My Windows 7 vs. Windows 8 DAWBench Results

[jcschild]

thanks for the efforts wow thats a rather large difference. assuming asio drivers?

[FLYINGJAY]

Thankz man was just going to look at Windows 8.but ill stay with 7

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

[UltimateOutsider]

Originally Posted by jcschild

thanks for the efforts wow thats a rather large difference. assuming asio drivers?

That's right- this was using MOTU's latest 64-bit ASIO drivers. I MIGHT be upgrading to a PCIe interface sometime soon, and if I do I will re-test. Wife and kids are out of town for a few weeks, so I'm coming up with projects to keep myself busy and out of trouble.

[subby33]

More reason for me to stick w/ Win 7. I really dont see myself moving to Win 8. I just dont see how it will be any better an OS for me. I think Apple got it right, sticking w/ the same OSX for a very long time, and just improving it.

[TS-12]

Any improvement in Windows 8 from W7's terrible MIDI OUT Jitter?

[UltimateOutsider]

Originally Posted by TS-12

Any improvement in Windows 8 from W7's terrible MIDI OUT Jitter?

Can you elaborate? I'm not sure I'm familiar with this problem.

[TS-12]

Originally Posted by UltimateOutsider

Can you elaborate? I'm not sure I'm familiar with this problem.

Windows 7's Midi OUT jitter disaster

[FLYINGJAY]

Originally Posted by TS-12

Windows 7's Midi OUT jitter disaster

Very interesting!how do I test this my self?

Do I copy the same MIDI file to all 16 MIDI channels?if so then what?

My xv-5080 only have 8 outputs.so do I record audio from the external device,then line up audio files?

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

[theblue1]

Thanks for your efforts, UltimateO.

As unwelcome as the results may be for many of us, it's nonetheless good to know the reality of the situation.

I hear Vista was a little rough out the gate, too.

Maybe the beware-every-other-version axiom with Windows is sticking around for a while... I just wish the even number release team would learn a little something from the odd number release team.

[blackcom]

50% worse...dear god...

[jrwaltb]

This does not seem right. I am running Windows 8 enterprise edition and and it runs everything (Non Audio) faster and runs Studio One with Motu MK3 exactly the same. Windows 8 seems to really use the GFX card better then Windows 7 which makes everything look and move amazing. I only have 2 months before I have to upgrade but I am definitely doing it.
It should be noted that I am running an Nvidia 9600 with the newest windows 8 Nvidia driver and I replaced the windows 8 1394 OHCI driver with the Windows 7 1394 OHCI (Legacy) driver that I saved before re- formatting. Check out the Sonar article on Windows 8 because I seems really accurate after actually running Windows 8.

[TAFKAT]

Originally Posted by UltimateOutsider

While Cubase and my audio hardware functioned largely without error on Windows 8, the overall performance during testing was 30-50% worse than on Windows 7 on the same system. What accounts for the different results? Is it Cubase? Is it the OS? Is it the drivers? I don’t know why I got the results I got. I even re-ran most of the tests, just to make sure the numbers were consistent.

Hey,

Thanks for the time and energy in doing the testing and sharing the results.

I'll try and get some numbers up on my test rig(s) over the next few weeks as I have a bit of rare down time at the moment and see how they correlate against your findings. I have a selection of interfaces I can cross reference as well.

Just need to motivate myself to do another install of Win8... LOL

One thing you can try when you get a few minutes is loading Reaper and see how if you get similar results , if so you can rule out Cubase.

I am curious whether FireWire has anything to do with it, because I’ve heard mumblings about Microsoft wanting to deprecate FireWire support- although the driver appears to be the same on both OSes.

There has definitely been some changes to the FW stack , but a FF800 reference unit I tested seemed to be O.K when I quickly tested it on the release preview. I didn't really get a chance to give it a proper run thru tho.

I'll drop back when I have some data to share

Peace

[scoring4films]

thanks for running the tests and sharing your results.
guys like you, and jcschild and TAFKAT are real assets to this community

[TS-12]

Originally Posted by FLYINGJAY

Very interesting!how do I test this my self?

Do I copy the same MIDI file to all 16 MIDI channels?if so then what?

My xv-5080 only have 8 outputs.so do I record audio from the external device,then line up audio files?

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

i do something like this usually, (it is the most obvious way to hear jitter or note start times deviations):

Create 16 MIDI tracks.
each MIDI track routed to individual Part in the ext. MIDI device
(in your case xv-5080, Midi track 1 to part 1 in xv-5080, Midi track 2 to part 2 in xv-5080 and so on)

it is best to use Drum programs for each part or sounds with fast attack or else the MIDI jitter wouldn't be noticed.

Create 4 bars of busy but consistent/quantized MIDI notes for each track. ( Consistent/quantized so you can tell if the timing is right. Busy to put load on Windows 7's MIDI out)
example:

Track 1: Piano 1:
Am chord (A-C-E-A) every 1/8th.

Track 2: Mute Guitar:
Am chord (A-C-E-A) every 1/16th.

Track 3: Bass:
A note every 1/16th.

Track 4: Xylophone:
Am chord (A-C-E-A) every 1/4th.

Track 5: Steel String ac. Guitar:
Am chord (A-C-E-A) every 1/8th.

Track 6: Saw Synth:
Am chord (A-C-E-A) every 1/16th.

Track 7: percussive Organ:
Am chord (A-C-E-A) every 1/8th.

Track 8: Drum Kit 1:
Kick every 1/4, Snare/clap/stick every 2/4, hi-hat every 1/18, shakers every 1/16.

Track 9: Drum Kit 2:
Kick every 1/4, Snare/clap/stick every 2/4, hi-hat every 1/16,

Track 10: Drum Kit 3:
Kick every 1/4, Snare/clap/stick every 2/4, hi-hat every 1/32,

and so on...

Than You can just listen and you will hear how start times of notes vary (end times are hard to notice for average musician).

If it's hard to notice the notes start time deviation, turn the volume to 1, but DON'T MUTE THE TRACK (that way MIDI will still be sent to the track but Audio output will be turned down, If you MIDI mute the track it won't sent the date and won't create the bottleneck) for all the midi tracks except 2 or 3 drum tracks and you should hear tit now.


Usually in Windows 7 it takes it takes about 8 tracks of instantaneous (i.e. simultaneous notes per 1/8th) notes, and the jitter is already noticeable.

If Your ext midi device has multi-outputs, (or if you can't hear the jitter):
lets say 4 stereo outs.
route something like this:
tracks 1-13 to outputs 1-2,
track 14 to out 3-4,
track 15 to out 5-6,
track 16 to out 7-8.
and record them in your daw, than look at the waveforms and you will see that the start times (transient) sometimes are early, sometimes are late, and sometimes are all on time with each other.

(In XP 32 and 64 and Mac OSX 32 and 64, I couldn't hear the jitter with multiple MIDI tracks with heavy note data going to multiple ext. midi devices!)

[UltimateOutsider]

Originally Posted by theblue1

As unwelcome as the results may be for many of us, it's nonetheless good to know the reality of the situation.

I hear Vista was a little rough out the gate, too.

Yeah, it's really early, still. I'm not sure that any of my primary software or hardware vendors have officially supported Windows 8 yet. I just happened to be curious, had some free time, and knew I had a safe way to go back to Win 7. Even if I had a real desire to upgrade to Win 8, I wouldn't run it on my DAW system full-time until I'd heard from vendors and other users that the stuff I've got will work okay. It's gonna take a fair amount of time before there's real solid/confirmed support in the market.

Originally Posted by jrwaltb

This does not seem right. I am running Windows 8 enterprise edition and and it runs everything (Non Audio) faster and runs Studio One with Motu MK3 exactly the same. Windows 8 seems to really use the GFX card better then Windows 7 which makes everything look and move amazing. I only have 2 months before I have to upgrade but I am definitely doing it.

I'll play devil's advocate first; if I hadn't run the benchmark tests and simply loaded up my typical day-to-day projects, I'd probably be saying the same thing you are. I don't normally load hundreds of plugins or have hundreds of notes playing at once. I might never have noticed a difference. After I launched apps on Win 8 once they seemed to load and quit faster on subsequent runs. There definitely are some optimizations at work here that I won't deny. As I mentioned before, I can only say that when my system is pushed to its audio limits, it's faring better on Windows 7- but I can't yet explain why.

I am familiar with those Sonar results (they found it ran a little better on Win 8 in their tests). They had a different PC, interface, and DAW from mine. I'm not saying Win 8's bad, or discouraging people from using it. I'm just sharing my own results on my unique system.

Originally Posted by TAFKAT

Thanks for the time and energy in doing the testing and sharing the results.

I'll try and get some numbers up on my test rig(s) over the next few weeks as I have a bit of rare down time at the moment and see how they correlate against your findings. I have a selection of interfaces I can cross reference as well.

Just need to motivate myself to do another install of Win8... LOL

One thing you can try when you get a few minutes is loading Reaper and see how if you get similar results , if so you can rule out Cubase.

Hey, and thank you very much for your efforts on the project! Reaper is a good idea. I may add that to the mix when/if I try a different interface.

For what it's worth my own system is pretty close to your reference box. Mine's got a slightly faster CPU in the same family/generation, but you've got a faster interface (the RME HPSDe), and my Win 7 results tend to be either the same as or just a little behind yours.

[TAFKAT]

Originally Posted by UltimateOutsider

Hey, and thank you very much for your efforts on the project! Reaper is a good idea. I may add that to the mix when/if I try a different interface.

For what it's worth my own system is pretty close to your reference box. Mine's got a slightly faster CPU in the same family/generation, but you've got a faster interface (the RME HPSDe), and my Win 7 results tend to be either the same as or just a little behind yours.

Hey,

I noticed your system was very close to my ( never to be sold ) test/reference system , I have no doubt you did the tests accurately as you have a clear understanding of the methodology and the results are consistent to mine.

I think you may have hit the nail on the head re a lot of the supposed performance improvements of Windows 8 , which on the surface is a little more responsive out of the box to Win7 , but once you pushed the system the true performance became apparent.

I see the Cakewalk DAW benchmarking report keeps coming up as a confirmation of better DAW performance, but IMO its a report that has a few grey areas. Their methodology is measuring variance in a performance meter, which may or may not have any direct correlation to the actual scaling ability of the DAW environment. Only when the systems are pushed to the break point at respective latencies will we have an accurate comparative. They didn't do that , also their so called Real World test was at 1024 , which is not what I or most would consider workable.

I digress,

I'll drop back with some comparative data soon(ish)

[FLYINGJAY]

Originally Posted by TS-12

i do something like this usually, (it is the most obvious way to hear jitter or note start times deviations):

Create 16 MIDI tracks.
each MIDI track routed to individual Part in the ext. MIDI device
(in your case xv-5080, Midi track 1 to part 1 in xv-5080, Midi track 2 to part 2 in xv-5080 and so on)

it is best to use Drum programs for each part or sounds with fast attack or else the MIDI jitter wouldn't be noticed.

Create 4 bars of busy but consistent/quantized MIDI notes for each track. ( Consistent/quantized so you can tell if the timing is right. Busy to put load on Windows 7's MIDI out)
example:

Track 1: Piano 1:
Am chord (A-C-E-A) every 1/8th.

Track 2: Mute Guitar:
Am chord (A-C-E-A) every 1/16th.

Track 3: Bass:
A note every 1/16th.

Track 4: Xylophone:
Am chord (A-C-E-A) every 1/4th.

Track 5: Steel String ac. Guitar:
Am chord (A-C-E-A) every 1/8th.

Track 6: Saw Synth:
Am chord (A-C-E-A) every 1/16th.

Track 7: percussive Organ:
Am chord (A-C-E-A) every 1/8th.

Track 8: Drum Kit 1:
Kick every 1/4, Snare/clap/stick every 2/4, hi-hat every 1/18, shakers every 1/16.

Track 9: Drum Kit 2:
Kick every 1/4, Snare/clap/stick every 2/4, hi-hat every 1/16,

Track 10: Drum Kit 3:
Kick every 1/4, Snare/clap/stick every 2/4, hi-hat every 1/32,

and so on...

Than You can just listen and you will hear how start times of notes vary (end times are hard to notice for average musician).

If it's hard to notice the notes start time deviation, turn the volume to 1, but DON'T MUTE THE TRACK (that way MIDI will still be sent to the track but Audio output will be turned down, If you MIDI mute the track it won't sent the date and won't create the bottleneck) for all the midi tracks except 2 or 3 drum tracks and you should hear tit now.


Usually in Windows 7 it takes it takes about 8 tracks of instantaneous (i.e. simultaneous notes per 1/8th) notes, and the jitter is already noticeable.

If Your ext midi device has multi-outputs, (or if you can't hear the jitter):
lets say 4 stereo outs.
route something like this:
tracks 1-13 to outputs 1-2,
track 14 to out 3-4,
track 15 to out 5-6,
track 16 to out 7-8.
and record them in your daw, than look at the waveforms and you will see that the start times (transient) sometimes are early, sometimes are late, and sometimes are all on time with each other.

(In XP 32 and 64 and Mac OSX 32 and 64, I couldn't hear the jitter with multiple MIDI tracks with heavy note data going to multiple ext. midi devices!)

Ok thankz ill try it!

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

[kreeper_6]

Cakewalk's (a PC only developer) Benchmark analysis shows significant improvement across the board with Win8. I use Studio One and have been using Win8 since March and have not witnessed performance loss anywhere on my older PC platform.

-My PC specs.
Windows 8 CP x64 / Core2 Quad Q6600 / Gigabyte EP35-DS3R F4 / 4GB G.Skill DDR2 800 / Nvidia 8800 GTS
Studio One x86 / 24Bit / 48kHz / 512 Buffer / Double Precision
FireStudio Tube / Axiom 25 / UAD-2 Quad v6.3

Windows 8 – A benchmark for music production applications

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by scoring4films

thanks for running the tests and sharing your results.
guys like you, and jcschild and TAFKAT are real assets to this community

Ditto that!


With regard to apparent performance benefits for general users vs. performance decline for audio-crunching -- sometimes an OS developer 'robs Peter to pay Paul' as the saying goes, tinkering the balance of efficiencies to favor typical uses (and, let's face it, Mom and Pop Sixpack are not putting their computers through anything like we do -- unless, maybe they're deep into video editing and that's still a bit different, depending on the video production platform).

[FLYINGJAY]

Hey ts-12,what jitter with vi's?

Since its still internal,it should not be a problem right?

BTW this is still on topic as windows 8 may perform better worse or the same as Windows 7.

I won't be able to test until I stop cubase from crashing on my 2nd or 3rd MIDI track:(

I hooked my 5080 up to the logic.

With cubase there are topics about emulating the MIDI ports or some crap.I never invested the time to fix it.some claim its a Steinberg and maudio issue?

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

[FLYINGJAY]

Originally Posted by theblue1

Ditto that!


With regard to apparent performance benefits for general users vs. performance decline for audio-crunching -- sometimes an OS developer 'robs Peter to pay Paul' as the saying goes, tinkering the balance of efficiencies to favor typical uses (and, let's face it, Mom and Pop Sixpack are not putting their computers through anything like we do -- unless, maybe they're deep into video editing and that's still a bit different, depending on the video production platform).

Good point man!we have still to figure out if its cubase,fw or simply Windows 8.

I'm tempted to go to best buy and use there 30 return policy on a SATA drive since I don't have any spar drives at the moment.

Probably download Windows 8 and use it until the unauthorized 30 day time limit run out!

I don't have the Plugins the op have,so can I make my own test?as long as its identical on both Windows version?

Does windows 8 look better?

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

[Bill@WelcomeHome]

The newest OS is never designed for the last generation computer, and it is always going to eat more resources, just as newer versions of your DAW will have more features and power, but will want a more powerful computer.

[TAFKAT]

Originally Posted by Bill@WelcomeHome

The newest OS is never designed for the last generation computer, and it is always going to eat more resources, just as newer versions of your DAW will have more features and power, but will want a more powerful computer.

Why ?

Windows 7 is far more efficient and less resource hungry than Vista , OSX 10.6 was far more efficient and less resource hungry than 10.5 , there is no technical reason why the O.S's need to be less efficient just because the systems are getting more powerful.

OSX went backwards with 10.7 and is clawing back with 10.8

Windows 8 is "supposed to be" more efficient and less resource hungry than Windows 7 , but it could be all smoke and mirrors when it comes to the crunch.

In regards to DAW's, Reaper continues to improve scaling while adding features while Cubase ( for example) is going backwards incrementally. That only proves that Steinberg are less focused on the performance aspect, it doesn't however make it a given.

[FLYINGJAY]

Cubase is best fusion audio and MIDI,plus your a Lil off topic

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

[TAFKAT]

Originally Posted by FLYINGJAY

... your a Lil off topic

A face palm, really ?

Not sure what you are not comprehending or what topic you think we are supposed to be on , but my response was right on topic, thanks.

Cubase is best fusion audio and MIDI...

I won't be able to test until I stop cubase from crashing on my 2nd or 3rd MIDI track:(

There is a joke in there somewhere....

[FLYINGJAY]

Originally Posted by TAFKAT

A face palm, really ?

Not sure what you are not comprehending or what topic you think we are supposed to be on , but my response was right on topic, thanks.





There is a joke in there somewhere....

Ok pre mature facepalm,withdrawn

Yea daw efficiency is definitely on point,please forgive me...
Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

[TS-12]

Originally Posted by FLYINGJAY

Hey ts-12,what jitter with vi's?

Since its still internal,it should not be a problem right?

BTW this is still on topic as windows 8 may perform better worse or the same as Windows 7.

I won't be able to test until I stop cubase from crashing on my 2nd or 3rd MIDI track:(

I hooked my 5080 up to the logic.

With cubase there are topics about emulating the MIDI ports or some crap.I never invested the time to fix it.some claim its a Steinberg and maudio issue?

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

I dont think internal midi jitter exists. I have never ever experienced internal midi jitter in any of the tests.

[norbury brook]

Did you do a clean install of windows 8 or an upgrade ?

I've tested windows 8 on my x58 DAW and it performed very well using cubase 6 x64 and all x 64 plugins,VI's etc so I was surprised at you results. I did a clean install though on a fresh drive.

I was using a Steinberg FireWire MR 816 as well so FireWire isn't a problem.

MC

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[cschormann]

The Cakewalk team posted a comparison on their blog that indicates just the opposite - strong performance gains across the board with Windows 8 running Sonar X1, as compared to Windows 7.

It is possible that Cubase and Sonar use the OS and the hardware differently, but I guess that that is not the issue here. I think I have to try this for myself - I am a Cubase user

See this blog post from Cakewalk:
The Cakewalk Blog

And a summary of their findings:

SONAR CPU load at low latency

SONAR CPU gains were observed when using Windows 8 for Low latency performance tests. These gains mean you can run bigger loads in Win8 at low latency without audio glitching.

low latency plugins… 15.5% CPU reduction
input monitoring… 8% CPU reduction
high track count… 23% CPU reduction
High bandwidth audio …6.2% CPU reduction

SONAR multi-core CPU load balancing at low latency

Workloads for cores are more evenly balanced at low latencies on Windows 8. Better balanced core workloads translate to more efficient use of multiple CPU core hardware and thereby better workload scaling for large projects.

low latency plugins… 23% improvement
input monitoring… 31.7% improvement
high track count… 30.6% improvement
High bandwidth audio …17.5% improvement

Memory usage

A 7.9% reduction in memory use under Win8 was observed when loading a large real world SONAR project (Cori Yarkin project from SONAR sample content) under identical system configuration. Reduced memory load can be observed in most of the tests.

Disk Performance

A 78% improvement under Win8 was observed in disk read/write performance while reading large buffer sizes. Improvements were more moderate at smaller buffer sizes.

System calls per second

An 85% reduction in system calls was observed under Windows 8 in the input monitoring case and more moderate gains in the other cases. Fewer system calls translate to improved CPU load as well as fewer user mode to kernel transitions which mean fewer audio glitches.

Kernel use

25 – 50% reduction in kernel use can be observed in some of the tests with Win8. Lower kernel use results in fewer audio glitches since it leaves more headroom for audio drivers.