Vista OS and PC recording?

[twostone]

Only works with dual core and gotta have more ram?

[blue2blue]

Someday -- when our computers are FOUR TIMES as powerful -- Vista MIGHT run as well on them as XP does on today's computers.

 

But Vista's MASSIVE CPU requirements -- MS, themselves estimate a fourfold increase in RAM will be needed at minimum and, IIRC, an even greater increase in minimum video standards needed to support MS's Mac-me-tooism, Aero, the rescaling graphics engined designed to compete with OS X's Aqua (that name-apple didn't fall far from the tree, huh?)

 

As far as I can tell, in the 5 years or so that Aqua has been laying its heavy hand on the Mac platform it has resulted in two things, The Swoosh (the animated "tornado" resulting from an open window "swooshing" down onto the Mac Dock [the OS X "innovation" that mimicked XP's taskbar -- MS is not the only shameless borrower]) and the ability to view graphic representation of documents in small "iconized" windows. (This ability has been available in various add-ins for Windows for years and I've yet to see anyone use it on an ongoing basis.)

 

 

Vista is ALL about one thing -- the need to "churn" the computer hardware and software market.

 

Hardware and software vendors have been increasingly anxious over MS's long-promised and often delayed "next generation" OS -- they need it to force people to buy new computers and new versions of old software.

 

What will you gain if you switch to Vista when it becomes available?

 

An operating system that will, in a very real sense, reduce ANY given computer's power to 25% of what it was under XP.

 

Think about THAT.

[Phil O'Keefe]

My main DAW is a dual core with 2 GB of RAM and SLi PCI-e dual video card capabilities, and it can handle more RAM than that - and from what I've read, all of that will come in handy when I'm eventually forced to switch over to Vista.

 

Forced? Yup... eventually, if I want to run the latest versions of the software I use daily, I'll need to go to Vista. But I'm personally not going to be in a major rush to do so. What I have works, and works well, and with the relsase of a new OS, all sorts of potential issues arise. Compatability with hardware - gonna have to make some upgrades there. Compatability of software I've used for ages... what if some of that isn't ported over, and the legacy stuff doesn't run under Vista? Gonna need new drivers too... how fast will they become available? Is the OS itself stable, or will I be dealing with incompatabilities and crashes? Nope, I'm probably going to let others ride the bleeding edge this time - I'm too busy and have too much work to get done, and don't have the time to get into massive testing and troubleshooting if I can avoid it.

 

Eventually though, I'll be on Vista, as will most of the rest of the PC users of the world. And the 64 bit OS will have some advantages... think of how much RAM we'll be able to run - that should be great for lots of plug-ins and softsynths...

[alphajerk]

i have been running Vista betas for a while now and it wasnt much of a hog over XP with a new machine [i run a C2D 2.4 + 2GB [800mhz] RAM on a 975BX2 mobo], but even an older 3ghz P4 ran fine under Vista [just no cool aero interface]. i was all excited about Vista with its unlimited RAM capabilities, 64bit architecture and OS restylings [like breadcrumb pathways in the windows] until i read this:

 

 

 

 

Vista crippled by content protection

Collateral damage from Vista suicide note.

Chris Mellor, Techworld

27 December 2006

PC users around the globe may find driver software is stopped from working by Vista if it detects unauthorised content access. Peter Guttman, a security engineering researcher at New Zealand's university of Auckland, has written A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection. He reckons Vista is trying to achieve the impossible by protecting access to premium content. Users will find their PCs' compromised by the persistent and continuous content access checks carried out by Vista.

 

Gutman thinks these checks and the associated increased in multimedia card hardware costs make Vista's content protection specification 'the longest suicide note in history.'

 

The core elements in Vista have been designed to protect access to premium content. The design requires changes in multimedia cards before Microsoft will support them for Vista use.

 

Content that is protected by digital rights management (DRM) must be sent across protected interfaces. This means cards using non-protected interfaces can't be used by Vista PCs.

 

Disabling and degrading

Vista is disadvantaging high-end audio and video systems by openly disabling devices. The most common high-end audio output interface is S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface Format) which doesn't have any content protection. It must be disabled in a Vista system when DRM-protected content is being played. Equally a high-end component video interface (YPbPr) also has no content protection and must be disabled when protected video is being played.

 

- Vista covertly degrades playback quality. PC voice communications rely on automatic echo cancellation (AEC) in order to provide acceptable voice quality. This requires feeding back a sample of the audio mix into the echo cancellation subsystem, which isn't permitted by Vista's content protection scheme. This lowers PC voice communication quality because echo affects will still be present.

 

- This overt and covert degrading of quality is dynamic, not consistent. Whenever any audio derived from premium content is played on a Vista PC, the disabling of output devices and downgrading of signal quality takes place. If the premium content then fades away the outputs are re-enabled and signal quality climbs back up. Such system behaviour today indicates a driver error. With Vista it will be normal behaviour.

 

- Vista has another playback quality reduction measure. It requires that 'any interface that provides high-quality output degrade the signal quality that passes through it if premium content is present. This is done through a "constrictor" that downgrades the signal to a much lower-quality one, then up-scales it again back to the original spec, but with a significant loss in quality.' If this happens with a medical imaging application then artifacts introduced by the constrictor can 'cause mis-diagnoses and in extreme cases even become life-threatening.'

 

CPU cycle guzzling

The O/S will use much more of a PC's CPU resource because 'Vista's content protection requires that devices (hardware and software drivers) set so-called "tilt bits" if they detect anything unusual ... Vista polls video devices on each video frame displayed in order to check that all of the grenade pins (tilt bits) are still as they should be.'

 

Also 'In order to prevent tampering with in-system communications, all communication flows have to be encrypted and/or authenticated. For example content sent to video devices has to be encrypted with AES-128.' Encryption/decryption is known to be CPU-intensive

 

Device drivers in Vista are required to poll their underlying hardware every 30ms - thirty times a second - to ensure that everything appears correct.

 

It is apparent that Vista is going to use very much more of a PC's resources than previous versions of Windows and degrade multi-media playback quality unless the user has purchased premium content from a Microsoft-approved resource.

 

Such over-reaching by Microsoft could prove to be the catalyst needed to spur increased takeup of Linux desktop operating software, or of Apple's Mac OS.

[blue2blue]

Originally posted by alphajerk i have been running Vista betas for a while now and it wasnt much of a hog over XP with a new machine [i run a C2D 2.4 + 2GB [800mhz] RAM on a 975BX2 mobo], but even an older 3ghz P4 ran fine under Vista [just no cool aero interface]. i was all excited about Vista with its unlimited RAM capabilities, 64bit architecture and OS restylings [like breadcrumb pathways in the windows] until i read this: Vista crippled by content protection Collateral damage from Vista suicide note. Chris Mellor, Techworld 27 December 2006 PC users around the globe may find ... Such over-reaching by Microsoft could prove to be the catalyst needed to spur increased takeup of Linux desktop operating software, or of Apple's Mac OS.

 

Yep.

 

 

 

I'm no Microsoft basher. I really do like XP a lot and MS has done some pretty cool things by me and my sector (the release of basic Visual Studio developer apps as freeware was unexpected -- and perhaps self-serving as they were preparing for the Vista roll-out -- but it was still pretty cool)...

 

But my loyalty is to open, standards-based computing -- not Microsoft.

 

 

More of my own development work has been taking place on the web -- and that's often meant using non-MS developement tools (as well as MS tools like SQL Server and ASP).

 

The good news is that some open source developer tools are in many ways BETTER than MS's products. MySQL is an able performer -- but where it REALLY shines is in documentation and responsiveness to the developer community -- two places where Microsoft is UTTERLY ABYSMAL. (NO other company I've dealt with on an ongoing basis has such INCREDIBLY BAD DOCUMENTATION as Microsoft. It is an UTTER DISGRACE.)

 

 

I may well be among those who goes out to buy one last copy of XP...

 

And -- honest to gosh -- I'm going to start lobbying now for my DAW, Sonar, to be ported to Linux.

 

 

[Phil O'Keefe]

Great post AJ - thanks for the heads-up.

 

I may well be among those who goes out to buy one last copy of XP...

 

Well, here's the thing - they've already got a time bomb strapped to our XP systems - it's called "authorization". Once they drop XP for Vista, and once XP OS support dies, how the heck are we going to keep XP running on our systems? What will we do if we have a HDD failure, or build a upgraded system and install a new C drive once MS will no longer support XP? How are we going to get an authorization?

 

That won't happen immediately, but it is only a matter of time - MS isn't going to support XP forever...

 

[scarecrowbob]

Originally posted by Phil O'Keefe Great post AJ - thanks for the heads-up. I may well be among those who goes out to buy one last copy of XP... Well, here's the thing - they've already got a time bomb strapped to our XP systems - it's called "authorization". Once they drop XP for Vista, and once XP OS support dies, how the heck are we going to keep XP running on our systems? What will we do if we have a HDD failure, or build a upgraded system and install a new C drive once MS will no longer support XP? How are we going to get an authorization? That won't happen immediately, but it is only a matter of time - MS isn't going to support XP forever...

 

The librarian of the US LoC has authorized breaking digital protection measures in order to maintain non-infringing uses of non-comercially supported software.

 

That is, the US gov has listed it in a provisional descision that it is legal to break software piracy protection measures in order to manitain non-infringing uses of software.

 

http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2006/71fr68472.html

 

This notice announces that during the next three years, the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that effectively control access to copyrighted works shall not apply to persons who engage in noninfringing uses of six classes of copyrighted works. [...] b) Classes of copyrighted works. Pursuant to the authority set forth in 17 U.S.C. 1201(a)(1)(C) and (D), and upon the recommendation of the Register of Copyrights, the Librarian has determined that during the period from [ date of publication in Federal Register] through October 27, 2009, the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that effectively control access to copyrighted works set forth in 17 U.S.C. 1201(a)(1)(A) shall not apply to persons who engage in noninfringing uses of the following six classes of copyrighted works [...] (3) Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete. A dongle shall be considered obsolete if it is no longer manufactured or if a replacement or repair is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.

 

So it is possible that if MS refuses to allow people to continue using their XP operating system, then breaking the copy protection could become exempt from prosecutio, even though the authorization system is not, strictly speaking, a dongle.

[blue2blue]

That's somewhat heartening.

 

 

With re that last one copy of XP... yeah... I was just thinking they'll pull it from the shelves long before they stop giving new authorizations.

 

And -- long as you don't have to change CPUs after they stop giving authorizations... there's always the option of keeping a "core" backup on hand for mini-disasters.

 

But yeah... this is REALLY pushing me a LOT closer to the open source/*nix way of thinking.

 

 

It was one thing when we just had to keep a wary eye on MS... NOW they're all but threatening our computing way of life (and I DON'T mean just their draconian copy protection but it it's clear that it will impact far more than pirates).

[alphajerk]

historically MS has been really good about keeping old OS's going despite new releases. that is the nice thing about MS over apple... the software is seperate to the hardware instead of tied to each other. i cant tell you how many times apple has made their own machines obsolete with their new OS releases.

 

i still have old OS discs which will actually boot machines well past their operating time, once one recovered me nicely and allowed me to recover the faulty OS drive, i was so suprized to see 3.1 booting up my jaw had hit the floor.

 

what bothers me most is that built in DRM having to be included into soundcards for driver certification. now from what i understand, this applies to the 64bit and not the 32bit version, however the 32bit version is still RAM limited.

 

i think if pro software plays this right, XP64pro could really step into something useful instead of being the 64bit playtoy on teh way to Vista.

 

i would say lobby MS to not mandate the DRM, but i dont think they would listen... and i dont think its fully them implementing it, im sure there is pressure from RIAA and Hollywood, massive pressure.

 

what i find most odd is with MS-MCE, i cant understand why they would WANT to degrade quality... i surely dont want to buy a MCE for my HT when its all crappy looking and sounding. so they render a product of theirs useless, which is very unfortunate because i really like that product and was getting ready to build a machine for myself running VISTA/MCE for my HT.

[alphajerk]

re: authorization of XP, um there are plenty of options on that front including massively streamlined versions circulating the net. now once vista is out, i cant see it really being "piracy" of the OS anymore since it would be a legacy product and not longer being sold.

 

i guess on that same tip, i would imagine a non-DRM hacked version will most likely appear. i see this as a pretty bold challenge that hackers will most willingly take on.

[blue2blue]

I've paid for three copies of XP (or, more properly, two XPs and a Media Center)... I suspect I may find some ethical "flexibility" within myself should I need to prolong the working life of one of my XP machines.

 

One time I had a pal make mp3s from his CD copy of an album I own on vinyl.* I'm really an outlaw at heart.

 

 

*(My turntable's in storage buried deep in my garage as are my 1200 vinyl LPs -- my beachside flat is just too small; the album wasn't available on my subscription service, either.)

[toddlans]

Originally posted by blue2blue *(My turntable's in storage buried deep in my garage as are my 1200 vinyl LPs -- my beachside flat is just too small; the album wasn't available on my subscription service, either.)

 

If you're looking to sell any of that vinyl, let me know.

[alphajerk]

but were you running 3 different machines? if so, thats assumed... but if you buy one retail copy, you have the right to run it on one machine despite upgrades.

 

what i loathe about pre-built machines are non-os recovery disks they provide.... oh they piss me off, especially ones from HP/compaq.... talk about SLOW!!!! recovery. i can build 10 machines in the same time it took me to recover a clients HP machine from a HDD failure recently [8 hours!].

 

 

i just meant once they drop it as a normal product. although they are GIVING AWAY XP64pro right now for 4 months use.

 

you can also always buy their software assurance as well now for continued upgrades.

 

and maybe not for the general public, but developers can take advantage of MS's programs for VERY cheap software solutions.

 

 

 

 

doesnt really answer the topic however... i was just really stoked with Vista until i found all this stuff out about it which counters anything i loved about Vista [and yeah, i did like the Aero look]

[blue2blue]

Originally posted by toddlans If you're looking to sell any of that vinyl, let me know.

 

I should probably thin it out but at least half of them have some kind of sentimental attachment. Or obsessive... when I was just outta college I had about 300 LPs stolen and it really put my head in a bad place -- they were the 300 "most recent" listens... later when I had a few bucks and I'd see a copy of a favorite album in a used bin I'd buy it again -- even if I already had a copy or two. It was starting to get a little uncomfortable...

 

When you've bought THREE copies of the Seeds' Spoonful of Seedy Blues just to replace the copy you bought for 50 cents at a swapmeet in high school you know you're acting out some inner, unhealed trauma.

 

But that -- thinning out the LP collection, I think I've healed -- that won't be for a while... they're DEEP in the garage. They were the first thing I moved (old habit... along with the stereo... even though the tables are in the garage. Sigh. Then again, being a two minute walk to the sand is part of that tradeoff. And I do have access to most [but certainly NOT all] of the music in my vinyl collection via my subscription service.)

[blue2blue]

BTW, I was over at GS earlier and George Necola who runs the music computers forum there was saying that -- with Aero, the new graphics engine, and a couple other things turned off -- Vista runs about as fast as XP.

 

http://gearslutz.com/board/showthread.php?t=102464

 

 

He also says they've turned DRM off on their machine(s) but I have to admit I'm not at all up to speed on all the DRM issues... I only became aware of the intentional signal degradation (and superficially at that) in the last 10 days or so.

[TimOBrien]

Originally posted by Phil O'Keefe Great post AJ - thanks for the heads-up. I may well be among those who goes out to buy one last copy of XP... Well, here's the thing - they've already got a time bomb strapped to our XP systems - it's called "authorization". Once they drop XP for Vista, and once XP OS support dies, how the heck are we going to keep XP running on our systems? What will we do if we have a HDD failure, or build a upgraded system and install a new C drive once MS will no longer support XP? How are we going to get an authorization? That won't happen immediately, but it is only a matter of time - MS isn't going to support XP forever...

 

 

 

That's been my thought from the first day, Phil.....

 

The reason M$ put authorization in was to be able to control the average user (they knew that true hackers would be able is some way or form to bypass it) and FORCE an upgrade and a profit date.

 

You do not buy Windows..... like beer, you only rent it.

[alphajerk]

Originally posted by blue2blue BTW, I was over at GS earlier and George Necola who runs the music computers forum there was saying that -- with Aero, the new graphics engine, and a couple other things turned off -- Vista runs about as fast as XP. http://gearslutz.com/board/showthread.php?t=102464 He also says they've turned DRM off on their machine(s) but I have to admit I'm not at all up to speed on all the DRM issues... I only became aware of the intentional signal degradation (and superficially at that) in the last 10 days or so.

 

 

i just heard that bill gates has said it creates problems for them regarding DRM... so all might be good.

[IsildursBane]

Originally posted by blue2blue but where it REALLY shines is in documentation and responsiveness to the developer community -- two places where Microsoft is UTTERLY ABYSMAL. (NO other company I've dealt with on an ongoing basis has such INCREDIBLY BAD DOCUMENTATION as Microsoft. It is an UTTER DISGRACE.)

 

Really? I always thought the MSDN library stuff was pretty good, albeit a bit tough to navigate at times.

 

-Dan.

[mobobog]

going a little bit out of topic... does anyone know what vista edition will be the one to get for audio work?

[blue2blue]

Originally posted by IsildursBane Really? I always thought the MSDN library stuff was pretty good, albeit a bit tough to navigate at times. -Dan.

 

OK... I'll go that -- at least for the purpose of argument (but, ACTUALLY, I've found a LOT of wrong info in MS's developer docs). I've actually -- on rare occasions got just the info I needed -- but almost NEVER using MS's benighted search engine.

 

My point: the best answers in the world are little good if few can find them.

 

 

I don't know if you're familiar with the MySQL online documentation but I think it's pretty great. I approached my first MySQL project a few years ago with considerable trepidation... having been developing mostly with MS tools for a number of years.

 

I thought it was night and day... it was almost a pleasure using the MySQL documentation because everything is laid out, easy to get to, coherently organized, version by version... not the horrorific jumble of outdated info on MS's dev sites.

 

I mean -- really -- I think MS's documentation, as a whole, is utterly pathetic.

[alphajerk]

i find their OS doc/seraches pretty decent, although sometimes roundabout... sometimes not useful at all, others bootsaving.

[Anekdoten]

Originally posted by mobobog going a little bit out of topic... does anyone know what vista edition will be the one to get for audio work?

 

I'd say the Home version, perhaps Home premium. I think those are the versions with the lowest amount of additinal M$ bull{censored} and enough flexibility to tweak it a tad or two.

 

Regarding the DRM, it might just be a service easily shut down/bypassed. I hope so for Microsoft, at least.

 

And XP support? I think they owe us a free copy of XP with complete update history and service pack addons once they stop supporting it. That's the least they can do for us who bought it.

[alphajerk]

nope, you want the business verison. it doesnt have the RAM cap that HOME has and definately not home premium which includes MCE [fully not needed]. the business is akin to XPpro.

 

fwiw, microsoft [at least im betas] kept the OS stripped of extras aside from IExplorer [which is built into the core anyway], but things like messenger and meeting are download/install after coreOS install kind of things.

 

i have been running Ultimate betas.

 

the Aero interface really depends more on the GPU rather than the CPU now that they unloaded it onto the GPU, which they claim some 89% of crashes occured from the GUI being on the CPU load. this is supposed to severely lower that threat. i really didnt notice much of a problem with AERO over the old GUI, or even quasiAERO [w/o the cool transparency]... but MOTU quit supporting my PCI card so i dont have drivers for it to use with Vista [probably never will but am upgrading to their PCIe card anyway here in a bit]. but definately something im going to test out using vs not using and any hits on performance... and see if MS lives up to what they say in regards to pulling it off the CPU load.

 

 

however, with modern computers... at least the ones we are building now, the audio workstation optimization is becoming far less important than on earlier machines. im running a full multimedia machine and encountering very little problems in stability or lack of power with it, and im running internet, design apps, video apps, and audio apps... most times in conjunction with each other [oh and some games as well ].

 

the biggest development in all of this is the jump from the 4GB RAM limit [which is really only 3.75GBish]... of course we will have to have mobos that can handle it as well as larger RAM chipsets. the mobos we use can handle 8GB, but only access 4GB under XP. 2GB RAM chips are expensive right now and usually 1GB DDR2 pairs are the norm. what eats heaviest into this is obviously VSTi's... plugins are pretty effecient in comparison.

 

i can basically run 96 Waves SSL plugs + WavesIR, like a PSP82 delay, some dual mono verbs, some wideners, and then like PSP MAsterQ>SSL comp>Izotope Ozone3 on the mix buss as well. so there is a WavesSSL "board" for ya in your DAW.

[patchcon]

What a bunch of whiners!

 

Just buy the Home Basic version (AFAIK, same kernel as the others but minus the stuff you DON'T NEED IN A DAW anyway).

 

I'm just thinking of the Home Basic version as a "no frills" DAW version.

 

From everything I've read, DRM will not effect content creation applications such as sequencers, only higher level media players and such.

 

All 32 bit versions top out at 4GB of RAM and all support multiple cores according to the tables below.

 

http://winsupersite.com/reviews/winvista_02.asp