PCs and Operating Systems

C

claywer

New member
Hi,

I have had some success with my old PII 350 with a Hoontech sound card. I have upgraded and now running a PIV 1.4G with plenty of RAM, HDD etc.

In the old days (the PII 350) I used to shut off all non vital applications and operations including Virus guard etc. Otherwise the recording would get little bits of audible click, where I expect the PC got busy doing something else and the audio data got lost.

With my newer PC, with W2k, I can't turn all that much off and I can't seem to fix the audible click problem happening randomly about the place.

Help! Should I change OS? What to? Recommendations please!!!

Clayton
 
Clayton

Personally I would go for XP, but it's not essential.
Here is a link to a great PDF doc on optimizing 2K and XP for audio.
Give it a try.

Mark
 
I would suggest Linux for an OS but unfortunatly there isnt really the sound recording software for it at the moment - there is *some* good sound software but not a whole lot.

If it is stability you need though - Linux is rock solid!!
 
Doug Quance said:
If you go XP.... go XP Pro.
Click to expand...

That doesn't make any sense. XP Pro has services built-in you will never need for a DAW, so that will make more to turn off.

I bought XP Pro, but used a 'trial' version of XP Home for a week and found that for DAW-use there is NO difference. I should've bought the Home version.

YMMV


Herwig
 
xp pro supports dual cpu's, home doesn't. alslo if you want to use intel hyperthreading chips you need xp pro. word.
 
sweetnubs said:
xp pro supports dual cpu's, home doesn't. alslo if you want to use intel hyperthreading chips you need xp pro. word.
Click to expand...
yep, and i find xp pro to be more stable than xp home
 
Well, I haven't used XPpro, but I can't see how it can be more stable, when XPhome is totally stable :confused:
 
Back to the point

Thanks for the assistance and the links. I have downloaded the PDF and will be closely going through the suggestions tonight.

Do all sound recording programs have DMA? Are some with significantly less overhead than others? Should I try to split the recording function from later processing by using different programs?
 
Markd102 said:
Well, I haven't used XPpro, but I can't see how it can be more stable, when XPhome is totally stable :confused:
Click to expand...
It probably truly depends upon what you are running on the system.

I have twin Xeons running at 2.2Gig each, and the pros that built my machine wouldn't even consider XPHome. It is primarily a video workstation... with full audio capabilities. BTW, I've crashed quite a few times with video... even using XPpro.

They all agreed that XPHome is more stable than 2000...
 
they put xp pro on your dual xeon rig because xp pro supports dual cpu's. jesus h. christ on a popsicle stick didn't you read my post? they are both essentially the same operating systems. pro just has fancy pants networking shite and support for dual cpu's.
 
Doug Quance said:
I have twin Xeons running at 2.2Gig each, and the pros that built my machine wouldn't even consider XPHome. It is primarily a video workstation... with full audio capabilities. BTW, I've crashed quite a few times with video... even using XPpro.

They all agreed that XPHome is more stable than 2000...
Click to expand...

Twin Xeons.... I'm VERY JEALOUS! :D

I don't have to worry about about dual processors at this stage because Protools doesn't use it yet.
So with that and my machine is sand alone, not even the internet, I have no need to go for XPpro of home.
I think these are the sorts of things people need to consider when choosing an OS.

Mark
 
It is pretty sweet, actually... but speed and capacity come with a hefty price tag.

The tower alone (before software) ran $5300. (Ouch... hurts me to say it):eek:
 
jesus doug. You better have some really nice converters otherwise you got robbed. xeon mobo's are expensive but not that expensive. You must have 2 brand new 21" monitors or something. oh video workstation . . . some type of super sassy wildcat video card or something? come now give us the rundown. I have a dual xeon rig, didn't cost me near that much. (not counting my prism converters)
 
"I don't have to worry about about dual processors at this stage because Protools doesn't use it yet." the funny part is for years people have been buying dual g4 rigs and saying how fast they are compared to pc's. Yet os9 DOES NOT HAVE DUAL CPU SUPPORT! hah hah hah. finally with protools 6 . . . .
 
Well, here's the rundown... best as I can remember:

Twin 2.2Gig Xeons
1 Gig 600Mhz DDR Ram
Matrox Rx100 Video Capture w/ Breakout Box
40 Gig System Drive
Two 80 Gig Project Drives in RAID Array
80 Gig Export Drive
High speed CD Rom
Pioneer A04 DVD Burner

I can't remember the audio or video cards (sorry... I'm at home) I think it may be a Matrox Millenia video card, and a SoundBlaster audio card... but, once again, I can't recall offhand.

Of course, it came with Adobe Premiere bundled with the Matrox... as well as DVDit and a few other programs.

The case is huge... and it has a full redundant cooling system with a total of NINE fans... you can't overheat it.

Just the Matrox card alone will run you a grand... and I shopped around for a while before I had this one built.

And, no, it didn't include the monitors. I found a couple of 22" NEC monitors (less than two years old) on eBay for about $700 including the shipping. Saved some big bucks on that.

When I first started doing video editing on a PIII 1.6GHz setup, there was a lot of rendering happening as I was editing. This system is fast enough to do it all in real-time.:D
 
Looks like once again I am getting into another post about OS's. I have really grown to the Linux side of computing. Linux is really becoming more and more user friendly. (It is really choosy about who it calls it's friends though.) Digital Audio is has recently starting to go over to the Linux platform as well. go to freshmeat.net there are quite a few open source recording packages out there. For example I am currently using SLaB. Like all recording softwares they each have there own learning curve. I personally love the clean running linux.
 
I think we proved that the problem is sharing the PC with my son, his games and all that stuff.

Intent is to install Partition Magic and run completely separate OS.

Sound fair?
 
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