From Windows 7

[valis]

Let's steer this back to the topic at hand? I wonder if Win7 will be the tipping point for 64bit adoption, and I wonder if this means music companies will actually start moving to real 64bit drivers en masse (m-audio/digi STILL lack them for many products for instance). Even basic machines are coming with 4GB ram standard these days...

[siriusbliss]

They ought to have a help section on their website. That is how I began and you disagree with me. I don't see how you can but you are entitled to your opinion, no matter how wrong it is.

I'm not disagreeing with you. That's the whole point!

They WILL have to have something on their site, right? They just don't have it now. Geez.

Just freakin' relax already - YOU're wrong saying I'm wrong, and again, you're reading through a very narrow perception, and I don't know what difference it takes to belabor the point anyways, so....

...why not email SC and state your requests and recommendations?
That way, they can add this to the list I already gave them to consider adding my youtube video, some tutorial videos, synth preset of the month, or whatever.

Greg

p.s. and what IS your real name anyways?

[siriusbliss]

Let's steer this back to the topic at hand? I wonder if Win7 will be the tipping point for 64bit adoption, and I wonder if this means music companies will actually start moving to real 64bit drivers en masse (m-audio/digi STILL lack them for many products for instance). Even basic machines are coming with 4GB ram standard these days...

I think 64 bit is basically in development stages at various chip companies (A/D's, bus controllers, memory, etc.), which means various PCB's will start showing up throughout this year.

Then there's the future of USB and firewire development - oh geeeeeezzzzzzz....

Greg

[valis]

Let's steer this back to the topic at hand? I wonder if Win7 will be the tipping point for 64bit adoption, and I wonder if this means music companies will actually start moving to real 64bit drivers en masse (m-audio/digi STILL lack them for many products for instance). Even basic machines are coming with 4GB ram standard these days...

I think 64 bit is basically in development stages at various chip companies (A/D's, bus controllers, memory, etc.), which means various PCB's will start showing up throughout this year.

Then there's the future of USB and firewire development - oh geeeeeezzzzzzz....

Greg

64bit cpu's have been out for some time (which is what I was referring to). Drivers have been lacking for the audio world, which typically lags behind the computing world several years (though not as bad as when 3.5" floppies were considered 'new' on flagship hardware), and software of course is slow to move as well. However 64bit software isn't a necessity, the drivers are.

Fwiw I still do all my audio work in Xp32 & OSX 10.5, so I'm not really suggesting that 64bit-ness is essential for us. I suspect though that Win7 may mark the shift in the mainstream away from 32bit.

[braincell]

Sorry Valis and Greg,

Greg, you said I should start my own company and you implied that we have all the help we need here.

I accept your apology.

As far as I know, all modern CPUs are 64 bit.

According to Paul Thurrott, a journalist who has inside connections with Microsoft, they originally planned to not offer a 32 bit version of Windows 7. Obviously they have since reversed course on this decision.

I have had a bad experience with USB audio. I do not trust it. It works for some people. I also tested USB versus Firewire using software which measures the performance of a hard drives and I noticed that they are a similar speed but Firewire is much more steady while USB has drastic downward spikes. I also tried a Firewire box by Presonus on my laptop and it did not work so I returned it. I am told Firewire works well for some people and not at all for others.

Microsoft decided that WaveRT would not run over USB or Firewire which leaves PCI and PCIe etc.. I haven't done a huge project with WaveRT yet so it is too early for me to say how I like it. It seems very solid playing the soft piano though. If you want to try WaveRT, ASIO4ALL has it. You might get very low latency.

[siriusbliss]

USB is worthless for audio, and firewire is proving functional for audio in certain dedicated configurations like what RME is doing.
But so far PCI is still the best (for now) IMO.

There's other protocols on the horizon.

...and no, this isn't the only place to get help BC. Folks on the Microsoft newsgroups are jumping all over MS right now for flaunting 64bit, while the chip manufacturers and programmers are still catching up. This combined with the economic slowdown that has seemingly every developer pulling to the sidelines waiting for someone else to make the next move, just makes things crazy.

Greg

[braincell]

PCI can be worthless too in certain situations. I have not found one way to get audio in and out of which works well on every computer. I guess the solution is to get a Mac. I might get a used one next year for my Scope cards if they don't work well under Vista 64-bit by then. I'm thinking a used Mac.

[valis]

Having used a Mac since the Apple IIe days, I can tell you that they also have their share of issues. The only real improvement is due to limited hardware selection improving QA processes for Apple & their partners. In current generation machines, every generation of the Mac Pro and G5 has had some issue that affected a portion of the userbase (G5 had a firewire grounding noise issue, Mac Pro has EFI compatibility issues with PCIe cards that should have been compatible otherwise) and the laptops frequently suffer issues as well (certain OS updates have killed the laptop's screen, reduced battery life due to power saving issues, removed the ability to 'sleep' the hardware with wireless enabled, etc). Some longterm Mac users suggest that this is due to using "PC parts" but I can recall tons of issues with Mac Quadras, my G3 & G4 machines (G4 had overheating problems that also plagued the later G5's and current Mac Pros in some high-usage scenarios) and on & on...

USB sucks for audio because USB is a PIO mode device, which means that ALL use of a USB device is entirely managed by the cpu, without even a buffer on the usb port to help 'smooth' out dataflow. Firewire does have a small buffer and DMA capability, but firewire chipsets and drivers have a lot of variance, some will even cause rather nasty spikes in the system bus (use DPC Latency Checker to find these).

Also there are other system components that can reduce performance for the entire system: including wireless network adaptors (*especially* usb & PCMCIA ones), inexpensive/onboard networking (again a PIO issue), highpoint/etc 'extra' raid controllers and so on.

[kylie]

Third, AFAIR Creamware never posted tech support tweaks for the cset.ini on the Creamware site because they chose to link to the tech. support threads on this forum instead.

um, iirc they had some further (more or less well hidden) documents on their ftp once, and I think at least one of them was about cset.ini tweaking. maybe in german
I'll search my archives... (no offense meant)

-greetings, markus-

[garyb]

it was in the original pulsar manual.

back then, Creamware was a much bigger company and they had someone to write a quickstart manual that explained exactly how to get started and all the windows 98 tweaks. in the beginning, xp info was on the website, too. after the insolvancy, there was no one to do such things, now there still isn't. sales is the key to all these things, including marketing. it doesn't matter to the powers of the universe that marketing brings sales, S/C needs sales to bring marketing. that's where YOU come in braincell.....

[braincell]

I did suggest the Xite to someone recently. He had never heard of it. Word of mouth isn't going to be enough. The major websites and stores need to get behind it. Hopefully the magazines will review it if they haven't already. Mainly though, it has to be in the virtual and brick and mortar stores and that is ultimately up to their marketing director. He is going to be more important than having a great product.

[alfonso]

I'm starting to think that one thing to do is a live performance at the Messe.

My idea is that there should be 3 guys, like the old Tangerine Dream, each one with a controller keyboard, plus a guitar connected to one of the HiZ inputs and a Mic in the other input making some cool electronic music, few modulars loaded, also some vintage synth plug, guitar processor....

Make it clear, during the performance that only one Xite is providing the whole instrumentation, plus Foh and stage monotoring (might be the headphones out), and multitrack recording of the whole event, with VDAT. Then a mix could be performed live, and a final mastering, always live.

Personally I would partecipate for free if a bit of accomodation for few days to prepare the thing is provided , not necessarily an hotel, and a ticket from Italy and back. I offer my availability.

[siriusbliss]

I did suggest the Xite to someone recently. He had never heard of it. Word of mouth isn't going to be enough. The major websites and stores need to get behind it. Hopefully the magazines will review it if they haven't already. Mainly though, it has to be in the virtual and brick and mortar stores and that is ultimately up to their marketing director. He is going to be more important than having a great product.

I'm already planning on doing a couple magazine reviews sometime this year when things get rolling.

Greg

[siriusbliss]

I'm starting to think that one thing to do is a live performance at the Messe.

My idea is that there should be 3 guys, like the old Tangerine Dream, each one with a controller keyboard, plus a guitar connected to one of the HiZ inputs and a Mic in the other input making some cool electronic music, few modulars loaded, also some vintage synth plug, guitar processor....

Make it clear, during the performance that only one Xite is providing the whole instrumentation, plus Foh and stage monotoring (might be the headphones out), and multitrack recording of the whole event, with VDAT. Then a mix could be performed live, and a final mastering, always live.

Personally I would partecipate for free if a bit of accomodation for few days to prepare the thing is provided , not necessarily an hotel, and a ticket from Italy and back. I offer my availability.

Great idea! - especially if the band IS the 'Booth Babe Band'
(I'm half serious, really).

Greg

[Shroomz~>]

Maybe Alfonso would be willing to dress in drag as a fake 'booth babe'. A drag queen piss take of booth babes would be hilarious...

[Shroomz~>]

Our booth babes should have beards & hairy armpits...

[Neutron]

is it just me or, why does windows 7 not let me have the option to shut down without updating, and the updates seem to take ages.

[dawman]

From reading all of these links and bits of information I seem to have drawn this conclusion...

* XP is really fast, even if it doesn't have the best multi core performance.
* Vista does multi core magic but is slow.
* W7 has improved multi core, but still isn't as efficient as XP
* The OS beyond W7 should kick rump then 'eh?

[braincell]

Vista is the same speed as XP unless you don't have enough RAM. I find it more stable than XP. When XP bombs, you have to reboot your computer. When Vista bombs, you only need to reboot your application and with a very fast computer, this takes a few seconds.

[garyb]

xp bombs?