Website for optimizing computer performance for Audio

[True North]

Thanks for making this a sticky George.

In the interest of simplicity, I am going to post all of the links that people have added below in this first post.
If you want to add another link P.M. me and I will add it.
If you have some general advice then obviously feel free to post below.

The following links are to webistes which give instructions on how to improve your Audio PC computer performance.

TweakXP.com - Windows XP Tweaks, Tips, Hacks, Visual Styles, Support, and Software
Aviel Segal music AND his Computer audio performance, Windows XP tweaks & DAW optimization guide.
XP Performance Tweaks
Music computers optimisation and Windows XP tweaks from Phil Rees
Optimize XP
Optimizing Windows 2000 and Windows XP for Audio
http://www.tascamgiga.com/pdf/optimizing-xp-and-2k.pdf
Some (so far) good Windows XP news... - Cockos Confederated Forums
Black Viper's Web Site
Keep Your Music PC Happy, Part 1
Keep Your Music PC Happy, Part 2
Keep Your Music PC Happy, Part 3

NEW - now for XP, Vista and Windows 7- for the update Matt
XPfree - Free information for Windows XP

New from the Jonathan AKA TheNoize
Definitive Guide to Windows XP Tweaking for Audio | Moozek

This may be a pay for use site now
MusicXP.net > Home

I got a recommendation from Raketen to add the following Gearslutz thread - very cool for MACbook Pro users, give it a looksee
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/music...books-pro.html

Feb 15, 2010 - Great Thread that I have to link to with some awesome discussion on "Turbo Boost Mode" for PC
C1E, C3, C6, EIST, Speedstep, Turbo Boost, Core parking

JULY 16, 2010 - . Klak sent me this link to check out, a nice suggestion from a fellow Canuck
SweetCare Service & Support | Sweetwater.com

[Lagerfeldt]

Mac OS X

-No journaling on your audio disk (use the Disk Utility). Up to 20% more speed if you're lucky.

-Set processor for max power, set hard disks and screens to don't sleep (only applies to some Macs)

-Don't use screen savers.

-Clean up your desktop, don't fill it with icons. Each icon on the desktop is treated differently in the system than a regular icon.

-Get matched RAM pairs (up to 5% increase in speed).

-Minimum of 10% (preferably more) free hard disk space. I.e a 100 Gb hard disk should have at least 10 Gb of free space at all times.

-Don't activate Widgets (Dashboard). Once activated it'll use resources in the background until you log out or restart your Mac.

-Open iCal and turn off alarms when iCal isn't open (in preferences).

-Disable AirPort.

-Don't install shit you don't really need. Especially nothing that works in the background such as MSN, Skype, etc.

[Lackatee]

A lot of those guides are kinda out dated, but theres still some goodies in there you can use. Heres some i have bookmarked.

Aviel Segal music AND his Computer audio performance, Windows XP tweaks & DAW optimization guide. - Probably the best one
XP Performance Tweaks
Music computers optimisation and Windows XP tweaks from Phil Rees
Optimize XP
Optimizing Windows 2000 and Windows XP for Audio
http://www.tascamgiga.com/pdf/optimizing-xp-and-2k.pdf

[theblue1]

More confirmation that when asking for help, we should be as explicit as we can and still be brief.


For tweaking XP in general there is TweakXP.com - Windows XP Tweaks, Tips, Hacks, Visual Styles, Support, and Software.

There WAS a pretty good site called musicXP.com but it appears to have changed hands or something and simply has a link to another tweaking site and a bunch of web adds and a 'bookstore.' Kinda sad.

[travisinhell]

Originally Posted by True North

WHoa!!! This is for PC

Anyone

Some (so far) good Windows XP news... - Cockos Confederated Forums

it's a pretty long thread and the opening topic is about xp sp3 but read on.....

[True North]

Originally Posted by Lackatee

A lot of those guides are kinda out dated, but theres still some goodies in there you can use. Heres some i have bookmarked.

Aviel Segal music AND his Computer audio performance, Windows XP tweaks & DAW optimization guide. - Probably the best one
XP Performance Tweaks
Music computers optimisation and Windows XP tweaks from Phil Rees
Optimize XP
Optimizing Windows 2000 and Windows XP for Audio
http://www.tascamgiga.com/pdf/optimizing-xp-and-2k.pdf

PERFECT - thanks VERY much

through your links I found the site I was looking for

www.musicxp.net

Cheers!

[soulstudios]

Originally Posted by True North

Does any remember where that site is ?

This one's mine - a bit more detailed, musicxp.net does cover some more basic things which I don't touch on.
Cheers-
m

[temetrepo]

Black Viper's Web Site

[True North]

Originally Posted by Lackatee

No problem, anytime. The second poster did you give you the musicxp.net link, so ill take partial credit?

Originally Posted by Jesse Z

yeah, it's apple.com/store

seriously though, i think maybe you're referring to: musicxp.net or tweakxp.net ?

i did all kinds of tweaking when i used PCs/XP and never saw any benefits, only crashes and unstability.

and so he did.......... Thanks Jesse and everyone else

actually George, this probably wouldn't be a bad sticky

[George Necola]

Originally Posted by True North

and so he did.......... Thanks Jesse and everyone else

actually George, this probably wouldn't be a bad sticky

after cleaning the shit in this thread.. why not.


Black Viper's Web Site might be the best, as mentioned above.

now we need a reason to use VISTA and optimize Bill Gates.

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by True North

There is a website that has been posted here that outlines all of the settings you can make to optimize the performance of your computer for audio

A lot of good sites have been listed, and I'll add my three-part series from Keyboard magazine only because it addresses many related issues:

Keep Your Music PC Happy, Part 1
Keep Your Music PC Happy, Part 2
Keep Your Music PC Happy, Part 3

--Ethan

[tarabok]

Originally Posted by Lagerfeldt

Mac OS X

-No journaling on your audio disk (use the Disk Utility). Up to 20% more speed if you're lucky.

2%

what are the pros and cons of such journaling?

[Lagerfeldt]

Pros of turning off journaling on your audio disk: more speed (higher track count).
Cons of turning off journaling on your audio disk: None really. In case of a real hard disk failure journaling most likely won't help anyway.

Always do regular backups of mission critical data. However, I haven't experienced any trouble with my Macs since I started in 1996.

Here's some Apple info on Journaling:

When journaling is turned on on a storage volume, the server automatically tracks file system operations and maintains a continuous record of these transactions in a separate file, called a journal. The operating system can use the journal to return the file system to a known, consistent state after a failure. This eliminates the need to perform a consistency check on the entire file system during startup.

Journaling is best suited for servers requiring high availability, servers containing volumes with many files, and servers containing data that is backed up at infrequent intervals (nightly, for example).

If a volume contains read-only data that is not mission-critical, it may not be necessary to turn on journaling if performance is more important than safety.

[Lagerfeldt]

Matched RAM on Intel Macs - Mac Guides

As I said, marginal improvement but it's there in some cases. More RAM vs. Less matched RAM = More RAM wins. But all things equal, matched pairs are better.

To quote from Bare Feats' Real World Speed Tests for Performance Minded Mac Users

"April 20th, 2006 -- Matched Memory Pairs make your Intel Mac Faster. Some of you were asking whether you would gain any speed using matched memory pairs on your Macbook Pro, Intel Mac or Intel mini. In our testing, iMovie renders were 3% faster with matched pairs. Our Photoshop CS2 MP actions ran 6% faster with matched pairs."

[Muggeh]

That matched ram part also holds true for PC's, the thing that is happening is that when you have 2 different modules each rated at a different speed, the system will default to the speed of the slowest module.

And this can happen with different clock speeds as well as different access timings.

[Lagerfeldt]

[QUOTE=FOURTHTUNZ;2072579]

Originally Posted by Lagerfeldt

Pros of turning off journaling on your audio disk: more speed (higher track count).
Cons of turning off journaling on your audio disk: None really. In case of a real hard disk failure journaling most likely won't help anyway.
QUOTE]

Lagerfeldt, thanks for posting this, a good reminder! I looked and I guess my audio drives are journaled on my g5 dual 2 gig. Back when I got that I thougt Digi was into journaling? So to turn off journaling do you have to back up the drive and erase?
I used to know this stuff but haven't been doing much audio,thanks for the help!

They changed their minds at some point.

[AnonJack]

Originally Posted by Lagerfeldt

Pros of turning off journaling on your audio disk: more speed (higher track count).
Cons of turning off journaling on your audio disk: None really. In case of a real hard disk failure journaling most likely won't help anyway.

Always do regular backups of mission critical data. However, I haven't experienced any trouble with my Macs since I started in 1996.

Here's some Apple info on Journaling:

When journaling is turned on on a storage volume, the server automatically tracks file system operations and maintains a continuous record of these transactions in a separate file, called a journal. The operating system can use the journal to return the file system to a known, consistent state after a failure. This eliminates the need to perform a consistency check on the entire file system during startup.

Journaling is best suited for servers requiring high availability, servers containing volumes with many files, and servers containing data that is backed up at infrequent intervals (nightly, for example).

If a volume contains read-only data that is not mission-critical, it may not be necessary to turn on journaling if performance is more important than safety.

the system disk comes journaled, at least mine did. is it worth it to erase my disk so that i can turn off journaling? or do i only need my external audio drive to be not journaled?

thanks in advance.

[Lagerfeldt]

No, do not remove journaling on your system disk. Only your audio disk.

[Lagerfeldt]

Originally Posted by Micah Tolentino

Anyone who refers to his processor speed in GB shouldn't be making tweak guides imo.tutt

Woah, not the best typo on a page like that. Kind of lowers the credibility a lot.

Anyway, the MIDI saxophone sound in the background probably lowered the credibility to begin with...

[Brian!]

As I've recently discovered, be sure to format your external with Journaling off initially because you cannot disable it in Leopard now. You can disable with your system drive using Onyx but Onyx does not currently support any external drives.

[Lagerfeldt]

Can't you disable if you hold down the option key in the Disk Utility?

[Brian!]

Pretty sure they took that away in Leopard but I'll doublecheck when I get home. I did see some Terminal workarounds while I was looking though.

[gmixstudios]

Originally Posted by soulstudios

This one's mine - a bit more detailed, musicxp.net does cover some more basic things which I don't touch on.
Cheers-
m

on here it says Download & use PCIlatency (freeware app) to change all existing values to 32 except for video, which should be set to 64 (pci latency settings for AGP are typically set unusually high which can cause audio problems/glitchs in some systems)- (NOTE: this will severely reduce performance in graphics-related applications such as games and visualisation-generators).

ok on my video sound and game, I have device description "RME HAMMERFALL" it currently says 255, what shall i set the new latency to or shall I leave that? everything else is set to a new latency of 032, thanks

[soulstudios]

Originally Posted by gmixstudios

ok on my video sound and game, I have device description "RME HAMMERFALL" it currently says 255, what shall i set the new latency to or shall I leave that? everything else is set to a new latency of 032, thanks

Talk to RME. Chances are they did that for a reason, so personally I'd leave it where it was, given that that device is (presumably) the main purpose of your rig?

oh I have another one for Windows optimizing.

Keep your PC vs Mac marketing horsecrap out of here please. If I want a pretty but expensive box with a nice liquid finish I'll go buy an aquarium. I hear they also come in pink.

Buy a Mac!

Same goes for you, buddy.
m@

[gmixstudios]

so going back to my question with the PCIlatency should i leave the RME as it is and set the others to 032? please and thank you

[TheNoize]

Hey people! There's a new Moozek article that's meant to compile all the tips for optimization of Windows XP for audio:

Definitive Guide to Windows XP Tweaking for Audio | Moozek

include that in the list!

[Joshua]

[quote=Lagerfeldt;2010582]Mac OS X

-No journaling on your audio disk (use the Disk Utility). Up to 20% more speed if you're lucky.

I don't know if this relates to Pro Tools only, but I think Digidesign recommends journaled, or is that only for the system drive?

I'm asking, I don't actually know.

[TheNoize]

[QUOTE=Joshua;3589099]

Originally Posted by Lagerfeldt

Mac OS X

-No journaling on your audio disk (use the Disk Utility). Up to 20% more speed if you're lucky.

I don't know if this relates to Pro Tools only, but I think Digidesign recommends journaled, or is that only for the system drive?

I'm asking, I don't actually know.

REally? that's interesting.

[Dopamine]

Hey Lagerfeldt, could use please clarify the following:

< No journaling on your audio disk (use the Disk Utility). Up to 20% more speed if you're lucky. >>

Is this referring to how the HD's are formatted? The tips on the DUC specifically say to format "Mac OS Extended Journaled". Are your saying to not follow this advice for the audio drive and re-format it MAc OS Extended?


>> Don't activate Widgets (Dashboard). Once activated it'll use resources in the background until you log out or restart your Mac. >>

-Will having just a few (calandar, yellowpages,) realy reduce performance?

and a couple more questions:

In Mac pref's: Should I select "Put HD's to sleep whenever possible"? (Someone said it extends the life of HD's, but I would like confirmation.)

What the best setting in PT for CPU usage? Should it be maximum?

Thanks!!

[tribeofenki]

Mac OS can be optimized, disabling unneeded system library items :

WhiteBox - Diablotin 1.3

Man (DE) :

http://www.mac-pro-audio.de/82001/Up...PTIMIERUNG.pdf