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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
Joined: Feb 2005
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I need to verify or clarify my thinking on the host computer components and how they effect my use of biab audio phile with RT files reamaining on the terabyte drive. Also I would lkie to udnerstand better, the difference between running biab exe. from the terabyte and installng it on the host hard drive.

So the nuts and bolts part. In a computer with 64 bit os, 2.5ghz intel i3 processor, 4 gig of ram, how much does it matter if the computer only has a 5400 rpm drive? Unless I'm told otherwise I'm inclined to leave biab.exe on the 7200 rpm drive along with all the RT files. What role if any does the computer's slower hard drive play in running biab from the other drive?

And what if the slower drive has an L3 cache? At this time I don't remember the size of the cache. It's a 500 gig drive on one of the lenovo LT I'm looking at.

The lenovo I''m considering has intel HD integrated graphics on the processor. One reviewer said this graphics config sucks. I had a HP Pavilion G62 and am returning it. But the graphics on that one were just fine for Biab. I'm not into gaming. I just need to look at biab and realband and do small amts of web browsing on it for updates. The graphics were ATI Radeon 4250 on the Hp.
Would I see much of a difference in graphics between the two?

Ron

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Between the hard drive and the video card, for BIAB, I would concentrate on the hard drive. As far as I know, BIAB has always worked fine on even marginal graphics cards. Quite simply, it doesn't stress the video.

If you can get an upgrade on the laptop to a 7200 rpm internal drive, it will benefit you not only in BIAB but in any program with heavy disk access. That's exactly what I did on a Toshiba I just bought. I assume you are talking about a laptop because no desktop would ship with a 5400 drive anymore.


BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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BiaB performs just fine on the 5400rpm drive in my laptop.


When people try to compare specs to machines that are tasked with true multi-track recording, to include a multiple-channel sound device other than the built in soundcard and recording several different tracks or instruments to different tracks *at the same time as playing back several backing tracks* to what BiaB does, the assumption that the disk speed must be 7200 or above is erroneous anyway.


Of course, if you WANT to install a faster internal drive, that's another story altogether and would only improve overall performance most likely, but to run Band in a Box, it is not necessary at all, the 5400rpm drived, running under DMA mode, is plenty fast enough for BiaB and Realtracks, etc. if you are going to run BiaB from the provided host USB drive.

If you wanted to install everything including the Realtracks to the internal drive, and since they are the much larger in size .wav format, you like as not would need to install a higher capacity drive than stock anyway, in order to have some room on it and at that point the 7200rpm would be the way to go.



--Mac

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On my two lappies I have the same identical issue. A lot of this is my own fault however just wanted to share why a lappy with dedicated Video card & memory is best.
I never have an issue with BIAB.I use RB with a multiout sound card. I also have RB ser up so I have 3 partial screens showing. Tracks,chords & Comments.If, when a song is playing, the scroll for the tracks view & the scroll for the chords view reaches the end and both screens try to change at the same time 40%???? of the time it'll throw the audio card outputs out of sync. Happened last night.


John
ESI Gigaport HD+
Lenovo Turion II /4 Gig Ram/ Win7x64 be
15.6" Monitor
"The only Band is a Real Band"
www.wintertexaninfo.com/BANDS/JohnnyD.php
Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Matt, Mac and Silvertones, I appreciate you taking the time to help. There are a lot of choiced to make and I'd like to get it right this time. You info will go a long way to help me get the right box.

Ron


`15 Audiophile, Toshiba17", 3Mhz, 4gig ram, 500gig HD, Win7, Tascam 122mkII interface, Tascam 16 track 8 buss recording mixer, 2 Avalon747sps,CAD VX2 mic, AKG C1000s, mac and Digital Performer.
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Band-in-a-Box 2026 for Mac Videos

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