I have a powerbook g4 1,5Gh with 1.2 Ram (1gig and 256mb) and I can hardly load more than 2 AU instr. and 3-4 plugins in DP4.6.
i was just wondering what the f''' is happening. Do I have to buy 1 more gb RAM? and if so, what would be the result? i would be able to load another 1-2 instr more?? that's all? a couple of years ago I had a p3 at 1Gh and it was 5 times faster than my powerbook? So what is all about?

You can never have too much ram but I think speed is the issue here.

You can always consider a faster harddrive - i.e. 7200 rpm unit.
(Hitachi makes a couple)

PB:s have at most only 5400:rpm units - i.e. the newest PB:s.

You should check that your PB also is configured for mainly audio-use as well.
(much cheaper than buying more ram and/or new harddrive)

There are a couple things you can try:
1) Defragmant you drive with Techtool Pro regurlarly.
2) Uninstall any programs you DONT ABSOLUTELY need.
3) Get rid of unwanted drivers and language files.
4) Get rid of un-needed cache-files and logfiles etc
5) Get rid of typefaces you dont need.
6) Deactivate network, appletalk, & widgets (if you have Tiger) and other background tasks
that is NOT needed.

Cheers: Dixiechicken

Defrag? On OSX? Whatever.

OS X only defragment by itself files of 20 MB and less. Now some users have had experiences with their audio software after a general defragmentation of the system drive. Best is stil to copy big files, erase, restore (using a clone is even better).

btw michael, what kind of plug-ins are you talking about? If they are reverbs…