Can crap graphics card affect performance?

[duffdeal]

Some VSTis seem to cause problems when I have the GUI up on screen. Everything will go all jerky, sometimes the music stutters and if I try and move the VST window everything will crunch to a halt for a few seconds.
It's weird because as soon as I close the window, everythings back to normal again, even if the synth is still playing, so it can't be the algorithims ( or whatever it is that makes noises ) thats causing the slow down. The worst offenders are arturia synths but it happens with a couple of others too.
Could it be that my graphics card is too shit too hadle the GUI and is causing the big freeze? I've got a NVIDA RIVA TNT Model 64, don't know if thats any good or not. Would it be worth getting a better one?

[RDR]

yes they can.

Remember that graphics cards and the whole issue of bandwidth on your mobo have a history, graphics cards have a tendency to want to hog bandwidth due to their intensive nature.

There are also issues related to

Drivers
Mobo compatibility
The programs you use
and the OS you use.

historicallt matrox are supposed to be the best at getting along with audio appz, mainly IMHO because they dont have bells and whistles on them, like cards such as ATI and nVIDIA.

[duffdeal]

Hmmm, cheers....Are they expensive?

[Evil G]

before buying a new graphics card you might want to try turning off accelerated graphics features. go to the troubleshooting tab under the advanced config page for your display.

[TechnoNRGKid]

yes they can.

Remember that graphics cards and the whole issue of bandwidth on your mobo have a history, graphics cards have a tendency to want to hog bandwidth due to their intensive nature.

There are also issues related to

Drivers
Mobo compatibility
The programs you use
and the OS you use.

historicallt matrox are supposed to be the best at getting along with audio appz, mainly IMHO because they dont have bells and whistles on them, like cards such as ATI and nVIDIA.

I dunno bout that one m8.
Graphics cards have there own central processing unit ( GPU< Graphical processing unit ). It does it's own processing seperately.
If you have an integrated graphics card, then it will rely way more on the CPU.

I goto go back to work but will talk to yous more on the topic.
Cheers.

[Barely Human]

As far as i know, nvidea or ati cards shouldnt make a difference to your performance when your not using 3d graphics. They are basically 2 cards in one. When you open a program that needs to use the accelerator it switches over and the gpu handles as much of the work as it can and leaves the rest to your cpu. When working in standard windows it shouldnt make a difference on your performance at all. In most cases things like this will be caused by either a cpu top out or your ram cant handle it. Maybe its bad ram. Download cool beans system info - http://www.coolbeans.ws/sysinfo.shtml and see what your system perfomance is reading when you open these vst's that cause a problem.

[TechMouse]

before buying a new graphics card you might want to try turning off accelerated graphics features. go to the troubleshooting tab under the advanced config page for your display.

Interesting... I would have thought that setting would off load more processing to the graphics card, freeing up CPU resources.

[TechnoNRGKid]

To buy a new graphics card would be a total waist of money.
Audio production programs dont need that sorta power cause hence , they dont use much, barely any graphics. Most graphics intensity you might seen in audio production is the DB meter bouncing up and down or the song scrolling left to right.
If you was using Nuendo AND you was doing video production then there would be a big difference and you would need a good, decent card to handle the video graphics, but still not audio.

CPU (Central Processing Unit , Main computer processor)

GPU (Graphics Processing Unit, Video Card )
APU ( Audio Processing Unit, Audio Card or onboard Audio card aka integrated audio card on the motherboard)
Those last 2 devices has it's own "Brain", and offloads the work the main cpu would have to do if those devices didn't exsist.

If you think it's memory, a really good program also to use is memtest86.
Run it before you goto work, or bed for the night/day. usually the longer the better. Days if you can.

It almost sounds like your CPU is straining. Do you have other apps running in the background you dont know about?
Maybe antivirus or anything?
I use to run stupid stuff like my tv card while messing around a bit with FL producer and my sound would jerk , when i moved windows it would jerk more, sorta like you mentioned. When i closed out the tv card program it would stop.

[FIK]

I think the only way a graphics card can interfere with the performance is when your graphics card sits right next to the soundcard.

[TechnoNRGKid]

^aka pci graphics do you mean?

[dan the acid man]

^aka pci graphics do you mean?

no any graphics card, if its too close to the sound card, can cause interferance

[BRADLEE]

I'm just using a 32MBDDR ATI card. I do not experiance these issues myself. So I don't know whether it would be dependant on the card or not. Sorry I am not much help, but I am simply expressing that I don't have a great graphics card, and mine is working fine.

[Mirsha]

No a graphics card shouldn't really effect your performanec music app wise, if you are having problems with the gui popping up for VSTi's, I've seen the same thing happen on my old slow pc and it was due to the fact it was just eating up too much CPU. Remeber VST instruments are a bit of a bastard creation that rely upon code in the audio prog which if it's shoddy could cause additional problems.

[TechnoNRGKid]

^aka pci graphics do you mean?

no any graphics card, if its too close to the sound card, can cause interferance

I havent heard bout that.
you know of any articles on the net i can read up bout that?

I haven't ran into that problem with any of my systems.
Maybe a crappy graphics card.
I've had my tv tuner to cause inteference once with my sound, because my tv tuner had an fm tuner, and i was connecting my tv card to my digital cable box, with a rigged sound wire. But that's the closest i've seen so far.
Inteference should not happen normally with a graphics card and sound card.

[dan the acid man]

well im not searching on the net all day for articles about it, i cant be bothered plus ive got the builders in here, but from a personal note, i built a pc for someone, he had a ati 9200 card built by saphire, and a m-audio 24/96 card, now i put these side by side, never even thinking there would be an issue, but we kept getting pops, clicks and crackles, the first thing i tried was new drivers, still the same, so my mate said, try moving the cards away from each other, so i moved the sound card to the furthest away slot, and hey presto, the interferance stopped.#

I then later bought a terratec dmx6/fire for myself, and in their manual it says not to put the soundcard next to the graphics card

[RDR]

yes they can.

Remember that graphics cards and the whole issue of bandwidth on your mobo have a history, graphics cards have a tendency to want to hog bandwidth due to their intensive nature.

There are also issues related to

Drivers
Mobo compatibility
The programs you use
and the OS you use.

historicallt matrox are supposed to be the best at getting along with audio appz, mainly IMHO because they dont have bells and whistles on them, like cards such as ATI and nVIDIA.

I dunno bout that one m8.
Graphics cards have there own central processing unit ( GPU< Graphical processing unit ). It does it's own processing seperately.
If you have an integrated graphics card, then it will rely way more on the CPU.

I goto go back to work but will talk to yous more on the topic.
Cheers.

I stand corrected, sorta.

The MAtrox WAS historically the best choice for audio appz, however im still not convinced that having a graphics card that requires a lot of B/W within a system wont diminish performance on the audio side.

remember i was talking about bandwidth within the bus.

[TechMouse]

im still not convinced that having a graphics card that requires a lot of B/W within a system wont diminish performance on the audio side.

remember i was talking about bandwidth within the bus.

If they're both on the PCI bus.

If the graphics card is AGP then it should be ok.

[RDR]

im still not convinced that having a graphics card that requires a lot of B/W within a system wont diminish performance on the audio side.

remember i was talking about bandwidth within the bus.

If they're both on the PCI bus.

If the graphics card is AGP then it should be ok.

Fair play - im wrong.

[TechnoNRGKid]

im still not convinced that having a graphics card that requires a lot of B/W within a system wont diminish performance on the audio side.

remember i was talking about bandwidth within the bus.

If they're both on the PCI bus.

If the graphics card is AGP then it should be ok.

yeah, AGP runs at a different bus Frequency ( 66mhz ) than PCI does ( 33mhz ).
Also if i remember correct, PCI runs on the southbridge chipset while the AGP runs on the Northbridge. Different bus routes that are divided/seperated.

[Dave Elyzium]

what he said ^