Windows 8

[Tim Miskimon]

Anyone using this new Windows version with Saw?
I'm still using XP Pro after 10 years and it's solid.
I kept away from Vista & Windows 7 because Saw just didn't run as smoothly on them as compared to XP Pro.
I'm asking because I'm thinking of building a new computer soon and would like to take advantage of all the extra ram available for VSTis.
Plus USB 3 & Solid State hard drives for lots more speed.
Just wondering if Windows 8 is any better for audio than Vista or 7 has been.
I had 7 on my audio laptop for about a month and hated it.

[cgrafx]

There have been a few people that tested SAC on win8 beta and had some success, but I don't think anybody has done any extensive testing.

Aside from the extra memory for VSTi's, XP does have support for USB3 and Solid State Drives.

[Adam Christopher]

Hi Tim,

I contributed to a number of posts on the SAC threads so please refer to my comments there. In short, I find Windows 8 to be superior than any other OS for Windows in every way by imo a long shot. With an SSD, the computer is booting up in less than 10 seconds. Overall performance is way smoother in everything I do. The ram usage is about a third of Windows 7 and about half of Windows Vista. It uses slightly more ram than Vista but uses ram much more intelligently as it uses the cache very efficiently to open your most used tasks very quickly. If you have any kind of a modern computer, 2gb of ram, at least Dual Core computer, you should enjoy the improved performance benefits of Windows 8.

One of the posts on the SAC forum reported that he was getting dropouts when upgraded to Windows 7 and minimal dropouts on XP and now is getting minimal dropouts on Windows 8.

I do have one issue to report though and it's the only one I've found using 8 so far. For some reason, in my eq, the fourth band is cut off at the top of the screen so I only have the gain control. I'm not sure why this is and it is annoying but not enough to make me go out and get XP. Anyways, you should read those posts on the SAC forum. Good luck.

AC

[Carey Langille]

VISTA was a RAM hog, needed at least 2 gig to even work right... Windows 7, ran quite well on a test machine with 512meg memory.. Windows 7 was WAY more effecient that 8 or even XP.... 8 would nto even boot on the same 512meg test machine..... Not sure why your results were different..... ALSO 8 uses the graphics card much more, and hence a 3d graphincs card improves performance.... Verdict still out on 8 for me... 7, fine, xp, DEAD.... New motherboards done even have drivers for xp anymore, and those old caps are poppin all over the place!... we may still have XP in disc form, but if there are no motherboard drivers its useless.... Just sayin...

[Jeff Scott]

What version of Windows 7 can we use with SAC? Home version? Pro?

[Sound Machine Inc]

What version of Windows 7 can we use with SAC? Home version? Pro?

I use win 7 pro 64bit with no issues

[Carl G.]

Anyone using this new Windows version with Saw?
I'm still using XP Pro after 10 years and it's solid.
I kept away from Vista & Windows 7 because Saw just didn't run as smoothly on them as compared to XP Pro.
I'm asking because I'm thinking of building a new computer soon and would like to take advantage of all the extra ram available for VSTis.
Plus USB 3 & Solid State hard drives for lots more speed.
Just wondering if Windows 8 is any better for audio than Vista or 7 has been.
I had 7 on my audio laptop for about a month and hated it.

Thanks Tim - I'm following this for the same reasons.

[Carl G.]

... XP does have support for USB3 and Solid State Drives.

That's great news (for an aging machine).... but motherboard upgrade migration seems to trump use of XP in the (somewhat distant?) future.

[Bruce Callaway]

I am currently trialling Win8 using SAC and SAW (set at 1 x 32). I have a dual boot machine with XP and Win7 previously. Win7 was a problem on this machine, lots of dropped buffers and RME HDSP going out of sync if I used one of Bob' s tweaks. Go figure. Win XP is rock solid however I wanted to use the additional RAM I purchased.

So far Win8 has been good as an O/S (much better then Win7 IMHO), fast to boot, copying files is much improved, no issue with RME. But I have audibly noticed some dropped buffers at times (nowhere near as bad as Win7). I traced this to Malwarebytes still running (not an issue with XP). I will trial Win8 with it closed to see if this is the problem.

[Tim Miskimon]

Thanks guys for your replies - keep them coming.
One more question - is there a good recent mother board out
there that has 3 standard PCI slots?
I need them for the RME 9652, Lync 1 card, & my aging UAD 1 card.
I'd hate to have to replace them all if I don't have to.