Processor Scheduling In Vista

On a new XP PC I used to regularly setup the defaults for the processor scheduling to Background Services. I was just setting up a new laptop for a mobile unit with Vista SP2. I set it up and all was working fine and then I had the brain wave to change the processor scheduling as normal to background. It may be just me but it does not seem to work as well or benefit as much with Vista as XP. To be fair this is a fandango spec laptop already ( despite the lack of ability to add a firewire card ).

Has anyone had experience or preference to setting this ? I rarely use anything other than ASIO.

I take it Sonar is different then ? I just Googled this after I posted the thread here. Seems most music "pro"sites tell you different. I just did it as a matter of course as all my other PC's were set that way but brought from Music PC suppliers. I dont know how they got set that way initially as default is Programs. I have loaded PT8LE on the laptop as well so I am about to test the results set either way.

Changing priority to Background Services used to be by far the biggest bang for buck among the tweaks, but with SONAR 8 it doesn't seem to make any difference, whether under XP 32 or Vista 64.

Yup - Priority should go to programs and not background services.

Basically leave it at the Windows default. Yay.

i changed mine to background services because of several XP and Vista tweak articles. gonna change it back to Programs! so what about Memory Usage? dedicated to Programs or System Cache?

ORIGINAL: John

CW has said to have the priority given to programs. Sonar handles all of the stuff that it deals with itself. What you do when you give background the priority is make things that have nothing to do with Sonar run better. This is true with XP and Vista.

ORIGINAL: Brandon Ryan [Cakewalk]

Yup - Priority should go to programs and not background services.

Basically leave it at the Windows default. Yay.

+1

That is 1000 % correct! It shall be set to “Program”.


Audio driver is not a background service either. It was RME that started recommend there users activate that setting on XP platform to get lower latency with there audio cards.

Both Cakewalk and Microsoft that actually build Windows and many other expert says “Program” is the correct setting. Especially on VISTA and Windows 7 platform. “Virtual Memory” shall be turn “on” also despite how much physical RAM you have installed.
This setting is true on Linux platform as well!


Regards
Freddie

Freddie I am glad you mentioned Areo. That is a known issue that idiots recommend turning it off. It should not be turned off. I also agree with the post you made in its entirety. Good points all.

It is true that Aero makes use of the GPU.
But disabling Aero does not disable the GPU, nor DirectX. All hardware acceleration is still available for any program that uses it.
I'm not recommending to have Aero enabled or disabled, since Aero makes more use of the GPU, disabling it may actually result in more CPU usage (it depends on enabled effects). I'm just telling that you break nothing either way, and in no way applications are going to crash just because Aero is disabled.

ORIGINAL: elle

lol.. so far I haven't noticed even a slight difference in Sonar performance with focus set either to Background services or Programs. However, optimisations for background services clearly made the my Vista boot faster and more efficiently once the password was entered. I noticed, it lowers the priority of several processes when booting and so far it makes my life easier.
In fact, uneven multicore plug-in scheduling is still much more of a bottleneck for Sonar. I wish it to be the only fix of the upcoming Sonar update.

Of course Helene, booting VISTA is all about background services. It will boot faster but work slower.

As you already notice Helene, it lowers the priority of several needed processes. Meaning those fundamental processes that later on actually needs to be set to “High priority”-mode for working, will now be set to “low priority”-mode instead. As doing so, it will make your computer perform less; less performance working with programs in example SONAR. That's why its so important that it should be set to “Program” and not to “Background service”.


It will boot VISTA faster with “Background service” but work slower! Personally I prefer working with my computer instead of booting. LOL

Best Regards
Freddie

It is true that Aero makes use of the GPU.
But disabling Aero does not disable the GPU, nor DirectX. All hardware acceleration is still available for any program that uses it.
I'm not recommending to have Aero enabled or disabled, since Aero makes more use of the GPU, disabling it may actually result in more CPU usage (it depends on enabled effects). I'm just telling that you break nothing either way, and in no way applications are going to crash just because Aero is disabled.

Your point is true to a point but you forget that only apps that access the GPU directly would not be affected by turning off Aero. That would be apps like games. Apps like Sonar do not access the GPU directly nor to 99 % of windows apps. That is why they rely on the OS i.e. Windows to do all the graphics updates. Under XP or with Aero off in Vista all the calls go through the CPU not the GPU. With Aero on any windows app is using the GPU as if it were like a game.

The bottom line that needs to be spelled out clearly is that Aero is the engine that allows all windows apps to run as if they all had direct access to the GPU because they do under Aero. Its that simple. And yes it makes a huge difference. Both in the smoothness of the meter in Sonar and also freeing up the CPU for its work letting Sonar do more processing.

ORIGINAL: bitflipper

Windows 7 doesn't load anything in the background that's not are needed in use.

Freddie, this is a revelation. If true, W7 would be the most logical choice for a DAW. It would also run contrary to 20 years of Microsoft tradition, and that would be a hopeful sign in itself.

Unfortunately, I'm not entirely buying it.

W7 has plenty of services I don't need, but how can it possibly know which ones? I turn off the spooler because I rarely print from my DAW, but surely it's enabled by default for the majority of users who do regularly use a printer. I turn off automatic updates, but surely Microsoft has that on by default.

And what about the poor saps who bought their computers from Dell? (I am typing this on a Dell). Are they going to honor the new W7 way and stop loading up all the extraneous crap they throw on now?

I will say this, though: I am in total agreement that most tweaks are a total waste of time.

Hi bitflipper!

Nice to here from you, hope everything is alright with you?
Yes, it is true as far as I know! Windows 7 will only start things that are needed and are in use in the OS, not as it has been so far in the long Microsoft tradition. Mark Russinovich will tell you more about it in the video further down on this post.



After the flop with VISTA, Microsoft lost all there credibility. They understood the importance that; “next time”, the needed to build a fantastic new operating system. Otherwise they will just get out of business . Microsoft listen on what all people actually wanted and needed so the main focus of the new operating system were:

1.Performance – Work operating system
2.Great GUI graphic 3D -AERO that would take off all load from CPU.
3.Work with Audio
4.Work with Video
5.Work with CAD
6.Server OS
7.Games
8.Multitasking, Multithreading and support of many cores (256 physical cores)
9.No memory limits
10.64bit (128bit in the future)
11. Security features
12.Internet applications
13.Wireless and touchscreen support in the future


To make the best operating system that will rock the world they gather all the BEST PEOPLE in whole world. Computer geeks /hackers, Linux specialists, C / Unix "programers", IPS-API experts and so on.... Only the best people started in a new “Develop-TEAM” at Microsoft. There job was developing the new outstanding operating system at Microsoft. That new OS system we all call today Windows 7. VISTA SP2 is a taste of that new system on VISTA platform already. As far as I know, its the same team that has develop WINDOWS 7 that made the VISTA SP2. That's why SP2 rocks on VISTA. Its almost a new operating system on top of VISTA. It takes more then 1GB memory space on the hard drive too.

Here you can see a video interview for 45min long. Its pretty sum all the good things and explaining all the new features “Why” and “how” in Windows 7. Example of new performance features in Windows 7 is; how they cracked the CPU and Memory dispatcher lock.
http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/Going+Deep/Mark-Russinovich-Inside-Windows-7/


Best Regards
Freddie

> Apps like Sonar do not access the GPU directly nor to 99 % of windows apps. That is why they rely on the OS i.e. Windows to do all the graphics updates. Under XP or with Aero off in Vista all the calls go through the CPU not the GPU. With Aero on any windows app is using the GPU as if it were like a game.

Sorry John, you didn't understand it. Aero is only the shell. Applications use the Win32 API (including GDI, GDI+, DirectX), and they take advantage of hardware acceleration regardless of Aero. Every function SONAR or any other program use to draw in windows takes exactly the same time regardless of Aero. This is the same for all apps, not only games. Aero only affects the shell program, i.e., the desktop.

oh oh, looks like i need to turn my Aero back on. Thanks Freddie. What I noticed with it Off was that more physical memory was available.

Well I just re-enabled Aero by selecting "let windows choose" under visual performance. I just opened a Sonar project and it reports my CPU usage is cut in half! 20% on a project that was pulling 40%...I like others immediately turned it off assuming it was a cpu hog (as was suggested on the tweak sites)

oh oh, looks like i need to turn my Aero back on. Thanks Freddie. What I noticed with it Off was that more physical memory was available.

Now that is not something I can answer. The problem with Areo is that it needs good hardware to run well. If it is run on non up to date hardware it could be a real drag on the system. But for those systems that have the proper hardware it will cause Windows and the apps running under it to run better. It should not use more system memory unless it is run on a laptop that uses system memory for its graphics. Minimum graphics memory for running Areo is 256 MB. It will use more if it can.