OT: Mac Pro dudes...For audio Boot Camp or Parallels

Well, the new Macs with Leopard will boot Windows natively. AFAIK its got Boot Camp built in. With 16gigs of RAM you'd need to run a 64-bit OS and then run Sonar64 within it to be able to use all that RAM. Your choices are Vista64 and XP64. The only downer os Vista64 right now is that you can't run audio apps at super low latencies on it. This only hurts you if you are trying to monitor audio through plugins in Sonar whree you'd need super low latency. Otherwise its fine.

As to bootcamp or parallels (or fusion, vmware's virtual machine software):
What type of audio interface are you using? If it's Firewire, you CAN'T use it within virtual machines, so parallels is out altogether (as is fusion). People have been screaming about FW support via virtualization for a long time now, and it hasn't happened yet. I'm assuming there is some type of technical hurdle where this is concerned, but I don't know the details.

Personally, I wouldn't virtualize a DAW operating system anyway... it's just another thing to have to deal with and I'm all about simplicity these days.

Bootcamp works fine on the current run of Macs, BTW. It runs like a Windows machine, since from the perspective of Windows once it boots it IS a Windows machine.
The new Mac Pro is still too new to know if there are issues, frankly, but I don't foresee any.

As to the 16GB being too much?
Why stop with 16GB man? They hold 32GB now!!! (kidding... kidding). I haven't had problems running XP Pro 32bit on a machine with 4GB, and I've seen people running with 8GB. I don't THINK it would be an issue, but obviously can't guarantee it. That said, however, I'll be getting a Mac Pro fairly soon with 8GB memory, and I'm putting XP Pro 32bit on it

As for 64bit, that's not supported with bootcamp. Apple supports 32bit only.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/bootcamp.html

Doesn't mean it won't work, and I'm sure people have tried, and maybe succeeded. It just means it's not supported, so you'll likely be on your own where 64bit drivers are concerned. In fact, bootcamp will make a good driver disk for your XP/Vista installation, so being unsupported means that those disks are 32bit drivers only, so they won't work. That leaves you scraping up drivers for all the hardware in the Mac Pro, which you might be able to do, but it would be a lot of work.
If I were you, I wouldn't do it in a DAW environment, but that's just me.

So, that leaves you with either XP32 or Vista32.
Frankly, I don't see the point in upgrading a 32bit OS to another 32bit OS. And since you said you're not going near Vista anyway, it looks like XP32 for you. Obviously, you'll need the Pro version to "see" both physical processors.

Hope this helps,
- zevo

yeah but 32 bit systems can only address 3/4gb so where's the point running x64 sonar on a 16gb ram mac if boot camp only works in x86? you'd need to get a server OS to make it useful, but then there's a heap of other issues...

Even still, horsepower aside (briefly), bootcamp is the better way to go for performance since there's no virtualization going on consuming precious yummy cpu overhead.

Horsepower back into the equation, I don't know if there's enough to negate that effect (I suspect so with enough but who knows....)

Hi, sorry to drag this thread out (came up in a google search).

I wanted to re-address a point made regarding firewire. I use Windows XP with Boot Camp and have a firewire audio interface. Should it work? I am experiencing problems and pray that there is a work around for it. The drivers appear to install correctly and teh device shows correctly in teh device manager. But I have yet to get any actual audio input from teh device. The firewire indicator on the device doesnt light up.

By the way it works perfectly in OSX lol.

Any help would be hugely appreciated!

Thank you
Edd

P.S. If it doesnt work in Boot Camp, could it work in other equivalents (Parallels, VMWare etc.)?

Graham,

thanks for your quick reply! I think I have all the firewire bits and pieces up to date in Windows. I think its SP3 now that I believe is the msot up to date Pack. Do you have a link to any specific firewire updates that may help me out?

Thank you

Hi edd

Try this link

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=1410278&mpage=2&key=?

Edit I see the problem - link doesn't work. I'll look for it later.

Regards

Graham

For the OP, regarding the RAM issue...

I have a cousin that works as a computer programmer for a Government organization in California. I was talking to him recently about the prices of the Mac Pro machines, and the extra RAM (it's like $9100 to put in 32GB of RAM!). He told me that his organization was told by Apple that they could just add RAM on their own, as long as it was "high quality" stuff. He didn't give me a brand name. But as I am considering a Mac Pro at some point in the next year or two, he told me to buy the cheapest one from Apple that I could (ie; don't go nuts with add-ons in the configuration page) and then add to it myself. He told me that his organization literally buys hundreds of the Intel Macs, and adds their own RAM and even buys the Mac Pro machines with only one CPU in order to add another CPU on their own in the future. He said they save BIG bucks this way.

So I guess I am suggesting that if you are going to get a Mac Pro machine, it would be worth your while to at least sniff around the Mac forums to see how likely this story is. But if you don't have to pay $2400 for an extra 8GB stick of RAM (current price on their site), then great! For example, there's RAM for a Mac Pro on ebay right now selling for $285 for an 8GB stick...so it may be worth your while to check this out, if you hadn't planned to do so already. My cousin also advised me to save $500 and buy a machine with a *single* Quad core CPU, because the CPUs will likely cost less than $200 in a year or so, and I could just buy another CPU and install it then. Apparently Apple installs the same logic board whether you order one or two Quad core CPUs with the machine.

It's worth a look anyway.

TB

thoguht i woud add one extra piece of information. Ive checked out the Event Viewer in Windows Control Panel to see the reason for programs crashing.

The only warning that comes up in there is the following:

Windows cannot store Bluetooth link keys on the local transceiver because it cannot determine whether proper security is enabled for the device.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.


Could this be related to my problem?

yeh i guess youre right about apple. im sure they will say that things are functioning correctl as far as boot camp is concerned.

as for the device manager, the device appears correctly, no errors, exlcamation points etc. the driver is correct and fine. i have had the thought of try the device with another windows system, ideally without boot camp but i dont have access to another machine with firewire. which adds to my frustration.

this is another windows update that im trying to install:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloadS/details.aspx?familyid=9E8DF3F3-CD0C-4EDB-936A-5F0043E88BB2&displaylang=en

could this be a contributing factor? it will let me download the update but the installation never opens afterwards. no idea why.

ORIGINAL: edd999

yeh i guess youre right about apple. im sure they will say that things are functioning correctl as far as boot camp is concerned.

as for the device manager, the device appears correctly, no errors, exlcamation points etc. the driver is correct and fine. i have had the thought of try the device with another windows system, ideally without boot camp but i dont have access to another machine with firewire. which adds to my frustration.

You need to try harder to find someone with a Windows machine and try your firewire device. I really think it would be valuable--even someone with a laptop that could come over. Don't you know anyone?

this is another windows update that im trying to install:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloadS/details.aspx?familyid=9E8DF3F3-CD0C-4EDB-936A-5F0043E88BB2&displaylang=en

could this be a contributing factor? it will let me download the update but the installation never opens afterwards. no idea why.

That doesn't seem like it would be causing your problem as far as as I can tell, unless you were trying to use several 1394 devices. It looks as though that patch might be to allow these devices to be numbered, for identification purposes. I am not certain about this though, so maybe someone else will render an opinion--but enumeration simply means to assign an order to some objects.

I really think it would be good for you to try your device on another Windows machine. You may simply have a bad driver or something relatively simple, but you could chase your tail for days on the problem.

TB

EDIT: I had another thought after reading your initial post, and an answer someone gave: If you don't have access to someone with another computer, do you access to another firewire device with *your* computer? If the other device works, then it isn't a firewire problem. Maybe you've already thought of this, but if not then give it a shot.

Well, that sounds like the best idea...to call Mackie. I had a problem with a 1640 Onyx board and the firewire interface, just after I bought it. I called Mackie and they were extremely helpful. Someone had run the firewire cable interface wrong, and the guy on the phone talked me through re-routing it and I was good to go. So I think you have the right idea.

Good luck!

TB

It's possible (though I can't guarantee that this is what's happening on your system) that XP is telling your FireWire devices to run at only 1/4 of their possible bandwidth, and it could be causing a problem with your audio device.

There was a "hotfix" that needed to be installed, way back when, to tell Windows XP to run FireWire devices at the proper speed. It's a long story, but the short version goes like this:

A) On the original Windows XP, there was an older version of the 1394 code library that ran FireWire 400 devices without a problem, in most cases.
B) On Service Pack 2 (SP2), Microsoft updated the library, ostensibly to provide greater compatibility with both FireWire 400 and 800 devices, but in the process forced *all* devices to run at the SLOWEST FIREWIRE SPEED - this was done, in theory, to avoid compatibility problems, but meant that some FireWire audio devices might not work properly anymore.
C) Service Pack 3 rolls several of the fixes that Microsoft came up with since SP2 into one release, but it's unclear whether the FireWire speed issue is addressed in the package.

So the bottom line is, you should search the web (in particular, the RME website since they had very clear documentation on the issue and how to fix it) and this forum, to find information on the "FireWire hotfix" that was necessary under SP2, since you may still need to install it. There are multiple steps involved - you'll have to download a patch from Microsoft and install it, then do registry modifications for all of your system's FireWire controllers. Make sure to find and follow the full instructions. I realize that you have, to the best of your knowledge, already installed all of the FireWire updates, but perhaps you missed the registry edit steps. Hopefully, this is the source of your problem.

Cooool. this sounds interesting. im going to do some searching for this information. I have definately not seen anything about registry editing so its certainly something worth trying.

Windows is so annoying, its funny how in OSX everything works perfectly and all you have to do is plug it in. Have microsoft decided to ignore the fact the things can and have been made simpler by other companies? crazy.

ill let u know how i get on. I did get a message from someone else who is having similar problems. Im suprised I havent found any people with similar problems through google. i cant be the only one surely.

Thanks guys

Well, "works perfectly" is a strong statement for OS X, but I agree...it seems to work exponentially better than Windows does. I had a G4 laptop and was trying to install Mackie's Tracktion application--and it gave me fits trying to get my Onxy 160 board to work. It took a few calls to them to get things up & running, but eventually it did.

But otherwise, I have spent FAR less time messing with Mac stuff than Windows.

TB