50% load

[andrew b]

Just started recording 20 channels with SAC+SAW and got 50% load, steady. Is it OK for such a setup?

[Bob L]

The system should hold ok at %50... but you may want to look at lessing the load if you can.

Is the load %50 with just SAC or does it climb much higher once you activate the recording thru the SACLink?

Is this Win 7... Win 7 definitely adds to the load with the link... XP adds virtually nothing... Win 8 adds a little.

Bob L

[andrew b]

Yes, that was Win7 with
SACLink... I tested the same with just SAC and load dropped to 25%... Now I wonder what the load will be with 64 chans on SAC+SAW setup on Win7... I don't want to downgrade to XP, neither want go into mess with 8. Need to do more tests on Win7.

[Bob L]

Win 7 will increase the load considerably with the SACLink... never figured out why... the exact same code shows no increase on XP... some increase on 8... your choice on which to use... if you want to do 64 record tracks with SAC and SAWStudio linked... Win 7 may not be the best choice.

You may want to reconsider your thoughts that XP is the DownGrade... I see it quite the other way around.

Bob L

[Brent Evans]

You may want to reconsider your thoughts that XP is the DownGrade... I see it quite the other way around.

Surely by now you have to realize that XP is not a viable option for new users, or existing users wishing to upgrade to new equipment. Sure, we don't care much about "support" from Microsoft. Sure, we don't really care about the whizbang, but that has nothing to do with it.

Motherboard OEMS haven't released XP drivers for new board models for several years now. You can still find a H61 based board here and there with drivers from 2011-2012, but the newer ones (which will soon become the only ones out there) have no XP drivers. You can't buy retail XP any more... only OEM copies, and then only from less-than-mainstream vendors. If you care about your software being legal you simply can't run XP any more.

XP and Win 7 file sharing isn't great either. Forget about XP and 8 existing on the same file share network... that's a mess.

XP "works fine" as long as it WORKS. We're no longer "getting to the point" where it doesn't work any more, we're there. It's not enough that it works on old hardware... it has to work on what I can buy off the shelf in a pinch for me to count on it. If my rig ever breaks down irreparably (which is a reality with a PC that gets transported on a trailer), I won't be able to rebuild it with XP. Last time the PC failed, I was able to rebuild with XP after realizing that Win 7 and MOTU didn't seem to be a good combination. That's not longer an option, so I'm kind of stuck with old hardware or moving to a new platform. I don't like buying old hardware. Old hardware crashed a show once. Crashing shows isn't cool.

Gotta say.. I sincerely hope SAC works super awesome on Win10. If it doesn't.... That would be very dissapointing.

[cgrafx]

Just for your reference, and I'm not suggesting that there aren't legitimate reasons to use new OS's, but all the current ASUS motherboards I've looked at have win XP drivers.

RME also has current XP support. Cant speak to other audio interface suppliers, but there is still plenty of working and accessible XP solutions.

[Bob L]

Brent... its not about SAC working well on Win 10... its about Win 10 working well on its own first... the problem is not something I need to fix... its something the OS needs to handle... if the OS gets fatter and slower, there is nothing I can do to help it.

SAC runs fine on all the Win versions... as well as any other software will run on those OS versions... the conversation is that XP was a much more robust system than the current versions and SAC will perform better on it... and Win 10 will most likely continue the downfall of lower performance while continuing to grow fatter and more cluttered than the previous versions... sorry to say... that is not under my control.

I'm not sure why I am constantly criticized for touting XP as the best choice for the most robust SAC system... I know its been forced out of existence by the powers at be... but that is not my doing and that does not change the facts... XP will run SAC better than the newer versions... for many low level reasons... so, those of us that are serious about SAC will find a way to keep an XP system alive and well... or... you can happily use Win 7 or Win 8 with a performance penalty... them there are the facts.

Bob L

[Brent Evans]

Brent... its not about SAC working well on Win 10... its about Win 10 working well on its own first... the problem is not something I need to fix... its something the OS needs to handle... if the OS gets fatter and slower, there is nothing I can do to help it.

The OS works fine. I've had PCs running on every version of Windows since 3.1. None of them "didn't work." On multiple occasions, I've had to change an app because the developer didn't update for the new OS. The paradigm is not that the OS is required to maintain compatibility...

I'm not sure why I am constantly criticized for touting XP as the best choice for the most robust SAC system... I know its been forced out of existence by the powers at be... but that is not my doing and that does not change the facts... XP will run SAC better than the newer versions... for many low level reasons... so, those of us that are serious about SAC will find a way to keep an XP system alive and well... or... you can happily use Win 7 or Win 8 with a performance penalty... them there are the facts.

No one doubts that SAC works great on XP. The problem is that XP is dead. No, it's not your fault. It IS however up to application developers to keep apps working properly with the new OS, not the other way around. Win 8 is faster than win 7. Win 10 is supposed to be faster than 8. Yes, Vista and 7 weren't an improvement over XP in bloat and speed, but the newer ones are on a better track.

Applications that don't keep up die. Them are the facts too.

[andrew b]

+1

[Bob L]

You still refuse to understand that the newer OS versions are so kludged up with background stuff that they can no longer perform as well as the old ones... there is nothing wrong with SAC on Win 7 or 8 at all... nothing I need to fix... so it has not fallen behind the current versions... it works fine... but those OS versions will still never match the performance of XP... so there is nothing I can do... the OS has gotten fatter and slower such that it will not perform as well as XP no matter how much code I attempt to write... I am not sure why this is such a hard concept for all of you that complain to grasp.

It doesn't take a brain surgeon to look at the task manager in all three basic installs and see a problem right from the start... look at the average processes count... XP 20-25... Win 7 40-60... Win 8 50-80... there is a difference... period.

Also... the newer versions have changed many of the low level functions and basic OS operation such that it now interferes with the ability of SAC doing what it attempts to do... which is perform realtime operations of a ridiculously complex nature (live processing and routing of 72 channels of audio within 1 or 2 ms per buffer across 25 separate mixing consoles, while handling extremely fast and complex screen manipulation while also keeping up with realtime metering on multiple remotes across a hardwired or wireless network etc.) on a completely NON-REALTIME OS design... there are design limitations in Win 7 and 8 that directly break the ability of the code to do that efficiently... in XP it was possible to bypass certain Windows low level functions in such a way to achieve the performance needed... in Win 7 and 8 that has gotten almost impossible to do in an efficient manner because these low level functions have been altered in such a way as to break the whole concept. In Win 8, the thread priority that made it possible to keep the audio engine itself ontop of most every other Windows operation has been broken in an attempt to even out thread processing across all cores and all processes... this absolutely breaks an engine like SAC which requires some priority to maintain core access within the allotted 1-2 ms looptime.

No matter how many times I try to explain this it is always rebuttled with the idea that this is my failing in some way because I have let the code fall behind the times... NO... the fact is, the OS is no longer capable of performing with a program like SAC as efficiently as before... and the argument that other programs run fine is a complete joke and further just supports my argument of how those complaining have NO IDEA AT ALL about the low level programming code that makes SAC work the way it does... period.... you just can't understand if you don't write code of this nature yourself.

I am extremely tired of these misguided and false accusations about the shortcomings of my code, simply because I continue to suggest that it runs best on XP, which has now been tarred and feathered by the computing community... too bad... we have all been dumbed down so far that we continue to accept less and less quality as we pay more for newer and newer systems that continuously drop the bar lower and lower with every new iteration... and then the masses will defend the new stuff to the death, even though they have no real technical knowledge or understanding of what they are talking about... amazing.

As far as I'm concerned this is the last I want to get involved in this type of ignorant discussion... I am done trying to explain to complainers who refuse to listen to reason... all they want to do is bash... bash... bash... enough already... use whatever system and program you feel is awesome... I will continue using SAC and continue replacing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of mixing console equipment for pennies on the dollar... I'm fine still building and using XP because that is what gives me the best performance and stability to do the kinds of shows and tours that SAC is doing on a daily basis.

I sincerely hope Win 10 is better than 7 or 8... and XP... but I am not holding my breath.

Bob L