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Pro Tools Reference Guide 32
Configuring Pro Tools System
Settings (in the Playback
Engine)
Pro Tools lets you adjust the performance of
your system by changing
system settings that af-
fect its capacity for processing, playback, and re-
cording.
These system settings are available in the Play-
back Engine Dialog (Setup > Playback Engine).
In most cases, the default settings for your sys-
tem provide optimum performance, but you
may want to adjust them to accommodate large
or processing-intensive Pro Tools sessions.
Hardware Buffer Size
The Hardware Buffer Size (H/W Buffer Size) con-
trols the size of the hardware cache used to han-
dle host-based tasks such as Real-Time Audio-
Suite (RTAS) plug-in processing.
◆
Lower Hardware Buffer Size settings reduce
monitoring latency, and are useful when you are
recording live input.
◆
Higher Hardware Buffer Size settings allow for
more audio processing, and are useful when you
are mixing large sessions and using more RTAS
plug-ins.
To change the Hardware Buffer Size:
1
Choose Setup > Playback Engine.
2
From the H/W Buffer Size pop-up menu, select
the audio buffer size, in samples.
3
Click OK.
RTAS Processors
The RTAS Processors setting determines the
number of processors in your computer allo-
cated for RTAS (real-time plug-ins) plug-in pro-
cessing.
With computers that have multiple processors,
or that feature multi-core processing or hyper-
threading, this setting lets you enable multi-pro-
cessor support for RTAS plug-ins. Used in com-
bination with the CPU Usage Limit setting, the
RTAS Processors setting lets you control the way
RTAS processing and other Pro Tools tasks are
handled by the system. For example:
• For sessions with large numbers of RTAS plug-
ins, you can allocate 2 or more processors to
RTAS processing and set a high CPU Usage
Limit.
• For sessions with few RTAS plug-ins, you can
allocate fewer processors to RTAS and set a low
CPU Usage Limit to leave more CPU resources
available for automation accuracy, screen re-
sponse, and video.
• Increase these settings to accommodate TDM
to RTAS plug-in conversion. Conversely, de-
crease these settings if you are only using
TDM plug-ins or are converting RTAS plug-ins
to TDM. TDM/RTAS conversion can be desir-
able during recording, depending on latency,
voicing needs, and record-monitoring capa-
bilities of the specific TDM and RTAS plug-ins.
• Depending on the importance of video and
overall screen response, and on the density of
automation being employed, try different
combinations of RTAS Processing and CPU
Usage Limit settings to achieve the best re-
sults. For example, to improve screen re-
sponse in a medium-sized session using a
moderate number of RTAS plug-ins, try reduc-
ing the number of RTAS plug-ins, but keep the
CPU Usage Limit set to the maximum (99%)
on a single processor system.
In addition to causing slower screen re-
sponse and monitoring latency, higher
Hardware Buffer Size settings can affect the
accuracy of plug-in automation, mute data,
and timing for MIDI tracks.