I have a Toshiba x205-SLi2 laptop that came pre-loaded with Vista.
After spending an enormous amount of time.. I got XP Pro SP2 installed.

the specs on the laptop:


Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor* T8100 [2.10GHz, 3MB L2 cache, 800MHz FSB]

4GB PC2-5300 DDR2 667MHz SDRAM*

NVIDIA® SLI Dual GeForce® 8600M GT,* with up to 767MB memory (512MB discrete + up to 255MB shared memory)

17.0" Diagonal Widescreen WXGA+ TruBrite™ Display* (1440x900, w/native support for 720p content)

(2) 320GB western digital 5400rpm hard drives.


I have all the latest drivers, etc...

I maxed this bad boy out with RAM and hard drive space available.


When I load VSL my CPU peaks at 100% and stays around 90% without videos even loaded... just idle. I can load a video and play it out fairly smooth... but if I do anything like load a video on the other deck... it freezes while the overviews are being built (again)... I can't see the preview screens on the software to even preview a track or preview effects.

I have heard other say that can somewhat run it on XP. Just wondering if there are any tips to their success with it.

(no mac comments... I have one on order. This is for us PC users to get feedback on this side of the tracks)

As I allready mentioned in other threads, DJ Shortee is running it smoothly on an XP-machine, but her CPU is stronger with 2.5

Have you enables v-sync, also on your graphics card? www.scratchlive.net

besides the similar cpu activity on my dell inspiron 6400/e1505, it runs pretty smoothly. i can see the preview screens with no dropouts on either deck. this is with the newest version in demo mode. i haven't played with another video monitor hooked up often, but it seems to work okay.

core 2 duo - 2.0 ghz - can't remember cache - probably 800 fsb
2 gb ram - i believe at 667
vid files on usb powered external (for now)
ati radeon mobility card x1300 or x1400 (can't remember which but it's on another thread somewhere)
xp

only tweak i do (sometimes) is turning off wireless/bluetooth.

eagerly awaiting the next vsl update before i purchase. hope it helps with cpu usage a bit as they say it should.

using mp4 containers with mpeg codec and aac at 160 kbps. 29.97 framerate (?) and....um....other stuff that i can't think of. i encode with super because handbrake just ain't working for me.

yes I have v-sync enabled.

Along with not see-ing the preview screens I get random drop outs on the output screen.

Which VSL-Version? This sounds like a problem from the 1.0

I had a XP-Machine before, with a Core2 Duo 2.0, 2 Gigs RAM and an 128 MB ATI Mobility Radeon, and I managed to lower the CPU-load to about 96%
One key to it was having low keyframe-spaces (a keyframe every 20 frames) in my videos.
Video quality (VSL-performance options) in the middle and buffer a bit over the middle (but with 4 gigs the middle is just ok).
But that wasn't enough to make it run smoothly, it still stuttered upon loading an new video to the other deck.

Then I bought me a macb... oh... I forgot... no posts regarding the bad m-word... sorry...

hey phat-al,

I had to update my video drivers to version 16x or above to see the preview windows.... and also follow these steps when opening up scratchlive...

more info can be found here....
scratchlive.net

1. Open Scratchlive software
2. Click on "video". This is where it gets critical, if you screw up, start over again. Anyway after you click on "video" the output screen will either show up on your main 1st screen where "Scratchlive" is open or on your secondary monitor (it depends where you last left that little output window. If your mini output screen is on the main monitor, drag it to the secondary monitor. If the mini output screen is already on the secondary, just leave it.
3. Next you want to press the "maximize" tab on the mini output window, this will enlarge the mini output window.
4. Now go back to the main "Scratchlive" window, and on the video area where the three monitors are located, click on the "fullscreen" tab.
5. Now load your video and play.

I have the latest installed.





did that too





did that too... will be here Friday...

But I was hoping to touch on the PC side for this thread.







I tried that method... doesn't work.

I have installed like 4 different versions of the drivers... all the same results.



other than the high CPU, random video drops, no preview screens ... it works better than vista.

To end the story: I finally sold my PC-Laptop :-)

dj phat, did you have 57 attached when u downloaded serato program. it has to be connected while u download

You mean while you install?

YES, because while it is installing it will stop and look for ttm57 or sl1 to see which you are using the 57 must be attached and on. very important.

I did for a couple weeks, and then something changes.. For the life of me I cannot figure out what, but I was then plagued with a pegged CPU.

Dell 2.2 core2duo 3gigRam Nvidia 8600mGT.... WinXP

one helluva re-encoder machine now.... [grumble]

connection to the 57 isn't the problem.
It installed just fine.

are your hard drives USB 2.0? maybe the chipset can't keep up with all the disk traffic as well as the 57's audio streams?

I think I recall some USB controllers have trouble dealing with a mixture of USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 devices simultaneously. Perhaps an expresscard USB adapter to give one or the other it's own controller could help.

N/M just saw your post in the thread on that very topic, firewire 800 should be good to go...

what are your video-sl buffer size, and output quality settings? what framerate shows in the info panel with no videos loaded, and then with 2 loaded?