Very suspicious thing of Win7

[Yura]

I don't see any reason to return back on Windows7 x32, though I am just curious so far about one strange behavior when SS&SAC is running in Windows7.

Setup is the simplest.
Start SAC, Live mode running. Initial setup of mix. No any plugins engaged. SAC load shows 00%.
Start SS with one track containing a wav.
Playback SS, MT load shows about 0%
Activate SAC Link. Now playback and I see MT load shows 48% :mad:

Tried to change everything (Win 7 has been thoroughly tweaked) - SS MT Load stays on +48<>50%

(Of course, when to load SS with plugins so that normally it will playback with MT load 20%, if to link with SAC, then MT load will show 70%!)

So, you see the same at your side?
What IS THAT???

[bcorkery]

I don't run Win7 so I'm no help.

But WELCOME BACK Yura! Where have you been hiding? :)

[Dave Labrecque]

I don't see any reason to return back on Windows7 x32, though I am just curious so far about one strange behavior when SS&SAC is running in Windows7.

Setup is the simplest.
Start SAC, Live mode running. Initial setup of mix. No any plugins engaged. SAC load shows 00***37;.
Start SS with one track containing a wav.
Playback SS, MT load shows about 0%
Activate SAC Link. Now playback and I see MT load shows 48% :mad:

Tried to change everything (Win 7 has been thoroughly tweaked) - SS MT Load stays on +48<>50%

(Of course, when to load SS with plugins so that normally it will playback with MT load 20%, if to link with SAC, then MT load will show 70%!)

So, you see the same at your side?
What IS THAT???

Yura -- I don't have SAC, so these are just shots in the dark...

Are your running the SAC and SAW EXE's in XP SP2 or SP3 compatibility mode?

Have you played with enabling/disabling multiple CPU cores? I run all eight virtual cores of my i7 and have no issues with SAWStudio, but ya never know...

[Bob L]

That is quite a larger increase in load than seen on my test systems... but still... Win 7 has shown a performance hit all around in my tests.

The SACLink extra load seems to be caused by something in the way Win 7 handles the shared memory functions between apps... there appears to be an extra loading when those functions are used within Windows than the same functions in Win XP.

The SACLink depends on the shared memory mapping functions... seems to be the method required to transfer data between separate apps... Win 7 seems to do it poorly compared to XP...

I keep hoping we will discover a registry tweak or some other flag or something I can set when using those functions to get the performance back... but so far... nothing has been found.

Bob L

[Yura]

I don't run Win7 so I'm no help.

But WELCOME BACK Yura! Where have you been hiding? :)


Hi man!

Thanks!
No, I hadn't been hiding. But was out of this w:mad:rld.

[Yura]

Hi Dave!!!


...
Are your running the SAC and SAW EXE's in XP SP2 or SP3 compatibility mode?
Of course. I tested all the things ( you know I'm very meticulous tester!)


...
Have you played with enabling/disabling multiple CPU cores? I run all eight virtual cores of my i7 and have no issues with SAWStudio, but ya never know...
Yep, tested all about that

[Yura]

That is quite a larger increase in load than seen on my test systems... but still... Win 7 has shown a performance hit all around in my tests.

The SACLink extra load seems to be caused by something in the way Win 7 handles the shared memory functions between apps... there appears to be an extra loading when those functions are used within Windows than the same functions in Win XP.

The SACLink depends on the shared memory mapping functions... seems to be the method required to transfer data between separate apps... Win 7 seems to do it poorly compared to XP...

I keep hoping we will discover a registry tweak or some other flag or something I can set when using those functions to get the performance back... but so far... nothing has been found.

Bob L

So interesting...

[Carl G.]

So interesting...

Did you mention in the other thread (I think) that Win 8 is no increase in performance than Win 7? Did you mean with SawStudio separately?, SAC seperately? Or.... is there no improvement just when "Linked"? (in other words... does Win 8 have the same, or worse, drawbacks of Win7's way it handles links between programs?)

Are there tweaks to Win 8 yet? (for SawStudio/SAC)
(where?)

[sebastiandybing]

Hi Yura, I think all of us are waiting for someone
with win8 to test the sac / saw link cpu use.
I have been forced to use my older xp machine
because of this.
Sebastian

[Yura]

Did you mention in the other thread (I think) that Win 8 is no increase in performance than Win 7? Did you mean with SawStudio separately?, SAC seperately? Or.... is there no improvement just when "Linked"? (in other words... does Win 8 have the same, or worse, drawbacks of Win7's way it handles links between programs?)

Are there tweaks to Win 8 yet? (for SawStudio/SAC)
(where?)


Hi Carl,

There is no problem with common performance in win7 an win8. There is just a certain bug when SAW and SAC are working linked together. Not difficult to see it if you load SAW with any plugins about to 5***37; mt load (doesnt matter) and load SAC with any plugins about to 50% of its load. When SAW is running not linking with SAC, SAW shows the right value lets say 5%. But if link it with SAC, SAW's mt load will show 10% or even 30% instead of what it's loaded.
If you'll try to make hard load of SAW and SAC, you will face a problem under win7/8 in compare with the same EDL under winXP. XP wins 15%-25% of resources (depends of particular load of SAC).

btw, I wonder to see no one user of SAW and SAC who could be touched by this bug. Wonder because I am sure this is not my hardware setup issue.

[AcousticGlue]

Hi Carl,

There is no problem with common performance in win7 an win8. There is just a certain bug when SAW and SAC are working linked together. Not difficult to see it if you load SAW with any plugins about to 5% mt load (doesnt matter) and load SAC with any plugins about to 50% of its load. When SAW is running not linking with SAC, SAW shows the right value lets say 5%. But if link it with SAC, SAW's mt load will show 10% or even 30% instead of what it's loaded.
If you'll try to make hard load of SAW and SAC, you will face a problem under win7/8 in compare with the same EDL under winXP. XP wins 15%-25% of resources (depends of particular load of SAC).

btw, I wonder to see no one user of SAW and SAC who could be touched by this bug. Wonder because I am sure this is not my hardware setup issue.

My quad core Xeon e5450 in XP never gels with SAW. SAW shows something like 38% when task manager shows 1%. No SAC involved.

[jmh]

Check out http://www.defectivebydesign.org/what_is_drm

...it is quite possible that your machine is spying on you. It may depend upon the soundcard you're using - or simply the fact that you are accessing audio files. I don't know what implementations of windows use DRM or to what extent - just suggesting the possible use of CPU.

Try disabling your network interface and see if that has any impact on load levels. Or if you are the networking type with the appropriate setup, you could setup port mirroring and use a packet analyzer like wireshark to determine if any traffic is generated when saw is running. It could also be file based.

No matter, I think it is of the utmost importance that none of us are remixing MiliVanili tracks - and I am willing to pay to ensure that this remains true.

[Yura]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Mo matter something sounds too impossible but it's no crime to check it for any case

[jmh]

DRM trouble may be more than just a possibility, the following is from that link I posted...

Amazon's new movie download service is called Unbox and it outlines what DRM implies. The user agreement requires that you allow Unbox DRM software to monitor your hard drive and to report activity to Amazon. These reports would thus include a list of: all the software installed; all the music and video you have; all your computer's interaction with other devices.

...there were also some rootkits that were distributed on audio CDs (it might have been BMI - but I'm not sure). Stealing your DAWs CPU power is just another example of the man screwing us. It is particularly a great insult if you are creating new content - which I think is what most of us on this forum do...

[jmh]

not bmi as far as I know

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal

[RBIngraham]

btw, I wonder to see no one user of SAW and SAC who could be touched by this bug. Wonder because I am sure this is not my hardware setup issue.

If you're asking if anyone else has run into this issue, the answer is yes. It is a known issue and has been talked about several time on the forum. As far as I know there is no fix, work around or even a plan to fix it in the works. The answer has always been... use XP or just deal with it.

Having said that, it has not really caused any issue for me, on the one computer I have that has Win 7. But then I'm not really pushing that hard on that particular laptop set up.

I'm not really sure if it's an actual higher CPU usage or just an issue of the displays in SAC not reporting correctly.

[Yura]

.....
I'm not really sure if it's an actual higher CPU usage or just an issue of the displays in SAC not reporting correctly.

ok, if you are not sure if it's an actual higher CPU usage or just an issue of the displays... then you didn't face it as real issue.
If you load SAW with plugins, etc to the maximum processor possibility under XP. this edl will be stopped under W7/8 due to lack of stolen power inside this OS.

[RBIngraham]

ok, if you are not sure if it's an actual higher CPU usage or just an issue of the displays... then you didn't face it as real issue.
If you load SAW with plugins, etc to the maximum processor possibility under XP. this edl will be stopped under W7/8 due to lack of stolen power inside this OS.

Huh? I've run SAW and SAC under XP, Vista and Win 7. So I'm not really sure what you're getting at here. No I have never run my SAW up to the maximum load possible under XP and then tried to move that edl over to Win 7. But that's because I only use SAW for playback, recording and mostly so I can have MIDI control of SAC (something it doesn't have on it's own) for live shows.

So while it hasn't been a show stopper for me yet, I wouldn't say it's not a real issue or concern. Have you run your SAC or SAW resource meter up to 100% and the moved from XP to 7? I wouldn't recommend going much above 75 to 80 percent usage under any operating system before I would do something about it so I'm not pushing the envelope. But maybe that's just me and because whenever I'm using SAW it's on a live show... not in a studio situation.

I use SAW once in a while in the Studio, but I have other DAWs I prefer for most of my design studio work.

Anyway my point was that it's a known issue and if you poke around in the forum you'll see several folks talking about it. Although with the sanitizing that's been going on in the forum, who knows if those threads are still around.

[JLepore]

ok, if you are not sure if it's an actual higher CPU usage or just an issue of the displays... then you didn't face it as real issue.
If you load SAW with plugins, etc to the maximum processor possibility under XP. this edl will be stopped under W7/8 due to lack of stolen power inside this OS.

It's not the OS - it's the application. Known problem for a very long time. Not fixed. The only good news is preliminary reports are showing the problem is better under Win8 . Probably because they changed a few things in application security/UAC and made a bunch of changes in memory handling between apps.

[Yura]

Now I faced a problem with W8 that is: fast switching between F-keys produced clicks in the sound while playback. This happens if SAW and SAC are linked only. Not while SAW playbacks alone.
No one tweak in W8 fixes it. Tried everything

[Bob L]

That would appear to be video driver loading... try turning off fancy screen options like transparency and desktop composition... etc...

You might also just try a Windows Classic theme if there is one, which should turn off that stuff for you.

Bob L

[Yura]

Strange that doesn't help, nothing.
Feels like something very tenacious character plays its role in there

[Carl G.]

That would appear to be video driver loading... try turning off fancy screen options like transparency and desktop composition... etc...

You might also just try a Windows Classic theme if there is one, which should turn off that stuff for you.

Bob L

On my Win 8.1 there is no "Windows Classic Theme"
MS says "Unfortunately, there is no "windows classic Theme" that is available with the new Windows 8 Operating system"

When I search for a "Windows Classic" theme.... nothing comes up at MS.

I still have boarding padding issues which draw things weird in SawStudio.

Ideas?

[mr_es335]

Hello,

Have a look at this: http://kizo2703.deviantart.com/art/Windows-classic-theme-for-Windows-8-RTM-325642288

[RBIngraham]

On my Win 8.1 there is no "Windows Classic Theme"
MS says "Unfortunately, there is no "windows classic Theme" that is available with the new Windows 8 Operating system"

When I search for a "Windows Classic" theme.... nothing comes up at MS.

I still have boarding padding issues which draw things weird in SawStudio.

Ideas?


Update the software so border padding isn't an issue... like most applications did years ago.


(ducking) :p

[Dave Labrecque]

Also found stuff like this:

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/8463-border-width-windows-change-windows-8-a.html

[William Bushnell]

I have use this program on my new office Windows 8.1 computer to adjust border padding and it worked as advertised.

http://www.howtogeek.com/130138/how-to-change-the-window-border-size-in-windows-8/

Download Site:
http://winaero.com/comment.php?comment.news.96
_____________
William Bushnell

[Bob L]

In Win 8, all you need to do is set the SAW exe file or desktop icon to Win XP SP2 or 3 compatibility and it automatically shuts off border padding for the program when it runs.

Right-click the exe file or desktop icon and select properties and the compatibility tab.

Bob L

[Carl G.]

In Win 8, all you need to do is set the SAW exe file or desktop icon to Win XP SP2 or 3 compatibility and it automatically shuts off border padding for the program when it runs.

Right-click the exe file or desktop icon and select properties and the compatibility tab.

Bob L

When I do set the exe file to Win XP Sp3 compatibility and checkmark to run as administrator, I get the annoying "User Account Control" warning message saying "Do you want to allow the following program from an unknown publisher to make changes to this computer?" (each time I start SAC or SAWStudio)

I didn't get that message before making these changes... but I do now...(happpens with and without starting as administrator)!

Why is that? How do I make exception for SawStudio and SAC to permanently allow these programs to start without this annoying Warning??
.... after much research the only 'best answer' was to setup up a scheduled task with a shortcut to run that task, as described here:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/create-administrator-mode-shortcuts-without-uac-prompts-in-windows-vista/
Any better ideas to get rid of UAC warning for **just one program**???

[jcgriggs]

Carl,

I don't have a Windoze 8 system, but it looks like you can turn UAC off across the board, at least in Windoze 7: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ca/windows/turn-user-account-control-on-off#1TC=windows-7

Hope this helps,
John

[Dave Labrecque]

Carl,

I don't have a Windoze 8 system, but it looks like you can turn UAC off across the board, at least in Windoze 7: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ca/windows/turn-user-account-control-on-off#1TC=windows-7

Hope this helps,
John

This is what I ultimately did in Win7, finding no other reasonable route. Like Carl, though, I'd love to find a way to turn off UAC for selected programs.

[jcgriggs]

Dave,

I posted some more possibilities in the thread: Starting Prgm with UAC "EXCEPTION" in Win 8.

Some of these claim to be able to disable specific UAC prompts or to turn off UAC for some programs. I don't have a Windoze system to test with at the moment, so these are supplied with no guarantee of effectiveness...

Regards,
John

[Dave Labrecque]

Dave,

I posted some more possibilities in the thread: Starting Prgm with UAC "EXCEPTION" in Win 8.

Some of these claim to be able to disable specific UAC prompts or to turn off UAC for some programs. I don't have a Windoze system to test with at the moment, so these are supplied with no guarantee of effectiveness...

Regards,
John

Thanks, John. Saw that. Not sure I'll have time to fool with it, but good to know there are some options to explore.