optimizing win XP for GigaStudio and audio recording

[Kenn159]

Hi All
All the computer optimization tips that I have found are for win 9 x programs .
Just wonder if anyone can recommend a source for for optimizing a win Xp computer for Audio/Giga studio?
Thanks , Ken

[killerbobjr]

First tip, don\'t run XP. If you want to use an NT based OS, use Windows 2000. XP uses quite a bit more CPU horsepower than 2000. See this article for more details: http://www.infoworld.com/articles/tc/xml/01/10/29/011029tcwinxp.xml (\"http://www.infoworld.com/articles/tc/xml/01/10/29/011029tcwinxp.xml\")

Second tip, there isn\'t much you can do to 2000/XP to improve performance. You can remove unused services to free up resources, set priorities of your IRQ\'s to give your system timer and soundcard highest priority, eliminate the virtual paging file, get rid of all the eye candy and visual effects, and do a few other miscellaneous tweaks. None of these drastically improve performance. In reality, GS on Win9x gives much better perfomance than GS on Win2000/XP. This is because GS on Win9x can take over your system at the kernel level while GS on 2000/XP can\'t -- it must yield control to the OS. There are also more layers MIDI and audio has to go through on 2000/XP which means the lowest latency you can have on 2000/XP will always be higher than Win9x (except for ASIO). See this document for more info: http://gigue.peabody.jhu.edu/~ich/research/icmc01/latency-icmc2001.pdf (\"http://gigue.peabody.jhu.edu/~ich/research/icmc01/latency-icmc2001.pdf\") Unfortunately, they don\'t directly compare OS\'s on the same machine, but they do show Windows 98 on a Celeron 366MHz (machine \"E\") beating out Windows 2000 on a PIII 933MHz (machine \"A\") for both MME and DirectSound.

The main benefit to be gained with 2000/XP is stability -- crashes don\'t disable your system, although if you run GS on a dedicated, stripped down Win9x machine, you won\'t have stability issues either.

[Joris Vincken]

Maybe it\'s better to wait for 2.5 to come (soon). Than it will be easier to decide which os works better.

[Doc]

Something else to consider is a sequencer program like Sonor running at the same time. From what I\'ve read Sonor works better under 2000 than 9x. What about the new drivers that the soundcard guys are gonna come out with to make their cards run under 2000/XP, will they be more optimized and provide better performance? I think its a wait and see. It would be nice to run all at the same time on the same box without glitches.

[johnsoderberg]

Obviously, Infoworld didn\'t turn off all the extra junk in XP, after you do that it is faster than win98se.

[Kenn159]

Thanks for the response guys
Totally oppose opinions here.
Johnsoderburg, I hope your right , because Im already running XP.
Now I just need to figure out how to turn all the stuff off.
As Oprah says \"what do ya know\".
Well for me I can say that XP seems a little more sluggish on my pen 3 450 than win 98, but hopefully it will improve when I turn some stuff off.
I know that a Nemesys rep[Dave I think] at the Yahoo nemesys form said that from beta test , so far XP more effeciently uses memory that win 2000 and they are both more stable than win 98

[johnsoderberg]

Here\'s the bottom line, XP with extra services turned off and GUI optimizations for speed benchmarks slightly faster in CPU using wintune98 as compared with win98se.

If anything tests slower it\'s a matter of drivers. I can\'t say this enough. The base XP system is NOT slower.

Some XP devices bench way faster than ME or 98se, for example, cached disk access went from 130 megs or so in my ME installation to over 400 with XP.

This is of particular interest to giga users. You will note a dramatic increase in file access speed overall.

(I used the wintune_43.exe distro, version 1.0.43, too bad they went out of business!)

[wonder6oy]

More info please, johnsoderberg! http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif
I havn\'t gotten around to testing GS just yet, but so far, I\'m LOVING the new Windows XP OS. How DO you turn off the extra features? (I knew in Win 98, but now it\'s quite different)

A simple \"look -here- to disable automatic programs\" would do just fine.

Thanks,
wonder6oy

[Jamieh]

I was under the impression that GigaStudio doesn\'t work under XP. Have they released an update or something?

[Kenn159]

As far as turning things off you dont need in xp goes that are running in the background and competing for you CPU goes.
In win 98 goes you just type \"msconfig \"under \"run\" in the start up menu but in my xp sometimes msconfig works and sometimes? you have to type \"system configururation utility\" and then go to \"start up\" on the top tab of the page and uncheck all the boxes on things running in the background.
That has speed up my system , although Im sure there are many more improvements I can make as I learn more about opting XP.

[Kenn159]

I should have edited my post before submitting .
Disregard wrong words.

[theo]

http://www.timos-welt.de/cubase/xp_tips_e.htm (\"http://www.timos-welt.de/cubase/xp_tips_e.htm\")

[Damian Smith]

I read the article in the last reply, and I want to ask something. When they\'re talking about the user accounts on WinXP, are they saying that with your music account, you can turn everything off that starts up when Windows starts up and all other customisations, and then with the Work account, you can leave everything running? If that\'s so, that will be something to look forward to once I get WinXP and Gigastudio 2.5 is released?