Laptop power required for Cakewalk.

[Fris]

Any thoughts please? Planning to download Cakewalk (DAW of choice) but would I be wasting my time? Current laptop is HP 250G6 with Intel Core i3 5005U  CPU at 2.00GHz. (2 cores/4 Logical Processors) and only 4Gb RAM. 64-bit OS. Will be using DAW to record and edit my own backing tracks (using guitar and Yamaha keyboard input sources primarily) through a Behringer UMC204HD Audio Interface due to arrive next week. Thanks chaps and chapesses.

 

[Promidi]

I think your CPU may be a little under powered.

See:

https://help.cakewalk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360021857753-What-are-the-minimum-requirements-for-using-Cakewalk-by-BandLab-

[mettelus]

Which OS are you running? 4GB of RAM stands out regardless of DAW for me. I had a HP Elitebook with 4GB of RAM (non-expandable), that suffered greatly with PowerPoint if opening several files at once. Win 10 is probably chewing up roughly half of that RAM with nothing running. Win7 should be a bit better.

When working with audio recording/playback, CPU/RAM restrictions are pretty light, where they get into problems is smaller buffer size (ups CPU hit) for tracking and the use of VST(i)s (some have massive CPU hits, even with large buffers). You can counter this during tracking by disabling FX (Global Bypass - hotkey "E"), being judicious with FX, and baking in FX/bouncing & archiving soft synth tracks.

Since CbB is free, you can easily give it a go, but be aware of the above as you develop your workflow. With an SSD, you will minimize your pagefile visibility when using larger buffers, but you will never get to heavy-handed VST(i) usage.

[Fris]

33 minutes ago, Promidi said:

I think your CPU may be a little under powered.

See:

https://help.cakewalk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360021857753-What-are-the-minimum-requirements-for-using-Cakewalk-by-BandLab-

I think you may be right! I need a rethink... Many thanks.

[Fris]

28 minutes ago, mettelus said:

Which OS are you running? 4GB of RAM stands out regardless of DAW for me. I had a HP Elitebook with 4GB of RAM (non-expandable), that suffered greatly with PowerPoint if opening several files at once. Win 10 is probably chewing up roughly half of that RAM with nothing running. Win7 should be a bit better.

When working with audio recording/playback, CPU/RAM restrictions are pretty light, where they get into problems is smaller buffer size (ups CPU hit) for tracking and the use of VST(i)s (some have massive CPU hits, even with large buffers). You can counter this during tracking by disabling FX (Global Bypass - hotkey "E"), being judicious with FX, and baking in FX/bouncing & archiving soft synth tracks.

Since CbB is free, you can easily give it a go, but be aware of the above as you develop your workflow. With an SSD, you will minimize your pagefile visibility when using larger buffers, but you will never get to heavy-handed VST(i) usage.

Appreciate your input. The OS is Windows 10 (64-bit) x64-based processor, and you're right - just had a look now and 64% of RAM is taken up with 3 Google activities on the go plus Skype and Kaspersky. Might try it anyway and see where the problems show up. Many thanks.

[mettelus]

If you disable apps and processes (services) that autoload on boot (basically strip the machine for "DAW mode"), it can give you a bit more room. IIRC, my HP would go to 35%, but rapidly jump to 50% with simple usage. I was manually cleaning RAM on that machine when it hit 75%, then the process would start over. Quite a few programs do not release RAM properly, so it is sometimes simpler to set processes (via services) to "manual" (manual start), and only open them if you intend to use them.

[Promidi]

14 minutes ago, mettelus said:

If you disable apps and processes (services) that autoload on boot (basically strip the machine for "DAW mode"), it can give you a bit more room. IIRC, my HP would go to 35%, but rapidly jump to 50% with simple usage. I was manually cleaning RAM on that machine when it hit 75%, then the process would start over. Quite a few programs do not release RAM properly, so it is sometimes simpler to set processes (via services) to "manual" (manual start), and only open them if you intend to use them.

Or just update to a decent tower/desktop......

[mettelus]

That would be preferred (if it is an option), but I still do that on all machines. It is amazing how much garbage is loaded into RAM on boot without user intervention.

[Fris]

Thanks to all. I think I know what I must do...

[abacab]

On my 2 systems, a custom desktop and a plain off-the-shelf budget consumer laptop, Windows 10 and the other things that run at boot take up about 2.2GB of memory.

Cakewalk memory use runs a little over 300MB here with just a new blank project open. So that adds up to 2.5GB memory used, just to get started.

On my 8GB desktop that leaves me with 5.5GB available, and I don't think I have ever maxed that out. But my laptop only has 1.5BG memory free, before I add anything to the project. I only have some DAW stuff loaded up on the laptop to play around with when traveling, as I much prefer a desktop for DAW use.

You could probably run a project with audio tracks only, and very few, plugins and/or virtual instruments. You would have to try it and see the actual results, based on your intended usage to see what could work.

And as was mentioned, your CPU is a little below the specs, but my laptop only has a 1.7GHz Intel i5. It can run a few tracks and/or virtual instruments OK, but it can get quickly bogged down and maxed out by CPU hungry plugins!

 

Edited November 10, 2019 by abacab

[scook]

If this is the model with a max screen resolution of 1366 x 768, it is going to have problems displaying the program.

The minimum screen resolution required is 1280x800.