Burning CD's with a dual Core CPU

[regal]

So does the old rule to do no multitasking while burning a CD still hold true with the Dual Core Intel CPU's?

 

[kipman725]

In the days of buffer under run protection you shouldn't have a problem even with a non duel core cpu:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burn_proof
(unless your burner is very old)

 

[rreynol]

Same here. With buffered cd/dvd writing, it's not much of a worry (regardless of cpu). The only time I've had to "ease up" with my dual core system was burning a dvd from the same SATA drive that I was both unraring a RAR archive on and parity checking another set of files on. The buffer meter in nero got real low that day.

 

[pedxing]

Depends on the drive itself. Some drives recover better after a buffer underrun event. My plextor can recover, but if I perform a quality scan, high numbers of recoverable errors appear at that spot.

The problem I encounter is not CPU bounded but IO bounded. As long you don't saturate the IO system of the computer, you should be fine. In other words, do not perform a huge backup operation from one drive to another and burn at the same time. If your computer doesn't have that much memory, watch out for memory swapping too.

Burning at high speeds will exacerbate the problem too. 16x DVD burn speed is approaching transfer rates of contemporary drives (I believe its about 18-20 MB/sec). Enlarging the underrun buffer in the main memory might help, but it may not guarantee that the computer can pump data from the main memory and into the DVD burn drive in time if the DVD drive's cache goes empty.

 

[regal]

Nero has two buffer bars when burning: used read buffer and buffer level on the recorder. Which one should I watch and is a higher % better or worse? Thanks

 

[pheonix991]

Idk what you are talking about, I burn dvd's while I'm folding. No errors ever! So, sounds like you don't have enough ram.

 

[pedxing]

Quote:

Originally Posted by regal Nero has two buffer bars when burning: used read buffer and buffer level on the recorder. Which one should I watch and is a higher % better or worse? Thanks

This is where it might get complicated. In general, both bars should not drop to zero unless you reach the end of the burn because there is nothing left to burn.

I don't quite remember what the bars exactly mean, not to mention Nero's interface and labels are obfuscated, but I believe the buffer level on the recorder is more important. That buffer is local to the burner and as long it has data, data can be continuously burned to the disc. If it runs out, that means the burner has to take appropriate action or else the burn can fail. The second buffer can help reduce the risk of failure too, but I don't really know how.

Some DVD burners like the pioneer 111D will drop both buffers down to like zero after the first 10-13% of the burn because the drive switches into higher gears. This is considered normal and does not affect quality of the burn.

If you are paranoid about system load and the quality of the burn, I suggest you look into some free burning tools such as imgburn or burnatonce. They are light weight and some people claim they yield more reliable burns than nero can.

 

[pheonix991]

How the buffers work on nero are as follows.

hdd transfers data to the ultra buffer(ram) which transfers the data to the buffer on the drive. Idk about any other burners, but, mine slows down when my hdd can't keep up with the burner(so my buffers never run out).

 

[JahJahBinks]

Do newer burners support DMA?

 

[pheonix991]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JahJahBinks Do newer burners support DMA?

Yeah, they do.

 

[Bones13]

I run both AMD X2 and a new Core 2 Duo. EAC / Windows XP do not have the smarts to put one core running EAC and the other running windows. I still get very few hits going to the second core.

On the other hand, the AMD used to hang up much more with difficult rips than the new Intel does. I use SATA Plextor drives on both machine, a bit newer one on the Intel rig.

If I was still in process of ripping my library, I would figure out how to separate the work load manually. I think you can choose a core for a particular process in the Task Manager.

 

[pedxing]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JahJahBinks Do newer burners support DMA?

In general, all of your storage devices should be using DMA transfer. If a device is not using DMA transfer, you would probably know because your CPU usage would go through the roof and the storage will chug slowly. Turning on DMA can also increase the life span of your storage device, otherwise the mechanical parts would have to work much harder to read and write the same amount of information.

Sometimes Windows XP becomes dumb and reset your burners to PIO mode because it detected several bad IDE-related errors.

 

[JahJahBinks]

On a side note, does USB flashdrive support DMA?