Protools DSP chip 100% "allocated"

I've just spotted this after maxing out my Mix+ system with a pretty complex session. In the system usage screen, it looked like one of the DSP chips was free even though I was getting out of DSP errors. However, a mouse click on the chip resulted in it turning red and the message <allocated> 100% appearing. Allocated to what? I'd normally expect to see something a bit more descriptive. I'm only running Waves dynamics/EQ and Digi delayplug-ins Is this normal?

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

Cheers,

Mike

 

Fear not, Mike! You are not hallucinating...
This is "normal", albeit frustrating. In the old days the farm cards for ProTools had only one kind of DSP chip - and you filled them up until they were full, and that was it.

When the next generation of Mix/Mix+ farm cards came along, they were implemented with two distinctly different kinds of chips (3 each on a card), each optimized for different types ofplug-ins Someplug-inscan be used on either one (which is why there can be so much shuffling activity going on as the cards start to fill up) but manyplug-ins(like most reverbs) can only be used on one type. So if the three of that type are already filled, and nothing can be shuffled around, you could have two or three completely empty chips (of the wrong kind) and still get "DSP full" messages. That's one reason why so many people kept some or all of their vintage farm cards to use in addition to the new ones.

The good news? If you ever upgrade to the new HD systems, Digi is going back to the old design of having only one kind of DSP chip that will work on everything. Your useless empty chips will be a thing of the past, only to be replaced with who-knows-what other problems!

 

Thanks for the response and your help. Looks like I need to tidy the session up a bit. I'm tempted by the HD systems but think I'll let them bed in a for a bit longer. Rather than invest in a new mix farm, it would probably be better to put the cash into the HD upgrade. Still twice the cash but probably better in the long (ish) run.

Cheers,

Mike