System Optimization Settings?

[vidrazor]

I'm curious as to what makes for an optimized system hardware and OS settings for Reaper. I've been going through the PDF tutorial, and was experimenting with plug-ings bussed here and there. I used three third-party plug-ins (besides the tutorial-suggested Jesusonic chorus), a Cakewalk Sonitus reverb, the freebie Luxonix LFX-1310 multieffects processor, and Clone Ensemble.

While setting parameters on the (unregistered) Clone Ensemble plug-in on my home system, Reaper (v 1.832) would crash, just simply disappearing. I didn't even get one of those crash error boxes that tells you that you're SOL. I would have to save on a parameter-change-by-parameter-change basis.

However, the same project running off my laptop has yet to crash. This is a far lessor system than my home system (I keep my laptop at work). Here is a basic rundown of the systems:

Home
3.2 gig Prescott
MSI Neo board with 865PE chipset
2 x 512 Geil DDR 400 ram
80gig 7200rpm/8meg WD primary 2 x 160gig 7200rpm/8meg Seagate Raid 0 via Highpoint RocketRAID 133
GeForce 5600 w/256 meg
Win XP Pro SP2

Laptop
Toshiba Satellite 1135-S155
2 gig Celeron 4A
Intel Montara-GML i852GM chipset
40 gig 4200rpm/2meg drive
Intel 82852/82855 GM/GME graphics w/64 meg
Win XP Pro SP2

At first I thought there may have been a buggy plug-in or a bug with Reaper (and of course, these can't be totally ruled out), but it strikes me more as either system settings or some hardware conflict. While I have a Behringer BCA2000/ADA8000 setup on the home system, it was off for the tutorial and I was running off the MB sound chip.

So anyway, any clues as to what may be a problem here will be appreciated. Thanks.
Phil

[bigwoody]

I have had the same issue with Clone Ensemble as well as a couple of other VST's (CH-2 for example). As long as you pause the play to change the parameters you are okay, but if you do it during playback...blamo. There are several threads about these under the Working/Not working effects, and they are the result of the way that the VST is coded (or so I understand). Since you have different behavior on different machines, look under preferences/Plugins/VST and see if the "Better buggy process..." is selected. My gut tells me it is on in one system and off on the other. Be careful, even with this on, there are a few VST's that will cause problems.

[vidrazor]

Well, except for some visual settings (like turning off waveform fills, etc), which have been equally applied to both installations, there are no changes made to the standard installation. Therefore I have to suspect hardware and/or settings somewhere in, say, SERVICES or GPEDIT.

Mostly I suspect hardware. Typically I look at the graphics card first, as odd as that may seem. But it could be deeper, such as the chipset and north/south bridges. The Prescott has been a nightmare for me from the word go, and I wouldn't rule out the CPU itself.

Unfortunately I have no way of knowing how to go about isolating the culprit. I haven't tried bussing in Sonar or Cool Edit on either system the way I have in Reaper (and of course in a way you can't), so I'm not sure about how data routing goes about within the motherboard firmware, CPU, GPU, memory, and of course how it all tries to get along with XP Pro.

I'm going to experiment with an Athlon 64 system I have laying about, to see if my suspicions about my hardware can be cross validated between it and my laptop. Somehow I feel it will. :-)