Preferred Pd platforms

[Mark Danks]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Graham [mailto:chrisgr at mail.quik.com]
> Subject: Preferred Pd platforms
>
<snip>
> I'm in the process of buying a new computer, and I'm 
> wondering what choices
> I should make for compatibility with Pd (and GEM).
> 
> I'd appreciate some help with a few questions:
> 
> - How similar is Pd to MAX?  If I get the book on MAX 
> programming, will this be an aid to learning Pd?
> 
  IMHO, it would be very difficult to learn Pd without knowing MAX right
now.  This is starting to change due to some tutorials and help docs,
but there isn't too much right now.  A book on MAX programming probably
won't help, because it won't cover the audio objects, GEM, etc. and will
probably focus on a lot of objects which don't exist in Pd.  If you can
get Chris Dobrian's (sp?) Max/FTS tutorial, then that is probably the
best bet.

> - What would be a good hardware/OS platform for Pd?  What I'm 
> interested in is stability of Pd on the platform, and very good
performance.
>
  WinNT is probably the most stable right now, if for no other reason
than Miller and I develop there primarily there.  Linux probably has the
best performance, but then you have to deal with a lot of
hardware/installation issues there...
 
> Because of other software I'd like to run, my preference 
> would be for an Intel box running NT - around a 450mhz Pentium III.
>From 

  This would be fine.  If you want to run GEM, then I would suggest a
TNT or TNT2 (when it comes out May 1st), preferably with video output.
The very high end accelerators don't offer much benefit unless you are
doing things like softimage.

> If so, then I have these specific hardware questions:
> 
> - suggested sound card
> - type midi interface
> - amount of ram
> - benefit of dual processor capability
> 

  The more RAM the better.  You can't have enough.  In this day and age,
128Meg minimum.
  Right now, there is no benefit from a dual processor...but it is being
looked into.

Later, Mark

----------------------------------------
-- Mark Danks
-- mdanks at stormfront.com
-- http://www.danks.org/mark
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