setting up your computer

Tips and advice for getting the most from Scope. No questions here please.

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garyb
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Re: setting up your computer

Post by garyb »

and you think he will give a better answer?

how about this one?
"it doesn't matter much to Scope"

it may matter to other programs. it just depends. for the most part, it works properly already, so why does it need to be changed? whatever you are imagining, nothing will happen, as far as Scope is concerned. there is no secret to learn.

at one time, it was suggested to change that setting, but that was when windows 98 was new and Creamware was healthy and windows 95 was still around. much has changed since then.

i have NEVER, EVER, EVER needed to touch that setting in XP or windows7 to get a stable system that worked correctly. there is no more to say on the subject. start another thread in the tech forum if you want to experiment with that setting and discuss the results. don't be so female. just try it, nothing bad will happen. then you will know.
niceboy
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Re: setting up your computer

Post by niceboy »

garyb wrote:and you think he will give a better answer?

how about this one?
"it doesn't matter much to Scope"

it may matter to other programs. it just depends. for the most part, it works properly already, so why does it need to be changed? whatever you are imagining, nothing will happen, as far as Scope is concerned. there is no secret to learn.

at one time, it was suggested to change that setting, but that was when windows 98 was new and Creamware was healthy and windows 95 was still around. much has changed since then.

i have NEVER, EVER, EVER needed to touch that setting in XP or windows7 to get a stable system that worked correctly. there is no more to say on the subject. start another thread in the tech forum if you want to experiment with that setting and discuss the results. don't be so female. just try it, nothing bad will happen. then you will know.
Thank you for that answere.
I dont need any advices though about what you prejudge about,
or any other advice what to do.
About discussing , I never ever believed in discussions ,
because in research we just search for answeres ,
and thats not discussion , thats a dialogue .
Thats maybe not so in some human research arias , but thats not for us.
Thank you for your answere it was good and our system seems stable now.
Dont be so female :lol:
I dont think I am female I am the maskulin boss here.
Bear
Last edited by niceboy on Mon Oct 15, 2012 12:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
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garyb
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Re: setting up your computer

Post by garyb »

niceboy wrote:I dont need any advices though about what you prejudge about,
or any other advice what to do.
ok.
niceboy wrote:we just search for answeres
and now you have them!
niceboy wrote:our system seems stable now
great! :)
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astroman
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Re: setting up your computer

Post by astroman »

... nb and the never drying well of revelation... :lol:
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Mr Arkadin
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Re: setting up your computer

Post by Mr Arkadin »

astroman wrote:... nb and the never drying well of revelation... :lol:
:D "I don't do discussion, I'm a researcher!"
niceboy
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Re: setting up your computer

Post by niceboy »

Mr Arkadin wrote:
astroman wrote:... nb and the never drying well of revelation... :lol:
:D "I don't do discussion, I'm a researcher!"
Yes and we dont do regulations in the air,
but inside the inner system.
Bear
pranza
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Re: setting up your computer

Post by pranza »

Here's my observations:

Intel EIST - Enhanced Speedstep. Disable it and you won't get turbo boost (cpu freq increase) when needed. For Win XP, on other hand, it shouldn't have any difference, at least in my system it doesn't change anything on or off. Don't know if it breaks SCOPE under newer windows where it actually works.


Intel C State - http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/611
CPU power saving. Old thing, has been used for ages. In win xp - no problems with it enabled. Can be a different story with newer windows.


C1E Support - If C state is disabled this should make no sense. You loose yet another cpu power saving mode, quite recent one. For win xp makes no difference either, they don't know how to use it.

Overspeed Protection - Limits maximum power draw for CPU. Won't reach it in normal scenario anyway. Have no experience with this setting.

Hyperthreading - Although I've seen it improving matters on old i7 working with audio (less crackle in heavy project), on most things it's good to have it and new CPUs should hyperthread even better. I understand the difference of 1 core vs multiple cores - programs can be not meant for several threads and crash as it sometimes happened with Scope and PCI Pulsars 10 years ago and first hyperhtreaded pentium 4.
Now you have lots of cores anyway, so either double them or not, you still have more than one. Hyperthreading might not benefit Scope itself but will definitely benefit other tasks.

Execute Bit Support - really? Without it even windows 8 wouldn't start or install! How can it hurt Scope, I have no idea. If you still want to disable it, dont forget to set /execute option in win xp's boot.ini, otherwise it would still get done in software and impact performance.

Set Limit CPUID MaxVal to 3 (maybe not so important) - do it if you're running windows 98 or NT4 with pentium 4 or above. proabably never do it :)

Intel Virtual Tech - good thing for virtual machines, not having any issues with it enabled. doesn't interfere with PCI or PCIE cards.

Intel VT-d Tech - good thing for virtual machines (wanna run windows xp in virtual machine under linux and use your scope cards in that xp? you might succeed!) also good for remote control of computer (iAMT relies on VT-d and enables remote control of power and booting of pc even if OS is frozen)
.

Are there people who really got improvement after tinkering with those settings?...
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garyb
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Re: setting up your computer

Post by garyb »

Scope is realtime.
power saving techniques don't work. they react to load. once they react, it's too late=pops and clicks.

turbo and hyperthreading aren't really applicable to a daw. it takes a real core to calculate for a virtual core, a virtual core is non sequitor in real time.

Scope won't run in a virtual machine.

like other tempests in a teapot, i really don't mind f you do these tweeks or not. if you don't and everything works well, great!

EIST is the main thing to kill.
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Re: setting up your computer

Post by pranza »

i won't try it myself soon, but theoretically having pci passtrhough enabled should allow direct hardware access for virtual machine, so that virtualized windows could seed the device directly and host operating system wouldn't touch it.
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Re: setting up your computer

Post by garyb »

that's nice. 99%(or more) of audio computers don't require virtual machines. for those that do, leave the option untouched.
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krizrox
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Re: setting up your computer

Post by krizrox »

One more comment to add to the thread: consider disabling something called HPET (high precision event timer) in BIOS.

I was getting random pops/clicks with Scope/XITE (manifested in the tracks I was recording in Samplitude). I tried every tweak known to man and then some. Experimented with every possible BIOS tweak including all the tweaks listed in Gary's original post here. All the usual (and unusual) Windows 8.1 registry/system tweaks. I even replaced my video card thinking that was the culprit.

It's too early to tell 100% for sure, but disabling this option made a big immediate difference right away for me. I haven't experienced a single pop/click in two days of production work. They were happening pretty regularly (but randomly) before the change.

What's not clear to me is why this made a difference. I thought the HPET was supposed to actually improve system audio playback. If you do a simple Google search you'll find some chatter about the benefits of disabling it (or not).

One thing's clear: your mileage may vary. ;-)
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ronnie
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Re: setting up your computer

Post by ronnie »

krixrox

This may not be applicable to you but maybe because its been a damn cold and dry winter and I know that Elgin has not escaped it in the least! I'm here down in E Street territory in South Jersey and its been a drag. Snaps, pops and crackles that all of sudden appeared out of nowhere. After the initial Windblows panic attack I realized that the house humidifier was not set and I was wearing a dry-cleaned (no anti-static) cotton/wool Viyella shirt. It was me!!!!! Almost any move I made sounded like rice krispies. Ditched the shirt and adjusted the humidifier and they're gone.

Since we brought up virtual machines I'd like to share something I recently tried. It's called SpaceDesk and along with Mouse Without Borders allows you to control another machine over the network connections. I've been trying it from my Win 8.1 laptop to control my HP XW4600 Scope system and so far so good. The screen resolution is not the best and there is a slight lag on the mouse but very workable. I don't have a Win 8 tablet with touch but the products should work there which would be interesting to control Scope via touch on a tablet. Any one have a tablet to try? :)

Here's a YouTube of the action. The resolution is much better than in the YouTube video. The MIDI control is from the controller on the notebook.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ffq1iI-0dag&t=13

Update: Clicks and pops associated with screen updates. Too bad, looked promising over fast ethernet. Disabled. No clicks or pops. May try again with different compression settings before uninstalling.
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Re: setting up your computer

Post by krizrox »

That's an excellent point to bring up Ronnie - winter static! That wasn't the root cause for me personally but it's definitely worth considering. I shock myself every time I kiss the wifey lol
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Re: setting up your computer

Post by Ripper »

krizrox wrote:That's an excellent point to bring up Ronnie - winter static! That wasn't the root cause for me personally but it's definitely worth considering. I shock myself every time I kiss the wifey lol
Me and my lady "always" touch our hands before our welcome kiss, because of static, hehehhe. When we don't there is a spark. Oh yeah, lol :D
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tlaskows
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Re: setting up your computer

Post by tlaskows »

Very good tips.

I disabled speedstep on my Asus board (forced all cores to sync to a preset ratio) and the soft synth CPU usage is significant.

I had one synth using around 80% of one of my cores, not it uses maybe 15%

:D

-Tom
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Re: setting up your computer

Post by ronnie »

This is true however... if you only do audio on the box that's fine except I wouldn't leave it on 24X7 without some really good cooling. I think you might be better off if you can switch the machine into a high performance mode for when you do audio and manually step it back down into balanced for "normal" stuff. That's what I do. I can go to Power Options and kick it into High Performance and the OC kicks in other wise I drop it into Balanced Mode or PowerSaver with sleep turned off all around. Just watch the sample rate if you do that when SCOPE loads because sometimes Windblows can drop it down to 44kHz for apps other than DAW audio. If you're in 44kHz all the time, no problems but be watchful at higher rates. This may not happen to you as I'll be darned as to why that happens (on Win 8.1 64) but when it does I just reset the rate and it's all good.
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tlaskows
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Re: setting up your computer

Post by tlaskows »

I keep my computer always on. It consumes around 160 watts according to my UPS. I've had it overload a 600 watt UPS before when I had two video cards and a 6 core CPU. It was also pretty close to overloading a 900 UPS, lol. That was under full load though.

I think the video card (GTX 770) downclocks by a lot when not doing anything. I know it can pull 200 watts alone when playing games...

-Tom
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Re: setting up your computer

Post by ronnie »

I was more concerned about keeping it running cooler but it sounds like the machine has an appropriately beastly setup!
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Re: setting up your computer

Post by tlaskows »

I've got this CPU cooler, it's very good so far:

http://www.corsair.com/pt-pt/hydro-seri ... cpu-cooler

And my case is open most of the time, so it gets good ventilation.

I am planning on closing my case once I finish with my system (still working on it, lol)

:D

-Tom
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Re: setting up your computer

Post by hubird »

tlaskows wrote: And my case is open most of the time, so it gets good ventilation.
I always heard the opposite: a closed case (including the connection bars of empty PCI(e) slots) has better ventilation -if designed well.
I'm on a mac pro, it has that overall perforated front and back, creating a effective stream of air over and between the horizontally sitting boards. Uncovering the side plate would kill that stream mainly :)
Depends on CPU activity also of course :)

PS. disadvantage: the boards don't have a support point on the back front corner.
There's always a weight working, especially with DSP boards with expansion board which don't fit in this mac anyway :D
Hope my Quicksilver will never die, I don't see them so often anymore on market places...
Sorry for OT :wink:
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