Pro Tools Free (Dec 2000) requires intel pentium II or III or PPC mac

[chrisNova777]

In Windows 98/ME whichever device you select in control panels > sounds & multimedia will be your 2 track input device for pro tools... if your sound card has a number of 'virtual inputs & outputs' you may have to experiment to find the right setting.. pro tools in windows is still limited to recording 2 tracks at a time unfortunately!!! but the zone release was updated to allow up to 32 playback tracks!!!

http://archive.digidesign.com/compato/mainfreewin.html

Why would anyone want to run win98se/me just to run pro tools free?
the main advantage of this particular release of pro tools is that it works with ***any
asio compatible audio interface!!***of course that audio interface must also be compatible
with windows 98se or Windows Me, but there are some great (& affordable) choices!
most of which we will list soon for you to review here on this site.

PC / WIN98 DOWNLOAD: http://www.mediafire.com/download/s2ssxg2w1mdlodo/ProToolsFree_v5.01-ZONE.zip (32 tracks)
MAC / OS8.6/9.x: http://www.mediafire.com/download/5niexols7bt9t82/proToolsFree_v5.01-MAC.sit (8 tracks)


   
Pro Tools 5.0.1 FREE Revision 2
Digidesign Hardware Not Required
CPU Models :  any Intel Pentium III cpu
Operating system : Windows Me or Windows 98 Second Edition (will NOT run on Windows XP, 2000, NT, 95, or 3.1)
original windows 98 also not reccomended
File System can be : FAT16 but FAT32 is reccommended for best performance
Motherboard must use Intel Chipset (440BX, 815E etc)
and feature a phoenix or award bios chip
Dedicated ATA or SCSI Hard drive for recording this means a 2nd hard drive other than your boot drive which contains your windows OS + the pro tools program installation

http://akarchive.digidesign.com/support/docs/Pro_Tools_FREE_501_ReadMe.pdf
http://akarchive.digidesign.com/support/docs/PT_FREE_Quick_Start_Guide.pdf
http://akarchive.digidesign.com/support/docs/50/Digi001QuickStartGuide501.pdf
http://akarchive.digidesign.com/support/docs/50/PT_5.0.1_Reference_Guide.pdf

Pro Tools FREE has been problematic with the following systems or systems with the following components:
Some Sony VAIO computers
Some Hewlett Packard Pavillion computers
Cyrix processor based computers
AMD K6, K6-2 or K6-III, K7 processor based computers
Original Pentium processor based computers (Pentium I)
VIA chipset based motherboard computers
"ESS Solo-1 PCI AudioDrive" Sound, video and game controller.
This device can be disabled from the "Device Manager" in the "System" Control Panel.

Third-Party MIDI Hardware
http://archive.digidesign.com/compato/ptfree/midihwfree.html

Optional Digidesign Software - Pro Tools FREE for Windows
http://archive.digidesign.com/compato/ptfree/digiswfreewin.html

MIDI Controllers - Pro Tools FREE Windows 98/Me [1.01 MB]
http://secure.digidesign.com/services/avid/kb/downloads.cfm?digiArticleId=5089
http://akarchive.digidesign.com/support/docs/50/MIDI_Controllers_Guide50.pdf

does pro tools free for windows support direct x?
NO - only RTAS
http://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/articles/digidesign-pro-tools-for-windows-support-directx-vst-plugins/

using pro tools free with the tascam us-428:
http://tascam.com/content/downloads/products/316/ProTools.pdf

mp3 export
http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/download/en365031

Note: Most RTAS and/or AudioSuite Plug-Ins from Digidesign's Development Partners are compatible with Pro Tools FREE. For a list of possible optional plug-ins, use the Digi 001 Plug-In Finder in the Products section of the website. However, some manufacturer's Plug-Ins are not enabled for use with Pro Tools FREE. (Antares and Bomb Factory plug-ins are not compatible with Pro Tools FREE) Before purchasing any RTAS or AudioSuite Plug-In for use with Pro Tools FREE, we recommend checking compatibility with the manufacturer.

it appears alot of the plugins are the same version for v5.01 as the for v3.x
http://archive.digidesign.com/compato/pt3/digisw.html

[chrisNova777]

Recommendations for working with different PC soundcards & chip sets:
General Soundcard Information
Always check with your soundcard manufacturer on availability of updated drivers for your
card.
New drivers often include important bug fixes, improvements, and changes to maintain
compatibility with the latest operating systems.

SoundBlaster
- SoundBlaster family cards MUST BE USED AT A SAMPLE RATE OF 48KHz. due to
input/output clock drift on  these cards. Failure to use a sample rate of 48KHz. may cause
audio artifacts, stop successful operation, and/or produce –9092 error messages.
- Many SoundBlaster and SoundBlaster Live users have reported success with Pro Tools
FREE 5.0.1 by updating to the latest drivers for these audio cards.  Go to
www.soundblaster.com
  to get new drivers for your SoundBlaster card.
- For best results, the hardware buffer size should be set at 8k (the highest setting).

Turtle Beach Montego
This soundcard is now working better on some systems with Pro Tools FREE 5.0.1 version
R2.

Gueillmot ISIS
This soundcard now works with Pro Tools FREE 5.0.1 version R2.

Diamond Monster MX400
- The Diamond Monster MX400 should be used ONLY at a sample rate of 48 kHz.
This is recommended because at a sample rate of 44.1 kHz., this card can drift out of time by about
136 milliseconds per minute of playback.
- For best results,the hardware buffer size should be set at 8k (the highest setting).

Echo Electronics Gina
Testing with this card has shown that large hardware buffer sizes are not necessary for
successful operation. We have had good results with hardware buffer sizes as low as 256.
This greatly reduces monitoring latency as well as control sluggishness that is associated with
higher hardware buffer size settings.

Echo Electronics Darla
We have not been able to make this card work successfully with Pro Tools FREE.

Emagic Audiowerk
We have not been able to make this card work successfully with Pro Tools FREE

http://web.archive.org/web/20020804133011/http://digiprotools.free.fr/

[chrisNova777]

http://www.dontcrack.com/freeware/software.php/id/7037/audio/Plug-ins-%26amp-effects/plugins/RTAS/

a number of FREE rtas plugins are available here
unknown as to which ones work and which ones dont
trial + error

nomad factory free bundle: (RTAS / VST / AU osx + win pc)
http://download.dontcrack.com/nomadfactory/download_software/free/

[chrisNova777]

https://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/articles/pro-tools-free-for-windows-98-se-sessions-transferable/

On the Windows platform, you can bring your Windows 98 SE Pro Tools Free or Pro-Tools LE sessions to a Windows NT TDM system, and bring Windows NT TDM sessions back to Windows 98 SE Pro Tools Free or Pro-Tools LE. The same integration Between Pro Tools Free/LE/TDM is also possible on the Macintosh Platform.

True cross platform support for Macintosh and Windows 98 SE Pro-Tools LE is currently unsupported.
We hope to include this feature in a future release..