OT- Dual boot - XP Pro and Win 7

[Rabbit]

I'm building a new SAW machine and was thinking I might want to make it dual boot between these two OS'. SAW runs like a champ on my current XP machine but I have to say I'm curious how it would do perfomance wise on Win 7 64 bit with access to 8 GB of RAM when doing plugin heavy mixes. The only downside I can think of are possible plug in issues, my RME ADA is supported on Win 7, anyone run into this sort of thing when moving to Win 7?

[Dave Labrecque]

I'm building a new SAW machine and was thinking I might want to make it dual boot between these two OS'. SAW runs like a champ on my current XP machine but I have to say I'm curious how it would do perfomance wise on Win 7 64 bit with access to 8 GB of RAM when doing plugin heavy mixes. The only downside I can think of are possible plug in issues, my RME ADA is supported on Win 7, anyone run into this sort of thing when moving to Win 7?

Only plug-in issues I've seen going to Win 7 x64 is that for some reason the Sony NR2 plug causes stuttering when patched in next to a UAD plug. Didn't used to do that. Though, I haven't tried playing with buffer settings.

Otherwise, my UAD-1 issues went away when I added a UAD-2 to my system (it now lives in the box with two UAD-1's).

[Rabbit]

Thanks Dave. I don't have any UAD plugs. I have Voxengo, Waves, Stillwell, Izotope, Nomad, Bob's Native plugs, Sonoris, etc, nothing exotic. My machine is in pieces right now so I'm not sure what all I have. :)

[Dave Labrecque]

Thanks Dave. I don't have any UAD plugs. I have Voxengo, Waves, Stillwell, Izotope, Nomad, Bob's Native plugs, Sonoris, etc, nothing exotic. My machine is in pieces right now so I'm not sure what all I have. :)

Well, I can vouch for the natives, at least. All's well on the western... er... desert. :)

[Rabbit]

Well, I can vouch for the natives, at least. All's well on the western... er... desert. :)

Not for long I'm afraid, my mother in law just hopped a plain back to Tucson. :D

[Dave Labrecque]

Not for long I'm afraid, my mother in law just hopped a plain back to Tucson. :D

Egad! Thanks for the warning! :p

[Rabbit]

If you run into her call her a Pegger.... she's from Winnipeg originally. :)

Back to business.... are you running Win 7 with SP1? Any recommendations there? Should I apply updates etc?

[mr_es335]

Hello,

I just upgraded my system to a G965 chipset board (which is already an old board by today's standard...but the Intel chipsets are just the best and the board is brand new). Being XP 32-bit, I installed 4GB RAM and have tested both the 64-bit and 32-bit versions and I find really no difference at all. SAWStudio runs so efficiently that it just does what it does so very, very well.

I use Kontakt all the time and I do orchestrations; so I have 8-12 instruments loaded all the time and never any problems. And as I say, using disk imaging has allowed me to go between the two environments and I see no real advantage between 32 vs 64 bit.

Rather that dual booting, why not using disk imaging and test this out for yourself. It is much easier to set up and it is great insurance anyhow.

[Dave Labrecque]

If you run into her call her a Pegger.... she's from Winnipeg originally. :)

Back to business.... are you running Win 7 with SP1? Any recommendations there? Should I apply updates etc?

Yes I am. I have been applying updates occasionally. I think I'm close to current, now. No problems. If you're nervous, you can always use restore points to give you peace of mind.

But I say don't worry, be happy mon. :^)

[Rabbit]

ES. I appreciate the input. Yep, SAW runs great on XP with 4 gigs, what I'm trying to test out here is if overall performance for large mixes with resource hungry plugs will be better on a 64 bit OS with 8 GB of memory. Also, XP isn't going to be supported forever so if Win 7 proves stable enough and especially if there are indeed performance gains I'll abandon XP. If I find this isn't the case I'll stay on XP.

[Rabbit]

Yes I am. I have been applying updates occasionally. I think I'm close to current, now. No problems. If you're nervous, you can always use restore points to give you peace of mind.

But I say don't worry, be happy mon. :^)

I'm being happy mon... I appreciate the guidance.

:D

[Microstudio]

SAW is a 32bit program so it will only be able to access up to 4 GB's of memory in Win7 64bit.

[Rabbit]

Understood however many plug ins I have also have versions written for Win 7 64 bit. Perhaps Bob can comment but it seems to me this would allow those plug ins to run in space above 4 GB (I think the upper limit for 32 bit addressing is closer to 3.5 GB), the OS manages memory, SAW doesn't to the best of my knowledge. Anyway, I'll find out if there's any performance difference.

[MikeDee]

Understood however many plug ins I have also have versions written for Win 7 64 bit. Perhaps Bob can comment but it seems to me this would allow those plug ins to run in space above 4 GB (I think the upper limit for 32 bit addressing is closer to 3.5 GB), the OS manages memory, SAW doesn't to the best of my knowledge. Anyway, I'll find out if there's any performance difference.
Since the plugin (.dll) is running in the same memory space as the application (.exe), I would think that the plugin, though written for 64-bit, would run 32-bit...they're both in the one environment.

Bob (or others), please feel free to correct me if I am wrong. :o