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is a good/high quality audio interface important for a good overall pc performance?
you mean not related to making music?
mmmm not really, high end cards take the audio processing load off the cpu, but whether you need one for day to day computing. If your using it to make music, I would recommend one, I did notice a good difference when I bought mine (with new trs/xlr cables :D)
I already own a cheap audio interface from TERRATEC. a dealer who builds audio pcs told me on the phone that a good interface is a must if I run big audio projects, especially in electronic music. he said the best computer wont help me if I dont have a solid audio interface. br
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my problem is that I need far more pc power for sounddesign, mixing, arranging etc… an my question is if the audio interface plays that improtant role…
Terratec cards are good consumer cards they use EMU chips which are decent enough.br
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What is the spec of the rest of your system?br
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What driver are you using in Ableton Prefs?
PCbr
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AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5200+ 2,59 GHzbr
2047 MB RAMbr
32 Bitbr
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AudioInterfacebr
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Terratec Producer Phase 26 USB Asiobr
Driver: Phase USB Asio (in Cubase5 I can choose between Asio DirectX Full Duplex, Asio Multimedia, Generic Low Latency Asio, Rig Kontrol 3 and Phase USB Asio) br
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does a good audio card help with latency problems or is it just a good pc that has to be fast?
Its a mixture of both sort of.br
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while CPU doesn’t effect latency directly it has to use more CPU as audio buffer gets lower.br
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So if your card isn’t handling the audio properly it will have to use higher buffer setting to be stable. which will increase latency.br
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So really good soundcards will give you lower latencey while still maintaining CPU stability.br
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I would upgrade the RAM, 2gb ram is nothing these days. my Laptope uses 3.5 just when i start it. So this is not exactly what youre main question is, but i would recomend you to get atleast 8gb ram memory if you are making music. br
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All part works together in a similar way as the body. Lets say you have really strong chest muscles from doing alot of bench pressing but u never squat then your legs will be weak as ***, then your body is overall weak. br
Same way is with the computer, if you have a super fast CPU and not enough memory the computer will be slow. br
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My main problem atm is my harddrive wich is only 5400rpm, The CPU is decent 2 GHz i7 etc, 16gb ram memory. But my hard drive is not fast enough to support them when im making music, so i would probably need to upgrade that. br
Got a little bit off track here, but hope you understad what i mean.br
Good luck