Power Mac G5 — Pro Tools|HD Requirements

For Pro Tools|HD 1, HD 2, HD 3, HD 2 Accel, and HD 3 Accel Systems

With Pro Tools 6.2.3 for Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther)

Supported Power Mac G5 Computers

Single Processor

  

Dual Processor
1.6 GHz Power Mac G5   Dual 1.8 GHz Power Mac G5
1.8 GHz Power Mac G5   Dual 2.0 GHz Power Mac G5

Specifications

Additional Requirements

System Software

Supported Expansion Chassis

Storage Requirements

SCSI Accelerator Cards

For maximum track count, Pro Tools|HD systems require the use of a qualified SCSI HBA card. The following SCSI HBA cards are qualified with the Power Mac G5 models listed at the top of this page.

MIDI Interface — USB Only

Dual Monitor AGP Graphics Cards

All dual monitor cards which ship as standard equipment with qualified Apple Power Mac G5 models at the top of this page are supported with Pro Tools 6.

Known Issues:

The following are known issues:

  • The Movie Offset feature affects both the QT Movie output to DV and the Onscreen movie
  • If users want to use Japanese fonts in their sessions, they will not be able to use HFS (standard) drives – only HFS+
  • Use of "Continuous Scroll with Playhead" with LCD monitors may result in a flickering gray area located to the left of the session start point
  • Sometimes when opening a session that was based on a PT 3.2 format session, the following error may occur when Restoring IO paths: Time type mismatch occurred in "Time_Typed.cpp" line 370. A reboot may be necessary if this occurs
  • System instabilities and performance issues can occur when using MIDI control surfaces in conjunction with Pro Tools 6 and 3rd party MIDI interfaces. For best multiport MIDI performance, we recommend using Digidesign's MIDI I/O.
  • The JSK synchronizer is not compatible with Pro Tools using Remote Mode (Item #43046)
  • When playing DV video out the FireWire port to a Canopus ADV-100, if the Canopus is connected to a Firewire drive containing a bridge chip made by Initio it may drop frames (flash black) during playback. To correct this, connect the Canopus directly to the CPU's Firewire port. (Item #46806)

Important: Energy Saver Settings for Power Mac G5

For optimal Pro Tools performance, you must set Processor Performance (located in System Preferences > Energy Saver > Options) to Highest.

Apple's Mac OS help documentation provides the following information on Energy Saver Processor settings:

  • The PowerPC G5 processor in your Power Mac G5 can run at various speeds. The default setting for this feature is "Automatic", which allows the system to run the processor at full speed when required, and at a lower speed during periods of light processing activity. Certain real-time applications, such as audio creation or gaming, may perform optimally when using the highest processor performance setting. You can change the processor performance setting in the Energy Saver pane of System Preferences.

Incompatible with Power Mac G5 due to 5.0 volt limitation:

  • SCSI64 Kit (included ATTO Express PCI-DC card is not compatible)

Third-Party PCI Cards Incompatible with Power Mac G5

  • ATTO Express PCI-DC SCSI card
  • Aurora Igniter, IgniterRT, and IgniterLT (manufactured before Spring 2003)

Older versions of the Igniter, IgniterRT, and IgniterLT card are not electronically or physically compatible with the Power Mac G5, as they are 5 volt-only cards. You can tell if your card is compatible by examining the edge connector. If there is only one "slot" in the PCI edge connector, it is the older style 5 volt-only card. For details on how to upgrade to the newer IgniterX card, go to:
http://www.auroravideosys.com/support/faqs.html

Other Digidesign PCI cards are not compatible with Pro Tools|HD Systems or Power Mac G5

Previous Digidesign PCI cards are incompatible with Pro Tools|HD systems. You cannot combine Pro Tools|HD and these PCI cards, either in the CPU or an expansion chassis. Doing so will cause crashes, or the CPU will simply fail to boot.

In addition, Pro Tools|24 & MIX cards are not compatible with Apple Power Mac G5 models. Please see the following information:

The following Digidesign cards are not compatible with EITHER Pro Tools|HD systems for Mac OS X or Power Mac G5:

  • MIX Core card
  • MIX Farm card
  • MIX I/O card
  • d24 card (Pro Tools|24 core card)
  • DSP Farm card (Pro Tools III/Pro Tools|24)
  • Digi 001
  • Audiomedia III
  • Pro Tools III Disk I/O
  • Pro Tools Project card
  • Project II card
  • SampleCell II cards

The following Digidesign hardware is also not compatible with Pro Tools|HD systems:

  • Universal Slave Driver
  • Video Slave Driver
  • SMPTE Slave Driver
  • SampleCell II TDM Module
  • 882 I/O
  • 888 I/O

Additional Information:

See also: Pro Tools 6 documents in the Support > Tech Support > Technical Document Library and included with new Pro Tools systems and upgrade CDs.

Digidesign Compatibility Documents Index