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I don't have a top notch computer; I only have what I've got, which is an acer laptop. With about only a 1.6ghz cpu. I don't have the money to upgrade, or to buy a desktop. I'm just wondering if there is some way I can use my cpu more efficiently when running Fl Studio, so I can reduce the lagging.

I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium, and Fl Studio 10 (Demo). And I'm getting some lag when I try to run to many Native instrument products (I've only got the free ones, lol).

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A nice tip would be to use only native FL plugins. Try to read about them, Sytrus for example has configuration for different audio qualities for when producing and for when exporting audio. Some synth/samplershave options where you can control the audio quality. – Gustavo Bandeira May 9 at 21:23

3 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

This is more computer related than music but here's some hints and tips anyway.

Right click on 'computer' and then click 'properties' (you can do this either in your 'start menu' or on the 'desktop'). Here you'll find the specs of your PC including CPU speed and amount of RAM. Perhaps post the result here and also any other details you have about the laptop like model number and age.

If your computer doesn't meet the specs that FL requires:

http://flstudio.image-line.com/documents/systemrequirements.html

[2Ghz AMD or Intel Pentium 3 compatible CPU with full SSE1 support & 1 Gb or more RAM recommended]

then you're going to have problems no matter what you do. There is a page on Optimizing FL Studio performance:

http://flstudio.image-line.com/help/html/app_opt.htm

A cheap option is to pop an extra 1 or 2 GB RAM in there. I know you said you can't afford anything but if you've got say 512MB RAM than an upgrade to 2GB RAM (or 4GB if you can) will make a world of difference.

As an example this 2 x 1GB RAM upgrade from Newegg would set you back ~$32:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134554&cm_re=ddr2_laptop_ram_2_x_1gb-_-20-134-554-_-Product

A great investment really to get a vastly better experience form your laptop all round. Of course check exactly what RAM type you'd need before you purchase.

Some other ideas are to clean up your HDD (if you can do a fresh re-install of windows).

http://www.mydefrag.com/ is a great free defrager if you don't know how to do a re-install this might help a little by allowing your HDD to run smoother.

You can increase the size of your virtual RAM and see if that helps at all:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Change-the-size-of-virtual-memory

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Most of your suggestions were very simple to me; but yes, I should have said my specs. I'm running an acer 5532 with 3Gbs of ram, and 1.6Ghz cpu. – James Litewski Apr 13 '11 at 20:49
I wasn't sure about your level of knowledge so I went for the basics. Really your CPU is underpowered and there's not much else you can do short of overclokcing. Not a very good idea in a laptop but you could look into it. You've already got 3GB RAM which should be plenty. Did you know that the CPU was so slow when you got it? It's really not much good for anything but office apps and browsing and for that its perfect - but of course you know that from expereience. – Fhilip K Apr 14 '11 at 4:52
Yeah, I knew the cpu was low.. I just didn't have the money to get anything better; – James Litewski Apr 14 '11 at 5:40
Sorry I can't be of more assistance. At least there's now a record for anyone needing this sort of thing. Did you follow the FL suggestions on this page: flstudio.image-line.com/help/html/app_opt.htm ? – Fhilip K Apr 14 '11 at 11:03
Yea, it helped a little, thank you :) – James Litewski Apr 14 '11 at 11:45
up vote 1 down vote

Take advantage of ASIO Drivers. They will increase performance x100 lol

Also, and audio interface may help performance a bit too, but ASIO Drivers are #1, if you are using the primary at the moment!

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up vote 0 down vote

With a computer like that, you'd be miles better off running an older version of FL Studio. I personally recommend FL 8. I've got the installer for the demo, and I'd be glad to upload it for you here, as it's quite hard to find anymore (if that's allowed - are we okay to do that, if it's free?).

Also, it would really help if you disabled some of Win7's visual effects. Press [Windows Key] + [Pause/Break] to bring up System. Click 'Advanced System Settings' (it's in the pane on the left). Under the 'Advanced' tab, click 'Settings...' under Performance. Click the radio button labeled 'Adjust for Best Performance' to disable everything, then enable what you need one-by-one. ('Smooth Edges of Screen Fonts', 'Enable Visual Styles', and 'Drop Shadows on Desktop Icons' are all you really need to have enabled, for the most part, but your mileage may vary.)

Look into some freeware VSTs by indie developers. Native Instruments is a solid company, but a lot of their plugs tend to use a lot of resources. Don'tCrac[k] is an AWESOME resource for free plug-ins. My favorites are Synth1, Minimouge (sic), LinPlug FreeAlpha3, and anything and everything by Xoxos. Avoid Image-Line's built-in synth Sytrus - it's a massive resource hog. :P

Let us know how it works out for you, and best of luck! If you have any questions regarding FL, feel free to ask them here - I know the software pretty well, and I'll help in whatever way I can.

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