xp slowdown

Hi all, I recently "upgraded" from Win2K to WinXP. No real problems, but I do notice that Reaktor does not run as smoothly under XP as it did under 2K. I get a lot more CPU spikes (with attendent crackle in the sound), especially when other programs are running. These occur even if the CPU usage is quite low (even at 5%). So it seems that XP is managing the CPU load distribution quite a bit differently than Win2K.

Is there something I am missing? Is there a way to set a process' priority, as in Unix?

Thanks for any advice that one of you XP users might have...

JJ

 

I'd say, check your soundcards settings and then go to www.musicxp.net and run all of the tuning tips. I think you may need to go to "Start-Control Panel-System-Advanced-Performance-Advanced" and set the priority to background processes. What spec is the computer?

 

Thanks Jay, I tried the stuff on that site. Helps a bit, but I think the problem is probably with my soundcard drivers (Echo Gina 20-bit). I have the latest ones, but this card doesn't seem to be well-supported anymore.

 

6.11 Beta?

 

Yah, I am using version 6.11 of the Echo driver. I don't know if this is a beta or not. Are there issues with this version?

 

That card (Gino 20-bit) always gave me problems under XP as well. It hadn't been properly supported in a long time so I switched to a new E-MU card and all my problems were gone.

 

You could try ASIO4ALL, a lot of people use that in place of their stock drivers, it might work for you. Read the manual well first, I seem to remember reading something about 20bit soundcards in there.

 

I'd advise against running most of the "optimizations" unless you're running your machine STRICTLY as a DAW (and not even then, to be honest).

There's only four optimizations I recommend for a Windows box;

1) Set your page file to a fixed size (1.5 x your physical RAM), and move it off your OS drive/partition if possible
2) Change processor scheduling (Control panel/system/advanced/advanced) to background services
3) Turn off indexing on all drives
4) Turn off any power conservation or power management schemes

Also, defrag and dump temp files at least once a week- I do it every day.

I'll second the ASIO4All idea; it works fairly well with any card that has WDM drivers.

ew

 

I tried the ASIO4ALL suggestion. Unfortunately, Reaktor crashes when I use it with my Gina card! Maybe time to look at a newer card...

 

I'm sorry, I should've said that. I've been using a dedicated DAW for a really long time(spanning 3 new computers), I tend to assume(sometimes incorrectly) that everyone else does too. I don't see what you have against most of it though, a lot of it is just good common sense, and/or industry standard stuff.

 

More info:
www.xpfree.org
(a guide I put together, tad bit more comprehensive than the others)
m@

 

wow, thanks!

 

No Worries
Cheers,
M@