments to reload.

It would also help in offering some suggestions for you if you could let us know what's currently set in your ";soundcard"; settings window in VDL2. You might not have the ASIO driver set there, and as a last resort, you might try lowering your sample rate below 44100 if you have the option to do so.

Hang in there. There are solutions to your problems when you're patient to learn as you go.

Here are a few more thoughts, BJ...

When you boot up XP from scratch, let it sit there for a moment, then ctrl-alt-del.  How much ram are you using?

Start > Run > MSCONFIG, Startup tab...  start googling these things, and see if you recognize what they do.  Also in the Start Menu, check your Startup there.

In Sibelius, you may want to consider turning off the page turning during playback.  It's a CPU monster, and could single-handedly snarl your machine.