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pacman1

Solid State Member
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First Computer: is it capable of running these programs, can I add a decent soundcard

Hello there,


I have recently purchased my first computer of my own second hand, although I have used computers before I don't actually live in a cave.

here are the not so spectacular specs:

compaq presario 6000, pentium4 2.0 ghz, 512mb ram, 80 gig harddrive...that's all I know, am I leaving out something that you need to know?

I know it's not a great computer but I wanted to know if it has the capability to run a couple programs, and if I could add a decent soundcard.

I was wondering If could add a decent soundcard with 4-8 inputs for basic multi-track recordings (nothing too serious) into logic or protools, and if I could also run the sound-editing program soundforge.

I opened it up briefly and I saw an open PCI Slot (white) and what looked like a space for an additional hardrive, and I can add another 512mb or ram.


The main things I don't know, are:

1. If I can add a decent soundcard, because I don't know about pci slots, i.e. the difference between pci and pci-e, and what the speed of the pci slot has to be for a soundcard?

2. If my computer is even fast enough, and has enough ram and hd capacity to do basic multi-track recording/editing...


Although I'm pretty sure I could run soundforge but maybe not at the same time, if running logic is even possible.



thanks, and please inform me of any stupid questions that I should be researching myself somewhere else, as I don't mean to ask trivial questions and take up the time of the forum pros.
 
one more question:


Would it be safer to add an external harddrive via usb, so I could unplug that one easier when I didnt need to access it, to protect it from viruses...or wouldn't it be much safer then adding another internal harddrive since when an external drive is plugged in it could get a virus from the internal hd anyway??
 
PCI will run your card fine. Soundforge should be ok aswell, heres the requirements

Minimum System Requirements:

500 MHz processor

128 MB recommended

150 MB hard-disk space for program installation

Microsoft Windows 2000 or Windows XP

Windows-compatible sound card

CD-ROM drive (for installation from a CD only)

Supported CD-Recordable drive (for CD burning only)

DirectX 8.1 or later (included on CD-ROM)

Microsoft .NET 1.1 (included on CD-ROM)

Internet Explorer 5.0 or later (included on CD-ROM)

Some features may require product registration
 
thanks



oh man what a title, what did I do, I had a whole title typed out, that's ridiculous i must have erased it by accident
 
You could get a virus either way. You could even argue that having a USB drive could be worse for file corruption if you dont use the safely remove hardware option.

Personally i would just use another internal drive. Keep your AV and spyware upto date etc and all should be good.
 
so you don't think my system would be sluggish trying to do basic multi-track recording from my mixer through the soundcard into logic, recording like 4 tracks at a time?
 
Nah mate i think you will be fine, maybe think about adding more ram. Your processor is 4 x the system requirements
 
thanks again


that's what I thought about the hd, there's really no sure bet, probably better just to go with the additional internal.
 
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