Specifications

Chapter 4: Configuring Your Pro Tools System 43
• A Cache Size of Large improves performance
when using Elastic Audio features, but it also de-
creases the amount of memory available for
other system tasks, such as RTAS processing.
To change the Cache Size:
1 Choose Setup > Playback Engine.
2 From the Cache Size pop-up menu, select a
disk cache size.
3 Click OK.
System Memory Allocation
When you start your computer, Pro Tools auto-
matically reserves a portion of system memory
for the DAE Playback Buffer. This reserved mem-
ory is unavailable to other applications, even if
Pro Tools is not running.
You can set Pro Tools to reserve only the mini-
mum amount of required memory, so that more
system memory is available to other applica-
tions.
To minimize system memory allocation:
1 Choose Setup > Playback Engine.
2 Select the “Minimize System Memory Allocation”
option.
3 Click OK.
4 Restart your computer.
Plug-in Streaming Buffer Size
(Structure Plug-in Only)
This setting appears in the Playback Engine dia-
log only if the Structure sampler instrument
plug-in is installed on your system. The Plug-in
Streaming Buffer Size determines the amount of
memory DAE allocates for streaming playback
from disk with the Structure plug-in. This set-
ting only affects playback if disk streaming is ac-
tivated in Structure’s plug-in controls (see the
Structure Plug-in Guide for more information).
The optimum Plug-in Streaming Buffer Size for
most sessions is 250 ms (Level 2).
• Plug-in Streaming Buffer Size settings lower
than 250 msec (Level 2) reduce the amount of
system memory used for sample playback and
frees up memory for other system tasks. How-
ever, reliability of sample playback may de-
crease.
• Plug-in Streaming Buffer Size settings higher
than 250 msec (Level 2) improve the reliability
of sample playback, but they also decrease the
amount of memory available for other system
tasks, such as RTAS processing.
Using a larger Cache Size leaves less system
memory for other tasks. The default setting of
Normal is recommended unless you are en-
countering -9500 (“Cache too small”) errors.
Cache Size menu in the Playback Engine dialog
Using a larger Plug-in Streaming Buffer Size
leaves less system memory for other tasks.
The default setting of 250 ms (Level 2) is
recommended unless you are experiencing
problems with the reliability of streaming
playback from disk.