Windows 10 for DAW

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xNiMiNx wrote:
sonicpowa wrote:
ezelkow1 wrote:http://pcaudiolabs.com/windows-10-for-pro-audio/

Theres pcaudiolabs first tests. Looks like MS's claims of bettering wdm latency are true, latency has come down
Are they really comparing HDD performance (Win7) vs SSD (Win8+Win10)!?
They had to use SSD to get improvement over Win7 which was on Seagate HDD...
Hahah, how about doing bench test with Win10 with floppy drive?
(bolded by me)
Seriously... look up those hd's. That is hilarious :)

pcaudiolabs has a good rep? Cause this is a joke.
HDD vs SSD has absolutely nothing to do with audio latency anyways, so it doesn't come into account in any tests other than the disk benchmark test (naturally).

And yes, PCAL does have a good rep.

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I had already upgraded this computer and my laptop to 10. My laptop is the only thing that seems to be picky and sending out error messages but it seems directly related to iCloud. It is a Dell Studio XPS 1645. It is the explorer.exe kept crapping out and restarting (about every two seconds). I finally booted and quickly fixed the iCloud issue and it works fine. This was a user error in my opinion because I made a change after updating this desktop to Windows 10 (the laptop/iCloud was looking for a save path but could not find because I changed the location on my desktop which is connected at the hip with the laptop, everything synced, two identical computers in essence, even same MS account).

Now it is time to "do the daw". Will report back. I have a long list of plugins that I will test and post separately.

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fedexnman wrote:I'm waiting on EchoAudio and FireWire support info before I take the plunge still . Windows10 looks nice though .
Don't know about EchoAudio but my Firewire interface works fine in W10.

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d-s-m wrote:
fedexnman wrote:I'm waiting on EchoAudio and FireWire support info before I take the plunge still . Windows10 looks nice though .
Don't know about EchoAudio but my Firewire interface works fine in W10.
I heard they (echo)had a driver that worked on W8.1 so I think I might do the upgrade , x fingers . I still have to find my grub rescue disc , becuase I have a feeling the upgrade might wipe out my grub2 bootloader for my Linux OS . W10 has multiple desktops now , Linux has had this forever . I've been checking out the W10 features , I also like the game apps idea may have to get me an Xbox controller soon . I have the w10upgrade app and have also downloaded the iso , its not showing that I can upgrade yet . I'm pretty excited to get this for free but nervous a lil too , but I'm a little worried to jump the gun . :phones: maybe next week .

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EvilDragon wrote:HDD vs SSD has absolutely nothing to do with audio latency anyways, so it doesn't come into account in any tests other than the disk benchmark test (naturally).

And yes, PCAL does have a good rep.
"The tests performed were utilized using the WDM audio engine in Windows and a PreSonus Audiobox 44VSL, running Cakewalk SONAR Platinum."

How the hell does the HD not have anything to do with it, when youre reading the WDM audio engine in Windows, and running Sonar off of it? This doesnt include the rest of the OS, pagefile, and whatever other dependencies Sonar Platinum requires (.net? vcredist? services?).

Hey, maybe im a complete idiot and i dont understand. If that is the case, why not use the same hardware anyway? Last i checked, Win7 was capable of using SSD. Its like comparing cars, using racing tires on 2 of them, and stock on 1.

Seems very shady to perform a 'benchmark' and not use (where its possible) the exact same hardware across all test subjects.
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I have a problem (a tiny one I hope) when starting Windows 10 in my desktop. It gives me an error msg says : "This Driver Can't release to failure". I've searched and found that it's related to Gigabyte motherboards. Now, I don't know exactly if it is only related to App Center or to a specific driver in the motherboard.

I'm updating all the programs and drivers related to Gigabyte now. I right clicked the App Center icon and chose Update. Let's see if this fixes the error.

Update:
Well after several times of updating the APP Center programs, I have another two error msgs. The same one popping up 3 times. Anyway, I found the reason. I uninstalled Cloud Station (both the server and client), then from the options of App Center, I disabled running with Windows at start.

So, I only have this error when running App Center. Now things are neat :)
Last edited by EnGee on Mon Aug 03, 2015 2:12 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Upgraded here. All is well audio wise.

Absolutely delighted my Novation Nio 2/4 works in Win 10. Was surprised that Novation even released Windows 8 drivers as it was long-discontinued even then.

Seems just as quick as Windows 8.1 was, which is a relief. For all its foibles, 8.1 was the snappiest OS I've ever used. Some serious magic going on under the hood, even if the hood itself looked like shit.

As for moving to 10 from 8.1: a few nice additions, although I didn't find 8.1's interface as toxic as some. Task View is fantastic (why did this take so long?), while multiple desktops are already coming in really useful. Biggest bugbear is the further illogical spreading of settings. Everything (IIRC) could be done in Control Panel in 8.1 rather than the modern settings menu, but 10 seems to divvy the settings between the two in arbitrary, non-overlapping ways. Very confusing.

If you're coming from 7 (or earlier), I'd say this is an essential upgrade. The dramatic (IMO) speed improvements of general use/boot times/navigation etc (even with all that fast start trickery turned off) that came with 8.x, with less of the UI bullshit. If you're fine with 8.1, I'd say there's no rush unless a specific feature appeals.

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Besides the ultra slow start up times, I'm loving windows 10. It seems to "learn" things as you use it. For example it didn't accept my iLok software(not dongle based), so I did a fresh install of it. Well, at first it wouldn't even load right after the restart, it came back with a critical error and then fixed itself on the next boot. So now I can run my UVI sample player :) yea :) the Steinberg/arturia key remains broken without a driver, but I switched to Reaper over Cubase*due to midi synch problems( and just use kontakt and UVI for synths. so it's great if you can overlook the slow startups and see how well it can perform in the future. I like watching systems evolve though, so maybe that just me. I overlooked flaws in vista and optimized it when it first came back. I'm a little too afraid to start optimizing windows 10 yet, maybe in a few weeks :)

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xNiMiNx wrote:How the hell does the HD not have anything to do with it, when youre reading the WDM audio engine in Windows, and running Sonar off of it? This doesnt include the rest of the OS, pagefile, and whatever other dependencies Sonar Platinum requires (.net? vcredist? services?).
It doesn't use the hard drive in the matter that would change CPU/RAM/audio benchmarks significantly. Only disk benchmark is influenced, as expected.

.NET/vcredist has nothing to do with WDM, services are loaded into RAM on boot so hard disk has absolutely nothing to do with them.

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xNiMiNx wrote:
sonicpowa wrote:
ezelkow1 wrote:http://pcaudiolabs.com/windows-10-for-pro-audio/

Theres pcaudiolabs first tests. Looks like MS's claims of bettering wdm latency are true, latency has come down
Are they really comparing HDD performance (Win7) vs SSD (Win8+Win10)!?
They had to use SSD to get improvement over Win7 which was on Seagate HDD...
Hahah, how about doing bench test with Win10 with floppy drive?
(bolded by me)
Seriously... look up those hd's. That is hilarious :)

pcaudiolabs has a good rep? Cause this is a joke.
I saved that image of a benchtest for further use (ie. laughs). So I think it was a good test they did, eventhough totally useless, unnecessary and hilarious.

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EvilDragon wrote:It doesn't use the hard drive in the matter that would change CPU/RAM/audio benchmarks significantly. Only disk benchmark is influenced, as expected.
You use the word significantly, which implies that there is or could be a difference. I thought that was kind of the beauty of a benchmark, to see in numbers, those small differences.

In the HD section, they even say "Windows 10 soars in its disk performance, especially being that it has been installed on an SSD." Brilliant. Why bother showing us the hd testing at all?

They didnt even use the exact same RAM across all systems. Win10 is using GSkill, and it seems 7-8 are using no-brand.
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golemus wrote:Windows 10 is finally here. So lets start discussion about Windows 10 as a DAW OS.

- is it fast?, is it stable?, is it good?
- what new there is in table that might be good for DAW computer?
- which DAWs are currently compatible, which are not there yet?

- how about audio interfaces, will there be problems or is the compability/stability on the same level as with previous Windows versions..?
- is there any new useful features? How about annoyances..?
- are plugins working equally well to previous versions...?
- any other opinions related to Win10..?
-Works better on my machine than how 8.1 did.
-Reduced latency
-Reaper, Reason and Bitwig seem to work flawlessly.
-My UR22 works normally
-Can't really tell yet
-Everything works like they did in 8.1
-For me it was a good update. I was even able to change buffersize from 512 to 256.

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For the sake of argument I am going to avoid the use of the word "test" or "tested". Unless we have tons of hours to devote to examination, I really find that to be an overused word that really is a lie. But here is where I am:

The upgrade from Windows 8.1 to 10 was seamless for the most part. I took several precautions:
  1. Checked and updated every driver I could (there are programs that automate this but I did it manually)
  2. Checked or updated my installers (i.e. Arturia, EWQL, NI Service Center, etc.)
  3. Updated my licensers (eLicenser, Waves, iLok/Pace) to latest version
  4. Checked to make sure I was running current versions of plugins
  5. Ran CCleaner just in case
  6. Installed latest Windows (pre 10) updates
  7. Reboot and CCleaner again
After upgrading to Windows 10, and allowing it to "settle"...I rebooted and checked to make sure all of my devices were in place and recognized. Then I started up Cubase Pro 8.

All went well, and as mentioned by EvilDragon earlier, XLN asked me to re-authorize my software. I simply went to the website, deleted my old info, and created a new sub-profile for use with XLN. [Edit- After double checking Korg and Spectrasonics, I realized I had to reauthorize the various plugins.] Nothing else has troubled me.

I have loaded and "played with" almost all instruments/effects from AAS, Air, Arturia, BBE, Cakewalk, Camel, Crysonic, D16, Disco DSP, EWQL, FXpansion, FabFilter, GForce, IK Multimedia, Image-Line, Izotope, Kong, Korg, KV331, Lennar, LinPlug, Melda, Native Instruments, Nomad, Novation, Ohmforce, Plugin Boutique, reFX, Reveal, Rob Papen, Sonic Academy, Sonic Projects, Spectrasonics, Sugar Bytes, Steinberg, Synapse, Tone2, u-he, UVI, Waldorf, Waves, Xfer Records, and XLN along with several dozen sample libraries for Kontakt with no issues YET.

You can check my signature for my DAWS and controllers that also seem to run just fine. I have opened older projects and rendered with no issues as well as created a new project or two for fun and rendered them out with no issues.

I cannot say if Windows 10 is better or worse than anything. What it "feels" like at the moment is that it is what Windows 8 SHOULD have been. The focus seems to be back on workflow and less on gimmicks, and I like that.

I am sure I need to go through and eliminate some of the addon stuff, but nothing is too bothersome at the moment and I am too busy trying to get some fresh inspiration to worry much more with it.

If you are hesitating on upgrading, well it IS your call. For me it worked out great!

Jon
Last edited by JonSolo on Wed Aug 05, 2015 3:04 am, edited 3 times in total.

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Thanks for the heads up, really useful. :) And i agree, the workflow of Windows 10 is better than that of 8.1, while continuing the mobile/deskop convergency path started with Windows 8.

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