MiniDSP slow measurements and low range

[Rabbit]

Hi,
I have brought a UMIK-1 to use with my very old laptop and I am having measurements issues in RTA mode. REW recognises the microphone and loads the calibration file etc, but when I click the record button in RTA mode with pink noise playing via a cd, the measurements produced are painfully slow and mainly in the 20 to 500hz range (with the odd reading at 8k). Its like watching stop-motion animation with a good half to 1 second wait between frames (update of the graph). I have tried it in both Windows 8.1 and 7 with the same result as I have the discs.

I know its not the mic as if I plug it into my desktop PC 6670k everything works as it should, is my laptop just too slow AMD V160 2 GB RAM (bought 2012 and was a budget model) or is there something else I can try? I plan to use REW for EQing my car, so using the desktop isn't an option as its too loud at my house (alongside main road). If it is too old what is the min specs I should be looking at to replace it with?

 

[John Mulcahy]

You may get better results using sweeps to measure, the REW sweep can be saved as a WAV with a timing reference from the signal generator and REW set to wait for the timing reference when measuring. The load when making sweep measurements is lower.

If you do use pink noise best using REW's Pink PN (Periodic Noise) as you don't need to use averaging with that, again can save to WAV from the signal generator. The RTA load can be reduced by using a shorter FFT setting (make sure the Pink PN is generated with the same FFT length), reducing Max Overlap, or increasing the Update Interval.

 

[Rabbit]

So it is the cpu struggling then. In which case if it is struggling to take readings I shudder to think how long it will take to do eq calculations, so probably time for a replacement (but I will give your method a try 1st).

If I do decide to replace the laptop, is REW a multithread application? Don't want to spend much on a laptop, but don't want to change one weak laptop for another either

 

[John Mulcahy]

Yes, REW is multi-threaded.

 

[ddude003]

There may be some issues with windoz and the lappy's system resources (read hardware)... Have you gone thru any attempts to "tune" the OS and possibly strip it down to the bare minimum for audio use??? Swapping to disk is the first place I would be looking... Remember, your only as fast as your slowest component... You might look for some tips on OS Optimization... Google is your frenemy... ;^)

Or, buy some bigger, faster hardware... Some is good, more is better and too much is just right... 8^)

 

[Rabbit]

I've tried a clean install of windows 7 (from disk) with nothing on it but the OS, Java and REW and its the same Haven't tried the sweep method yet as the laptop is still loading service pack 1 for the past 4 hours (50% done).

I think I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and buy a new laptop, even if the sweeping works it's going to take forever to do the eq cals which will just drive me up the wall! 7 speakers to do, then in pairs, then in 2 pairs etc and i'll be died and buried by the time its done.

I just wanted to make dam sure it was the laptop before I sorted a replacement. Bit annoying to buy the mic and find that your laptop cant handle it, but ho-hum.

Now I just need to decide on amd or intel, then which version, how much ram etc any recommendations? From a purely REW point of view which is best

 

[markf2748]

It may well be your old AMD V160, which has a CPU Mark rating of 681. That is very low by today's standards:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+V160&id=505

As one point of reference, my 5 year old Dell Inspiron with Intel i7-3632QM@2.20 GHz CPU, 8GB RAM, Win 10, has CPU Mark 6939. It runs REW just fine.

You might get away with 4GB RAM. I don't know impact on REW, but in general, I would not buy a new laptop with less than 8GB RAM.

 

[Rabbit]

Wow, i knew it was old and slow but I didn't think it was that bad!

On the plus side anything I buy will be a huge jump then. Many thanks for the 8GB RAM advice, I will make sure any laptop has that, SSD also seems to be recommended as a must too, with the i3 being the min recommended level of intel to buy and ryzen for amd (though they seem to be in short supply).

 

[ddude003]

Heads, Threads and Vector Architectures... RAM and SSD... These are the basics for fast signal and image processing...
Intel i5 or better, Nvidia GFX, 8GB RAM or better and an SSD would be my recommendation...
I have had good luck with Apple and Asus lappys for many years... Your milage may vary...

PS - My 3 year old MacBook Pro Geekbench CPU benchmark is 7145... Runs REW great...

 

[Almoped]

You could have a look at something like notebookcheck.net 's Buyers Guide -> Budget Office/Business Laptops which will be plenty fine for running REW and other general usage. But they only list newish stuff. There could be good deals available to you locally or somewhere you can order from online, in which case the Ryzen, I3 or better makes sense to look for, in the Intel case it could even be a couple generations old and not matter much.

 

[Rabbit]

You could have a look at something like notebookcheck.net 's Buyers Guide -> Budget Office/Business Laptops which will be plenty fine for running REW and other general usage. But they only list newish stuff. There could be good deals available to you locally or somewhere you can order from online, in which case the Ryzen, I3 or better makes sense to look for, in the Intel case it could even be a couple generations old and not matter much.

Thanks, I'm finding it hard to justify buying an i5/ryzen 6 as I just won't use the laptop enough, so this helps a great deal