what's the deal with Vista these days?

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

Regarding the Vista SP1, I can't believe how many problems it brought. My favourite was when I ran into a neughbour who asked if I could check what's wrong with their laptop. Sure, I'll check it out. Turns out it just flat out didn't boot past POST. No chance for recovery installation, nothing. I asked them what was the last thing they did with the laptop when it was working. "We downloaded the Vista SP1 and rebooted." I told them to get it to the warranty service and left completely unable to help them.

 

[Temps]

I had a lot of problems with my experiment with Vista 64 bit.. I only upgraded because I started having problems with my XP install, so I figured "hey its been two years Vista is probably good by now" so I upgraded to 64 bit so I could use all of my RAM. I had no end of problems with Cubase 4, audio dropped all the time, it performed worse, Cubase 64 bit didn't work with most of my plugins, Cubase 5 would not work at all.. went back to XP and all my problems were solved.

 

[Baron of Norsworthy]

Vista!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Shista more like

 

[Felix Neumann]

I work with XP since about 2006 and I never had any single problem with it. My studio PC is not connected with the internet btw. I´d recommend to separate it!

 

[Erik Monsonis]

Running with XP since it came out, millions of problems with BSOD, drivers, random errors = common windows shit.
I switched to Vista 1.5years ago and never had ANY blue screen, system error, driver issue, shutdown, malfunction...
I have to say the current version of Windows Vista runs great!
But as we see, each one has a completely different experience, so, you must have luck or switch to Mac

 

[The Unavoidable]

Hah, damn. This thread really hasn't made my choice any easier! However, I have been running XP since it came out, and sure it's given me some trouble but nothing worth fussing over. I'd like to just make a damn decision and just deal with it, but it's to much money for me atm to make any decisions lightly. Ah, fuck it. I'll still have to wait about 2 weeks before I get payed anyway, so I'll check around locally and talk to some friends. Thanks for everyones input!

 

[xmidihcx]

. . . did I mention it fucking suuuuuuuuuuuuuxxxxxxxxx?

 

[oscillat0r]

How is it coming along? I just might be getting a new computer in a month or so, and all the ones I'm checking out all ship with Vista. Sure one could install XP on it, (don't know where I'd find one of those though) but is Vista really as bad as the word was back when it was launched? Surely by now just about all developers have gotten proper Vista compability with all their products, right?

Anyone running it in their studios atm?

If you're buying a system, take a look at something like the xps630. It ships with Vista Ultimate w/XP Downgrade rights which means, you pay for and receive a Vista Ultimate DVD but the factory installs XP on it for you. The good thing about Win 7 is that just about any Vista driver should work on it so if you buy a computer like this you know that drivers are available for XP, Vista, Vista x64, and therefore Win 7/Win 7 x64 if you want to throw in some more memory and upgrade your OS next year.

This is just a guess but i reckon that's just a DOS command to make the amount of ram show up right. My system shows 3GB or RAM in some places, 4GB in others, but i definitely have 4GB, and it's def all being used

The latest service packs for XP and Vista 32 will let the OS show you the correct amount of installed RAM but its still not able to address more than 4GB (3.2 in most cases).

I believe it was done because people were flipping out that they bought machines with 4GB of memory and Windows told them something different. Customer Service nightmare

j

 

[462studio]

I bought a copy of Vista 32 Ultimate when I built my new machine. OS works great, not unstable at all, but compared to XP I have a hell of a lot less headroom CPU wise in Vista.

I can essentially record and mix in Cubase SX3 within Windows XP with an entire plugin chain, compression, limiters, etc. Where as in Vista, I can't, drop outs, pops, clicks, glitches, gotta turn half the inserts off, etc.

Much rather have the headroom than the new OS. But other than that, nothing against Vista at all over here.

 

[nwright]

I personally had to stop doing computer service for people as soon as it came out. Day-of-release was not a happy time for my phone, and I cut off ties with several people who - despite my warnings - went out and bought Vista without considering system requirements, stability of new products, or the fact that they'd want to use their computer again someday.

Comparing stability between Windows versions is... what's the phrase... an Asian dick-size competition? Same goes for security, although (because of Microsoft's new driver certification policy) Vista 64-bit won't be as horribly nerfed as XP 64-bit.

Using Vista for audio requires removing all features that make Vista 'better than' XP. In any case, a copy of XP from the local university bookstore or used software company and a Vista upgrade can easily be cheaper than a full, non-upgrade version of Vista, and upgrading will probably be easier than downgrading.

Jeff

What features in Vista have to be disabled? Mine works fine.

I've done nothing to mine, have a C2D pentium T5200, 3 GB RAM and have been able to run 40 track sessions with 50 plugins and end up sitting at 60-70% CPU usage...Drivers with my Firepods were super stable, drivers for my Profire are stable (although I couldn't use the Ricoh chipset integrated 1394 on my computer, had to buy a TI chipset card)...Now, Vista SP1 rendered my ProFire unusable, but Vista 32 bit without SP1 is rock solid.

Even when Vista first came out and everyone said XP drivers wouldn't work, the XP drivers for my Firepod worked 100% flawlessly with Vista.

I really would like to know what needs to be disable to "run properly" when mine runs fine on it's own? Vista hate is rampant in every corner of the internet and for the life of me I just can't justify based on my actual experience - not the "word" of dudes on the internet who say it sucks.

I know it can cause problems for some people and it's useless crap to others, but 99% of the crap I've read about Vista has been completely untrue in regards to my experience with it.

meh.

 

[Apsu]

Actually, Physical Address Extension (PAE) allows a 32-bit OS and/or CPU (which includes a 64-bit CPU operating in 32-bit mode) to access more than 4GB of RAM total -- up to 64GB, in fact -- but no one process generally has access to more than 4GB at a time. Even this last limitation has some workarounds available in the newest patches and service packs for Windows, OS X and Linux/BSD kernels, whereby the OS allows the application to map extra memory in and out of its 4GB 32-bit limited "flat" address space. In general, though, there is overhead involved in the mapping and paging mechanisms, as well as process/thread stack space, handles, I/O mapping and loaded library mappings which prevents any one process from "using" all of its 4GB, hence the oft-quoted 3.x as being the limit of 32 bits. The reality is quite a bit more tricky with some workarounds available to allow up to 16x more RAM usage overall, even if it's shitty to give any one process access to all of it uke:

Back OT though, I've been using both XP and Vista (32 and 64) on a half-dozen boxes and have been employed to do tech support at several companies over the past 8 years, working on everything from Windows 95 and NT 4 up to people rocking Win7 betas. Honestly, Vista 32-bit with SP1, good quality hardware, not shotgun upgraded from a previous and questionable XP installation and not loaded with shittily coded antivirus/firewall/antispyware/other-random-assrape-every-process-that's-loaded "utilities", Vista pwns the shit out of XP. But since that's a lot of caveats, quite often XP setups appear to be better in every way, despite XP having far less stability with anything other than perfect drivers -- a rare sort of creature hardly being seen anymore outside of business and pro hardware, since prosumer and below is almost always being used on Vista machines.

 

[JBroll]

I've done nothing to mine,

Well, that's curious...

have a C2D pentium T5200, 3 GB RAM

... and *that's* why.

Someone who doesn't want to spend that much money on their hardware will have to disable idiotic bloat like transparent windows, WSearch, SuperFetch... to get to a 30% performance decrease from XP. Developers should be shot for trying to take up CPU time just because it's there, and GUI embellishments designed by three-year-olds are one of the first things to go; WSearch is rendered entirely irrelevant by any basic knowledge of *putting things in places that make fucking sense*; SuperFetch is fine if you're a crack-addicted nut who likes to run eighteen different programs at once *just to close them for no apparent reason*, but anyone with a lick of sense can actually decide when a program is needed before opening and closing it. It might seem like things are 'running properly', but disabling useless bullshit like that can make performance much nicer - I wouldn't trust a built-in performance monitor, and I'd also like to see how much of your RAM is being used up both during a session and during idle time.

I know plenty of people who bash Vista are twits, but... that doesn't mean that everyone who dislikes it is a blathering moron who can't actually back claims up. Having 'fixed' several boxes that would be fine without Vista (including more than one that froze *constantly* - we're talking about 30-40 crashes, depending on how you define a 'crash' - instead of staying stable for the MINUTE necessary to put a floppy disk's worth of files onto a flash drive), I can say from my experience (which, regrettably, came from more than a handful of computers - and didn't include one that worked well given the hardware it was on) that the thing needs to be pulled *way* back before it's not wasting too much of its hardware's capability.

Do we need to bring up Microsoft's stated system requirements? I must admit that I don't know *anyone* running on specs this low (and I'm not considering the Home Basic mess, which is a violation - in spirit and word - of the Geneva Conventions):

1GHz processor
1GB RAM
8-12GB install size
'Aero-capable video card'

Keeping in mind that 'minimal specs' perform usually in the 'fuck-this-I'm-leaving' range, this is saying quite a bit. If an *operating system* requires this (for fuck's sake, my entire OS - along with *all* of the programs I use on this laptop - doesn't even clock in at 5GB... and that's including over 1.5GB of mathematical tools) there's something very wrong. Microsoft is one of many of our enemies in the War Against Hardware Lasting More Than A Week.

Jeff

 

[462studio]

... and *that's* why.

Jeff

Yeah, coming from my perspective, I'm a relatively adept IT person. I am a UNIX engineer for a very very large finance related company. Been at this computer business for nearly 20 years.

Build this new box brand new. Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4s, fast 4GB of memory, fast quad RAID disks, clean install of Vista 32 Ultimate, immediately turned off all eye candy in Vista, and simply didn't get the same performance out of Cubase SX in Vista as I did in XP and reverted.

It really kind of bums me out too because I quite like Vista and would have loved to be able to continue with it. Especially having what I'd consider a relatively high end box and it performing 15% less well than XP workload wise.

 

[nwright]

*shrug

I guess I fail to see why I need to claim the sky is falling, scour through my machine to disable all the bells and whistles when - up to this point - I've not needed to do any of the above and NOT maxed out the system, nor experienced in quality issues with my audio stuff. I've used 3rd party apps to take a look at system performance, and it's fine? Also, in terms of processing power/CPU usage, I use Nuendo's built in CPU usage meter, not Vista's. I've disabled certain things using msconfig (actually tried disabling it all so it looked like Win95 or something) and while I noticed an increase in performance in terms of what Nuendo said I had, it wasn't enough to make me feel the change needed to be permanent.

I'm not trying to argue about the relative lack of merits for Vista, but I find it to be a far cry from bad.

And, in terms of system specs, you can get a machine like mine for less than 700-900 bucks these days I'd imagine. That doesn't seem too expensive or rendering my computer to be of some exclusive variety. It's a run of the mill Best Buy purchased HP. C2D T5200 with 3GB RAM is practically substandard these days for new machines, so the only obstacle I'd see for new Vista users would be SP1 if it's included on all new machines.

 

[JBroll]

I'm mainly just annoyed at how much of a computer's resources are getting used on bells and whistles that aren't all that great anyway - if you have it working, congratulations (I wish I could get that kind of luck), but forgive me for not thinking your results are typical. Hopefully 7 will be better...

As for your box being substandard... I built a computer with similar specs roughly three years ago for about $600, so I know what you mean, but I see no good reason for an operating system to need that much. Hell, 'Vista-ready' was a *selling point* in retail. There's something wrong with an operating system needing that...

Jeff

 

[riffmachine]

I've been using Pro Tools M-powered for several years on my Dell XPS 400 with XP (Pentium D CPU 3.00 GHz, and 3.50 gigs of RAM) . I've had my share of problems, but I'm only computer literate and I don't feel very knowledgable about any in depth stuff or programming etc. I finally got to a point where I could upgrade to a new computer, and I just ordered one of Sweetwater's Rack XT with Vista Home Premium 32-bit. I'm crossing my fingers that it will work hassle free. Since it's streamlined for audio, it better. I will let you guys know how it all goes. Should be built and sent to me in a week or so.

 

[Kazrog]

The definition of what an OS encompasses grew too much over time. I miss the Amiga, and I miss BeOS.

 

[462studio]

I miss BeOS.

Agreed. BeOS was sweet.

 

[Kazrog]

Agreed. BeOS was sweet.

Have you heard of the Haiku Project?

http://www.haiku-os.org/

Looks promising. In my ideal world, Steinberg would port Cubase to Haiku.

Seriously though, this is what a DAW oriented OS should be like. I'm hoping that one day it happens, and gets the support it needs. All it will take is a visionary company to put their full support into it and make it a packaged solution - perhaps even as a bootable USB stick for doing audio... I can dream at least...

It doesn't mean we can't run Mac OS X or Windows for doing other things - but having a dedicated, small footprint OS with ultra efficiency for DAW use - especially if it at least has some essentials like Firefox and a basic mp3 player (Haiku has both) - is by far the BEST way to run a mission critical system like a pro studio DAW box.

The entire unpacked Haiku OS has a footprint of about 60 megs, smaller than many FX plugins and virtual instruments!!

Sorry to steer this thread off topic a bit, and I am intrigued by Windows 7 to some degree, but it's incredible to me that efficiency has become such a low priority at companies like Apple and Microsoft, companies who went through the 80s, when efficiency was mandatory!

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

I've been following Haiku's developement since the early OpenBeOS days, and as much as I'd like to see it turn into a fully functioning and supported OS, there really isn't much hope for that. Too bad, BeOS was an excellent OS.