GigaSampler and Windows 2000

[bmccarty]

Is there a planned upgrade to GigaSampler to support Windows 2000? I tried to put it on a test machine and it wouldn\'t even install.

Brian

[David Abraham]

GigaStudio is supposed to support Win2k, but I wonder if there will be any Hardware GSIF support on Win2k in the near future.

[This message has been edited by David Abraham Fenton (edited 02-19-2000).]

[midiboy]

The Soundscape Mixtreme already has working Win2000 drivers. Did you mean that by Hardware GSIF support ??

Btw: Dave of Nemesys said that the first version of Gigastudio will not support Win2000, but the next version will. This is disappointing to day the least because I´ve been running W2K for weeks and won´t return to Win98 no matter what. Maybe someone can comment on the real availability of Win2000 support of Gigastudio ?

[elle]

D*mm, I just bought a dual processor mobo to have high performance GSW (GigaSamplerWorkstation).

When is this second release due?

[David Abraham]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by midiboy:
The Soundscape Mixtreme already has working Win2000 drivers. Did you mean that by Hardware GSIF support ??

Btw: Dave of Nemesys said that the first version of Gigastudio will not support Win2000, but the next version will. This is disappointing to day the least because I´ve been running W2K for weeks and won´t return to Win98 no matter what. Maybe someone can comment on the real availability of Win2000 support of Gigastudio ?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I know what you mean, I\'ve dual booted with W2k and Win98 and it\'s painful to go back to Win98, I avoid it whenever I can.

I think Hardware vendors will have to write another GSIF driver to work with Win2k, that could take a while. Ideally I would like to see Nemesys build a GSIF model based on a white paper written by Ron Kuper of Cakewalk: http://www.cakewalk.com/DevXchange/audio_i.htm (\"http://www.cakewalk.com/DevXchange/audio_i.htm\")
-david



[This message has been edited by David Abraham Fenton (edited 02-20-2000).]

[midiboy]

Well, I have talked to a guy who works for Soundscape ( Mixtreme driver development team ) ...

He said that the GSIF interface was indeed only developed for Win95/98 and will not work with either NT4 oder Win2000. So the Win2000 driver of my mixtreme card does not as of yet contain the GSIF interface.

He also said that he will talk to Nemesys about an implementation of the GSIF interface into a Win2000 driver ...

I have no idea WHEN all this will happen. I mean ... Gigastudio will be released in April ... if I remember correctly it took Nemesys almost half a year to update Gigasampler to V 1.5 which finally offered Win98 support. *ggg*

If history repeats itself *ggg* this would mean that we would get real Windows 2000 support around November 2000 IF Gigastudio is really released in April and no unexpected problems occur ...

But I don´´t want to sound too pessimistic. Maybe Dave or someone else could really give us a honest timeframe of complete ( app and GSIF ) Windows 2000 support. I just won´t return to Win98 NO MATTER WHAT ! :-))

[Bob Campbell]

Just a suggestion,
try installing win98, then applying Shane Brooks \"win98lite\". Removed the browser and replace the 3 system files with the win95 ones (like it instructs you to do). Then install your audio apps. Assuming you have decent drivers for your audio card, you should be able to work reliably on a system like this. I wouldn\'t recommend win2000 for audio. It doesn\'t even support directx yet. (even though they claim it does, this is rubbish, as you will find when you go looking for your dx plugins in soundforge et al......).

Though I do agree, it is the only OS by Microsoft that seems like it might just run for 24 hours without a reboot http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif

We\'ll just have to wait for the hardware manufacturers to jump onboard in the next 12 months - or years if you count Aardvark http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/frown.gif

Bob

[algae]

I have to disagree with the last poster re.
DX Plug use in Sound Forge in Win 2000.
It works just fine. I am wondering if u r using a beta of Win2000 or possibly have some other problem? Anyway, I just don\'t want anyone else to be misled.
Algae

[Kenn159]

Question for midi boy , As we all know win 98is faily unstable , although like mentioned above maybe win 98 lite will be better . I think I try that , where do you get this win 98 lite? Anyway my question for midi boy is why dont you want to go back to win 98 , is win 2000 that much more reliable ?

[John Matrix]

Hi Kenn,
I think this site looks like the way to go - they offer a Win98Micro as well. Haven\'t tried it myself yet, though.
http://www.98lite.net/98lite.html (\"http://www.98lite.net/98lite.html\")

[midiboy]

Hi there,

first I have to seriously doubt Bob´s claim that Direct X does not work in Win2000. I have installed the NPP by Wave, Audio FX 3 by Cakewalk, Direct X effects by Q Tools and have tried some freeware Direct X plug ins. All worked fine from within SoundForge and Wavelab and Cubase 3.71. I have no idea why you have those problems since I even had this running on beta 3 of Win2000.

To answer Kenn159´s question: Windows 2000 is much, much, much more stable than Win98 or even Win98lite for that matter (IF you don´t have bad beta drivers that scew up the system ), it makes much more use of your system resources, it does not crash completely if just one app crashes, it can make use of a second processor, its multitasking behaviour is unbeliebably great and it is uncomparably more secure than Win98.

I know, this sounds like I work for Microsoft *gg* , but in my opinion this is for the first time a really good OS from them, even though it still might have some bugs. Even beta 3 was more stable than Win98 ever was.

IN regard to productivity ... I can play back 4 more audiotracks in Cubase AND (!) have one more instance of True Verb ( Direct X eff.) running than in Win98 without any hardware change !

As mentioned above, multitasking is more smooth than in Win98. Running two intensive apps at once does not stress the system as much to react sluggish.

In addition it offers a few cool new GUI enhancements, suspend to harddisk, and much better TIMING (!!!!) than Win98.

If you ever tried it you don´t wanna change back ... at least thats what me and my friends felt after trying beta 3 last year.

The idea of having two processor intensive apps like Cubase and Gigastudio running on a two processor mainboard at once is a dream come true. Windows 2000 is certainly up to that task if you ask me.

Maybe Nemesys will speed up Win2000 compatability a little ... :-))

[midiboy]

Just one more note. If you want to find out if an app or hardware works in Win2000 check out this site:
http://www.ntcompatible.cjb.net/ (\"http://www.ntcompatible.cjb.net/\")

It also has a great forum like this one ! :-)

[Bob Campbell]

Och......!!!!!!

I am a dufus. Apologies to bill gates, I was wrong, I was doing something really dumb which I won\'t disclose, but basically \"Yes - Directx plugins do work in Win2000!\". OK, I think it\'s time to get rid of my Aardvark card cos it definitely appears that I have an OS that works and is stable for audio now, so I need a CARD THAT WORKS!!!!!! Gonna get that new Gina methinks.

Maybe this is the OS that we\'ve been waiting for after all (guess it must be since BE deserted Beos.....)

So go ahead and try out Win2000! I take back what I said.

Bob

[elle]

I\'m confused now...will gigastudio run on W2K or not, given the fact that we have GSIF W2K drivers for our cards?

[midiboy]

Well, once again, Elle ... to summarize: *g*

There are NO W2K GSIF drivers yet and Gigastudio will according to Dave Govett NOT work with W2K when it comes out in April.

Nemesys will work on an update after the launch but I have no idea when this update arrives.

But since I am not working for Nemesys I cannot really tell what their plans are .. maybe they´ll change it after all ... I sure hope so ! I would love to run Gigastudio in W2K when it comes out in April !

[jbibbo]

Ok here is NemeSys\'s answer towards Win2000:

but first some facts.

Windows 2000 is the replacement Os to NT 4. There are two flavors of drivers that are available for audio hardware: NT style and the new WDM style. The NT OS are targeted for server based applications. They do support multiprocessor configuration.

Microsoft will be releasing another version of the OS called something like the \"Millenium\' version, around the late spring time frame (sorry figuring out what and when MS is calling something is tough). MS is being very quiet about it, and you will not see much press about it. But it will be the OS that replaces Win 98. It is based on the Win 9x kernel, not the NT kernel. This is good and bad. It will provide us compatibility with the GigaX products today. It does not have some of the nice features of the NT kernel - like multiprocessor support.

The problem with new OSes is they are only as good as the software that support them. I will not pass judgement on the Win2k system. It does sound like some of you are having success with it, but I would do some research before making the plunge. There are mixed stories, and some of them are not very pretty.

Anyways, that is neither here nor there. The question is when will NemeSys have Win2K support. We are scheduled for a maintenance release for the end of the summer 2000. It is our intention to have support for the Win2K OS at this time.

I hope this answers your questions. I know that this answer will be followed by a bunch of \'but I need it now\'. All I can say is sorry, these OS changes are a real nightmare for us to deal with, and we are doing our best. Please be patient with us. Thanks.

Joe (NemeSys)

[David Abraham]

[This message has been edited by David Abraham Fenton (edited 02-21-2000).]

[Kenn159]

This is a interesting tread . Thanks all for the input on this subject. But as interesting is Midiboys desciption of win 2000 is , sinse I use giga sampler alot Ill just have to wait until Nemesys supports it before I change over . I just hope it really is that much more stable .I was at a friends house that was running a Mac computer with soundtools software and he says the program never crashes , and I used it alittle bit and It seems so refreshing to record with out illegal operations and all those error pages that ocationally creep up .I guess that proves to me that a computer can be stable .I dont feel that there is anything more reliable about Macitosh hardware . I just think there op system is more stable . I just hope win 2000can move more to that direction . Although Im a little sceptical . A computer Guru friend of mine say\'s he doesn\'t think windows will ever be a stable system [he wants to see Linix and Beos take over] because he said that its built on a 8 bit op system that is very unstable .He said its kinda like building a house , then every year or two upgrading it and improving it when all along it was sitting on a sand bar.

[elle]

Thx for the swift reply, jbibbo

[elle]

Papa, David, ...
Could anybody shed some light on this?

[midiboy]

Thanks jbibbo for your reply. To Kenn159: I think your friend was

referring to Win95/98 because only those systems rely on the old DOS

and were only extended. I don´t know where any 8 bit routines could

be in Windows NT. What you should understand is, that despite of the

same name, Windows NT ( and the successor Win2000 ) has NOTHING in

common with Win95/98. Windows NT has been stable for years, it was

just not suited for audio very well.

I am a little bit annoyed by jbibbo´s reply, not just because I want

W2K support now, as he correcly anticipated *gg* but because his reply

was in some ways so typical for companies creating audio apps for the

past few years. I hear that all the time: NT is for \"server based

apps\", its a \"businnes operating system\" etc. etc.

I can only say ... Microsoft defined Win98 AND the successor, Windows

ME ( Millenium ) as an OS for people who like \"the best compatability

with games\" and thats exactly what this OS has been for years. Its NOT

a serious operating system. Now ... what are we doing here ? Is our

audio work simply a \"game\" ?? Or do some of us make a living out of it

? Is Gigastudio a fully professional application that people like Hans

Zimmer will use for their multimillion dollar soundtracks ? Or is it

an app for the typical Soundblaster user who loads Soundfonts into the

Vienna editor ?

I am soo amazed that those companies have been soo conservative in

their judgment of operating systems! No wonder that many people still

think that the MAC is the only viable solution for professional audio.

I know, Microsoft is to blame for their bad support of audio in NT4

and that this is one of the main reasons for the lack of \"professional

audio apps\" for this OS. Nevertheless, now, Windows 2000 is finally

(!!) here and still I hear that applications have to be \"adapted\" for

it and that this will take time. Why hasn´t Gigastudio been developed

for Windows 2000 and adapted for Win98 ?? Betaversions of Win2000 have

been around for almost a year now. I know ... those were beta versions

... still ... the fact remains that many companies are in my opinion

far too conservative.

And this fact means that many of us who would gladly switch to a

really professional and stable OS for our professional business but are forced to continue working with an OS that is extremely unpredictable to say the least ( I know, sometimes it works fine and no, my hardware and drivers work fine *gg* ). It IS AN OS FOR GAMERS AND UNPROFESSIONAL WORK !!

Or how many professional businesses do you know ( except for the audio

business ) that use Win98 ???

Ok ... so after all that ranting ... I am glad that Gigastudio will eventuall work in Win2000. I guess one can say that it belongs to one of the most professional apps out there and that it would really profit from an OS that is up to it.

Anyway, thanks for listening ... :-))

[midiboy]

Sorry for the strange \"format\" of my last reply. Don´t know how this happend *gg*

[elle]

Bravo Midiboy,
I fully agree. So, ...dear Nemesys take us and yourself serious and get a serious OS while you\'re at it.