SCREEM said:
that guitar effects prog sucks big time because of latency, but man does it sound cool on the stock setting
It really depends on your computer power and how it is setup.
I'm running a Celeron 2.4Ghz with 1Gb RAM and I can usually handle more than 5 VST plugins at once and have a latency of about 10ms, with a SoundBlaster Live soundcard.
The souncard drivers will make a big difference too on the latency.
If you have a SoundBlaster card, you can try the KxProject drivers
www.kxproject.com
Or look at the
www.asioforall.com for some more generic ASIO drivers.
The ASIO drivers communicate directly with the soundcard without going thru the Windows infrastructure.
But be prepared to do lotsa reading. The drivers can be a beast to master and setup.
And VST plugins vary a lot in processing power required.
A good source of free VST plugins that are not too CPU demanding:
for some slightly unusual and very nice sounding plugins,
http://www.digitalfishphones.com/main.php?item=2&subItem=1
for some more standard plugins,
http://www.kjaerhusaudio.com/classic-series.php
And you can browse this site
http://www.kvraudio.com/get.php for some other free and commercial plusgins.