just can't get reaper to run well.

I'm stuck. I just can't get this software to run well. 2.4 ghz P4 1.7gb Ram 120gb 7200 rpm system drive 250gb 7200 rpm audio drive Win XP SP 3 M-audio Delta 66 Messed with different drivers for the delta card unchecked "anticipative fx" disabled network card disabled on board audio uninstalled virus protection When ever the performance meter reaches about 35-40% i get all kinds of disruption in the audio playback. Right now running one stereo track and monitoring 1 input with 2 plugins, I'm about 11-15% when idle, 32% when playing back and spiking up past 40% inducing stuttering, drop outs... completely unusable. Help!

try running dpc latency checker and show us a screenshot of what you have. also, what do you have running in the background?

not much help, but for what its worth im running a very similar machine without any problems. 2.4 ghz p4 xp sp3 2 gb ram m-audio audiophile 2496 i dont experience stutters or dropouts until cpu load goes well past 90%, and im running antivirus and wireless lan too. so it is possible to get it to run properly on a machine like that. ill see if i can post some advice when i get some time to look at my settings...

Maybe it's SP3. I've heard negative comments about it. Perhaps a reinstall without anti-virus and other interferring background services/apps?

so the one with the yellow happened when I started playback on the project I described above, the other is the machine with no programs running besides what's running in the background.

What audio system latency (buffer size) are you using? I'd expect that machine to need at least 512 samples or higher.

Doesn't Reaper's audio engine use some optimisations that are not supported on older CPUs? Forget where but I read another thread about people having severe performance issues on some older hardware, and it came down to reaper's engine having code optimisations that rely on features found in newer CPU's / chipsets. Not sure if the P4 was affected or perhaps only some P4's. Certainly all P3's were affected. IIRC the guys were working on some mods to the code to support older CPUs (perhaps a config checkbox "Use alternative engine for older PC hardware'), or at least there was a FR to that effect. z. :)

Up until a month or so ago I ran a P4 2.4 with no issues with lots of tracks. ASIO buffers? Where they at, yo?

Any chance you have a wireless card too? I had a Netgear wireless card that was a pig on older drivers. Once I disabled it, Reaper was fine. however, this was back in the 1.x days and the drivers were old at the time. Same machine with new wireless NIC drivers runs the card just fine with Reaper.

Try going back to SP2. Or format the system and see if it works then. I guess this is all Windows issue. :)