[PD] PD effiecientcy

[Bradon Webb]

Hello,

I am running PD on winXP laptop with 1.2 gig 512mB
Ram,

I don't seem to be having trouble running other audio
or video applications, with processing so I feel like
my computer is not necessarily the problem.  I feel
like I should be able to put more into my PD patches
before they start cutting out from the audio
calculation/processing.  I guess the term is underuns?
when the computer cannot process all the data within
the specified unit of time to playback smoothly.  I
seem to be upward 50-70% cpu usage peaking.. my
questions are thee;

1.how much (%)CPU usage can I expect to use while
still maintaining smooth audio output?

2.If I redesign all my abstractions so there is no GOP
or visual interface how much faster can I expect the
patch to run (% cpu).

3.How do I make the patches more efficient?

4.How much does running other sound aps in the
background while PD is running effect/contribute to
the underruns... It doesn't seem like it is
contributing much to the CPU problem, becasue I get
underuns either way with it running, or with it off.
Should I never do this? 

it seems like the only solution right now is to
somehow cut all the tasks and render them to wav files
and then use multitracking to put layers back
together.  which means live performance is pretty much
out of the question at this point.  I want to get 2x -
3x the performance I am getting right now.  But that
is just an arbitrary feeling of how complex I want the
patches to be, If the machine can't handle it then
there is nothing I can do about it, except become a
better programmer...

Thanks for any advice.
Bradon 

p.s. I know it is kind of abstract to talk this way
without a specific example, if anyone wants to see a
patch of mine, I would be more than happy to post for
a critique.

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