optimizing windows XP and my PC?

[Black neon bob]

Hey fellas!

I reinstalled XP on my PC last week, and have noticed that it's having a little more problems then ever before when i am recording with multiple track and lot's of VST's.. i could do that all the time before reinstalling, but now it takes forever to load anything, like a VST like east west orchestral symphonic choirs.. takes about 3 minutes to load a multi, where it took about 40 seconds before..

anything know about this stuff?

Cheers and thanks in advance!

 

[Ermz]

There are a bunch of steps you can take to generally optimize Windows XP. You can search through numerous guides on Google...

The general procedures are usually:

-Set the amount of virtually memory instead of letting Windows automatically adjust (you usually want it set to twice the RAM)
-Shut off all superficial sound effects, visual features etc.
-Shut off all unneeded background services (windows auto-update, messenger, various other things)

 

[fabz]

http://www.pcaudiolabs.com/setuptips.asp

 

[Frank'nfurter]

And the more important thing: Don't upgrade XP to Servicepack2.
There are some very strange things in it that brakes out the PC.

 

[Lord Lurion]

And the more important thing: Don't upgrade XP to Servicepack2.
There are some very strange things in it that brakes out the PC.

Only do this if you don't connect your computer to the I-net AT ALL.

 

[Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral]

And the more important thing: Don't upgrade XP to Servicepack2.
There are some very strange things in it that brakes out the PC.

that was the first release, they fixed all that shit since then and now it works ok.

if you wanna turn off the stupid security center thing (it IS fucking annoying) then go to services in the system management tools, turn it off and turn it's startup load option off.

 

[Bob Savage]

Check out http://www.musicxp.net

 

[black sugar]

I always thought this one was pretty good:

http://www.modularmedia.co.uk/downloads/XPdawTweaks.htm


It's interesting that it recommends a 384mb swapfile if you have over 512mb of RAM. I guess it makes sense to not use the swapfile as much as possible if you have a lot of RAM.

Seems to work fine for me. I've never tried comparing that to doubling the RAM size to get the swapfile size which is what I had always heard in the past. Hmmm.

 

[Black neon bob]

Ah yes!!

Thanks a bunch guys! this is a very helpfull thread, lot's of links, and i will try them all...

Cheers!

 

[Frank'nfurter]

that was the first release, they fixed all that shit since then and now it works ok.

if you wanna turn off the stupid security center thing (it IS fucking annoying) then go to services in the system management tools, turn it off and turn it's startup load option off.

Hi Hopkins.
I had a good tweaked laptop DAW with ninimum latency times. I updated to SP2 and then all went slow with massive dropouts at low latecy times. I tried to tweak the whole thing new, without success.
Even the turn off of this stupid security center was unsuccessfull.

I reinstalled the XP complete new, upgrade to SP1 and tweaked it. Now the DAW runs like hell. Maybe it depends on the hardware a SP2 works fine?

 

[Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral]

the version of SP2 i got was the cd you could order for free, works fine with mine?

if you have authentic windows you can order a free copy from them on cd, might have been a different version that gave you grief...

this box is an AMD, are you using intel?

 

[Frank'nfurter]

Intel P4, authentic Windows, SP2 free copy on CD. But hey, the system is still runing now so I don't use the SP2 again (never change a winning team).

 

[SickBoy]

Maybe it depends on the hardware a SP2 works fine?

I suppose it's a sort of a gamble where you have to find out whether sp2 would work well with your configuration or not. For those with SP1 and keen to do the upgrades you could check this out: http://www.autopatcher.com/