Vista or XP

Ok, I've had horrible experiences with Window's Vista... so I've been running Window's XP.
Now it's time to get a new computer... I plan on getting Vstudio 700, full optimized in regards to RAM, Processors, etc....

My question is.... should I stick with XP or will Vista run this thing better? Really.... I got Vista on my wife's laptop and it has been HORRIBLY slow, so I never went to it in the studio. Windows Seven is supposed to come out sometime in the future (its already in BETA) and I'm sure everyone will be switching to it when the time comes, but first editions of Windows are always rough... so I'd wait on it anyway (they say it will be alot better than VISTA)

So... cakewalk, does Studio 8.3 with V-studio 700 run better on Vista? or is it the same performance when running on XP?

I want the optimal operating experience....

ORIGINAL: xpesrx

I want the optimal operating experience....

I have XP SP3 on my machine right now and it runs really good. I'm going image that this evening and run an upgrade to Vista Bus SP1. If it runs fine, I'll keep it. If not, I'll restore my XP image within about 10 minutes.

I am hopeful for Vista SP2 (beta release on Thursday), but I won't be messing with it until the official release.

ORIGINAL: doncolga

ORIGINAL: xpesrx

I want the optimal operating experience....

I have XP SP3 on my machine right now and it runs really good. I'm going image that this evening and run an upgrade to Vista Bus SP1. If it runs fine, I'll keep it. If not, I'll restore my XP image within about 10 minutes.

I am hopeful for Vista SP2 (beta release on Thursday), but I won't be messing with it until the official release.

operating

Let me know how your experience goes.... basically I dont want to buy vista if I'm going to hate it.... I'll just get XP again... you know

ORIGINAL: cdickey
Now is a good time to make the transition to Vista even if there is a bit of a learning curve.

If you want a techie description of what goes on to improve Vista to become Windows 7, this has details:
http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/Going+Deep/Mark-Russinovich-Inside-Windows-7/

I agree, and that's why I decided to put Vista SP1 on my Sonar box. I really like the Windows 7 beta, and I'm sure I'll be moving to that at some point. Working with Vista now is moving me in that direction. Also, I love how Vista looks. The visual aesthetics are nice. Also, it's tiring to hear people complain about the UAC. That can be turned off within about 3-4 clicks from the desktop. Also, I can see all 4 GB of RAM now...woohoo!

So far so good moving to Vista. Got Ivory patched w/ilok, all new MOTU, RME and Nvidia drivers, all the most recent Vista updates/patches. It didn't like my USB hub with the keyboard, mouse and Midi interface being shared, so I put the Midi I/O on it's own port; problems solved.

Sonar projects do seem to take longer to load, but once loaded, Sonar and Vista itself feels quick, nimble and responsive. I have aero on and can't tell that it's hurting at all, so I'm keeping it on for now, just cause I like how it looks. Personally, I've got my fingers crossed that SP2 is going to be really good improvement to Vista. I may go ahead and install the beta. I did the same thing for XP SP 3.

Let me know how your experience goes.... basically I dont want to buy vista if I'm going to hate it.... I'll just get XP again... you know

Thanks guys... looks like I'll buy with Vista ... shouldn't have them same issues as Don b/c I'm not going to be setting up multiple accounts. I plan on using this computer only in the studio... to run Vstudio and Pinnacle Studio 12 Ultimate. Maybe a few other small things like delay calculators, midi device managers, and other utilities... but nothing else... no internet surfing or toggling virus protection (that gave me fits with Pro Suite (CWPA 9).

But I'm curious, what is aero?

Is there anything I need to tweak in Vista to set it up optimally for Vstudio and Sonar?

Very cool to hear that stuff Seth. That's even more of an affirmation that it's a good move. I was unaware of Aero moving work to the GPU. That is cool.

Donny

ORIGINAL: Seth Perlstein [Cakewalk]

Aero is the new Graphical User Interface in Vista. Aero offloads all of the graphical processing to the GPU (video card). This means that the native cpu doesn't have to do any of the work when processing any graphics in Vista. This is why you should leave Aero on. SONAR is coded to utilize another cool feature of Vista called MMCSS which gives SONAR thread priority when other things are going on in the background. This means you can actually do all kinds of stuff behind SONAR like disc burning, word processing, etc. and it won't interrupt the SONAR's audio.

While there certainly are a few things in Vista you can tweak, any modern computer should run it well righ tout of the box. That said, I would disable UAC (User Account Control). If you won't be going online you can disable Windows Firewall and Windows Defender. You also might want to disable Disk Indexing.

I wouldn't trip about going on the web with Vista, though. It's actually more secure than XP. I have my Vista DAW hooked up to the net and have experienced no ill effects. Just be sure to turn your Firewall back on if you do log on. At the very least connecting to the web when you need to register plugins or apps is easy and safe.

Should we wait for Windows 7?
Interesting articale here.
Windows 7

I've been running Vista since about SP1 and wont go back to XP. Have not had one single crash, freeze, nothing. Cant say that for XP. Things are much snappier in Vista...thanks in part I'm sure to superfetch instead of prefetch and I'm also running 2 gig's of ready boost flash along with my 3 gigs of RAM....which I honestly dont if ready boost is actualy doing anything...supposedly it doesn't help with anything above 1 gig of RAM but that little blue light on the firefly is flashing non-stop....so it's doing something.

Overall performance (according to the guys at Maximum PC and their benchmarks) is Vista does run slightly slower in many areas compared to XP (on similar spec machines)....key word here is slightly....they say "neglible" and I agree. The simple answer is...as tech gets more powerful...it requires more power to use....just like anything else. However, any decent Proc with 4 gigs of RAM will not only offset that but the Vista machine will run faster in the end.

As for the "learning curve"....this is something that I had to raise an eyebrow at as it took me all of 30 minutes to figure out the so called "learning curve"...for the purpose of DAW usage....it's XP with more graphic frills....which BTW you can turn off if you want. Along with other things like "classic view" in the control panel.....etc.

As for all the Vista horror stories we all read and heard.....turns out most of that was either exaggerated nonsense or pre SP1. Things like "theres no Vista drivers!" Funny....I have a lot of stuff running that doesn't have Vista drivers and it all (100%) works fine....why did "we" think Vista wouldn't be backward compatible like previous OS's?

Mojave experiment indeed.

Excuse me now while I go instal Linux on my PS3 and try turning it into a Linux based DAW....you know...for fun.

EDIT: Vista SP2 release candidate is out now.

Ah yes...the bloated thing. My take on that is yes, Vista (Home premium on a Vaio) comes with a lot of crappy software. But I have no idea why this was made into such a big deal. I mean seriously...Add/Remove.....hello.....delete the crap!

This all goes back to my take on the exaggerated nonsense that surrounded Vista and to some extent still does.

Funny when people use it on a PC that isn't 10 years old and then say "hey...this isn't so bad after all." That was another thing I saw from time to time...people throwing Vista on a machine that could barely run XP in the first place.....and then complain about how slow Vista is

ORIGINAL: cdickey

Here are 2 links to info on Windows 7 OS tweaks and Vista audio issues and progress

http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/Going+Deep/Mark-Russinovich-Inside-Windows-7/

http://www.itwriting.com/blog/492-unravelling-the-reasons-for-vista-audio-glitches.html

I go to the Microsoft Professional Developer Conferences. From what I learned it certainly appears that Windows 7 is Vista improved. That certainly makes sense. I don't think most people realize the complexity of the software underlying the operation of their machines. Microsoft can't just go build a new operating system from scratch. They have to move forward incrementally. I expect that sp2 of Vista will have certain improvements that came out of the learning effort to build Windows 7.

If your stuff can work on Vista SP1 today, then that is probably the way to go. There is then the in-place upgrade path to Vista SP2 and then Windows 7.

Very interesting links cdickey. I checked them both out.
I guess I'll stay with XP Pro for now.
My system is running great so if the wheel ain't broke don't try to fix it.

Guy

ORIGINAL: GAMBLE

I hope your not basing the decision to stay with XP on a Vista article that was written over a year ago....just saying. No problems here with Vista...not one. Audio works perfectly fine.

No I'm not.
I'm glad you're not having any problems with Vista. A lot of people are using Vista with great success.
My XP Pro is working very well. No need for me to jump yet.
I tried Vista when it first came out and some of my plugins weren't compatible at the time so I went back to XP.
That being said they are compatible now but I'm a happy camper where I'm at for the moment.
One of these days I'll jump again.


Guy

Hey, as long as it works for what any given person wants I really dont think XP or Vista makes much of a difference at the end of the day.

I was reading that SP2 contains around 600 hotfixes....dont know for sure if thats accurate but the article went on to say that if you've been updateing Vista on a regular basis that in essense one already has most everything SP2 offers.

Obviously for those of us that that have dedicated DAW's off the net....it might be worth considering.

As for Vista 2...errr....Windows 7. I'm going to do the exact same thing I did with Vista and wait for SP1. You know....the smart thing to do so I dont needlessly whine and complain about feature X not working right....at least not more than I already do.

OK...I have to eat my words a little bit now...

Sonar and all my DAW stuff seems to work just fine with Vista SP1 and SP2. The DAW is the main thing this particular machine does. However...

I was making a tutorial video for my students using CamStudio 2.0 and the audio was really crackly with Vista SP 1 and SP 2...I was hoping SP 2 would have fixed it. Same app on XP with the same settings captures audio runs really smoothly. This is using my RME Mutltiface II, PCIe running the latest drivers and 2.0 is the latest non-beta release of CamStudio.

Not a huge deal I guess, but does seem to concur that even if DAWs may run well in Vista, as Sonar does for me, audio improvements are still in order for Vista itself. I wonder if DAWs are running in spite of Vista's handling of audio.

What will happen if media producers feel that XP is STILL better than 7 once it's out and we reach the point where XP is no longer officially supported?

Donny

The way you described it: "crackly" I would say it's entirely more likely a driver issue or latency settings than Vista itself.