XP vs. 7?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Vipasana
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Vipasana

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Hi everyone. I'm new to this forum and from what I've read this is a great forum with very serious people. So first of all, thanks.
Now, my question is - I'm going to buy a new PC for my home recording studio. The PC is great for music production and contains i7 960 proccesor, 12GB RAM, 1 x 1TB + 1 x 0.5TB etc.
I want to know which operation system is better to use for music production - XP or 7 - and why?
Thanks a lot.
 
At the moment I would go with XP, because all things do not work (driver problems for example) yet, so there might be compabilty issues. On the other hand, as guys are saying over here, 7 seems to be faster than XP.
Do you want to go with 32 or 64bit windows (...was thinking about memory limitations - 32bit XP RAM amount is limited around 3GB if I remeber correctly?)
 
Yes you right. 32 bit has a limitation to 3GB RAM, so I'll have a 64 Bit os. Does it make a difference?
Thanks again.
 
Do you have your interface yet? If so, available drivers would be a deciding factor. If not, shop around and see what's out there. A year ago, I would have told you to wait a year while s/w and drivers catch up to Win7 and 64bit tech. I'd say its close now. I have Reaper running on a WinXP32 machine AND a Win7 64bit machine. It runs flawlessly on both machines. On the Win7 machine, I just have the onboard sound though.


Also, I'd get a second 1TB drive. If your data is important at all, you MUST back it up! plenty of free backup apps out there too. For my XP machines, I use EzBackitup or Syncback. I'm using FBackup on my Win7 machine.
 
Vipasana said:
so I'll have a 64 Bit os. Does it make a difference?
Click to expand...

yeah. Drivers are written for either 32 or 64. 64 bit has been lacking for alot of audio interfaces just because they aren't really on the bleeding edge. Shop for an interface and check for *reliable* 64bit drivers.
 
I'm using M-Audio Delta 44 and there is a win 7 64 bit driver. So you say that Win 7 is better for me?
 
Vipasana said:
I'm using M-Audio Delta 44 and there is a win 7 64 bit driver. So you say that Win 7 is better for me?
Click to expand...

well, as mentioned above, it'll let you use all of your ram. I like the way Win7 looks and acts (for the most part. It was a bit to get used to). I did a quick google search and didn't see any real complaints about the reliability of the 64bit driver for the Delta44. I might do a bit more research to make sure drivers are solid, but aside from that, I don't see a downside. I'd go for it.
 
Also, I'd get a second 1TB drive. If your data is important at all, you MUST back it up! plenty of free backup apps out there too. For my XP machines, I use EzBackitup or Syncback. I'm using FBackup on my Win7 machine.
Click to expand...

+1

External drives are cheap enough right now to do this too.
 
I recently switched over myself. I have two interfaces, one being a legacy unit and the company is not writing new drivers for it. The other one is still being supported and it works flawlessly. So, I had to switch my mode of operation around a little, but it works good now.

When I switched to Win7, I also switched from Cubase to Sonar (64bit). I had a lot of problems between Sonar and my UAD plugs, so I reinstalled the 32 bit version and it worked better. I still wasn't completely happy with it because the audio engine would quit often or the DAW would lock up. So, I recently upgraded my version of Cubase and it has been running great.

Jeff D gave a lot of good advice. If your drivers are 64 bit ready, then you should be good to go. Plus 12gig and an i7 is a lot of horsepower. I think you'll be happy.

have fun,
 
Great, I love Win 7 and if you say it's fine to use this operation system with music creation and cubase 5 I'm already happy.
Thank you all so much.
 
I was debating which to use recently, I think I am going to stick with XP for now for compatibility with my gear. I will definitely switch to 7 when I have upgraded my studio, though, as it seems really quick from what people are telling me.
 
I see, but I don't fully understand - What gear doesn't have compatibility with win 7 for example?
If my audio interface has a win 7 stable driver, what more do I need to check before upgrading?
 
You can run an upgrade compatability check via the Microsoft site, M-audio have been fine in my experience as has protools - and 64bit is definately the way ahead if you can - huge improvement over XP.
 
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