M-Audio Pro Tools M-Powered 7, Quick Start Manual

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Chapter 2: Windows Configuration 9
Optional Optimizations
The following system optimizations may help
Pro Tools perform better on some systems. It is
recommended that you only try these optimiza-
tions if necessary, as they may disable or ad-
versely affect the functionality of other pro-
grams on your system.
Disabling Network Cards
If applicable, disable any networking cards
(other than a FireWire card that you might use
to connect an external drive to your system).
To disable a network card:
1
Right-click My Computer and choose Man-
age.
2
Under System Tools, select Device Manager.
3
In the Device Manager window, double-click
Network adapters, then double-click the Net-
work Adapter card you want to disable.
4
Under the General tab, choose “Do not use
this device (disable)” from the Device Usage
pop-up menu, and click OK.
5
Close the Computer Management window.
Adjusting Processor Scheduling
To Adjust Processor Scheduling Performance:
1
Choose Start > Control Panel.
2
In Classic View, double-click System.
3
Click the Advanced tab.
4
Under the Performance section, click the Set-
tings button.
5
In the Performance Options window, click the
Advanced tab.
6
Under the Processor scheduling section, select
the Background Services option.
7
Under the Memory Usage section, select the
System cache option.
8
Click OK to close the Performance Options
window.
9
Click OK to close the System Properties win-
dow.
10
Restart the computer for the changes to take
effect.
Disabling Hyper-Threading
Pro Tools LE 7.0 takes advantage of the added
processing power of computers that have multi-
ple processors, or that feature multi-core pro-
cessing or Hyper-Threading, for RTAS process-
ing.
However, if you set the number of processors
available for RTAS processing to 1 (in the
Pro Tools Playback Engine dialog), some com-
puters with Hyper-Threading capability may ex-
perience decreased performance.
If this occurs, you can increase the number of
RTAS processors in the Playback Engine dialog,
or you can disable Hyper-Threading on the com-
puter.
Refer to your computer’s documentation for
steps on how to enter the computer’s BIOS and
disable Hyper-Threading.
Disabling System Startup Items
The fewer items in use by your computer, the
more resources are available for Pro Tools. Some
startup applications may be consuming unnec-
essary CPU resources, and should be turned off.