Migrate to Windows 7 or stay with XP?

pinksoir

So yesterday my OS hard drive failed (which is a bit of a PITA but not too bad) and I've bought a SSD to replace it.

Which got me thinking, my computer is pretty powerful (Core2Extreme), but using XP 32bit I can only utilize 3 point something gigs of ram. So seeings as I'm reformatting anyway, I'm considering moving up to Windows 7. I assume W7 32 bit still only utilizes ~4GB of ram too, so I guess the option is to move up to 64 bit.

Now, up until recently I'd been using Nuendo 3 and I was getting a bit of artifacting and stuttering when I had a load of VSTs and VSTis running. But I've since upgraded my processor from a low enough spec Dual Core to a powerful enough (2.93GHz) Quad Core. I've also moved on to Reaper (which is just amazing... how is it so cheap? Seriously. I really, really love it!) and there's a lot of head room now wrt CPU load. I'm still obviously stuck with ~4GB of ram though. It's running (or was until the HDD packed in) super smoothly with lots of tracks (~40-50), URS Strip Pro on most audio tracks and lots of other inserts and sends even with wifi and antivirus turned on, which is a first for me.

That said, the plugs I use are mainly URS Classic Console Strip Pro, PSP EasyVerb, Superior Drummer, and IR hosts, along with a bunch of other free VSTs. So my Ram load isn't too much, Superior aside. I don't use sample libraries like Kontakt or so on and don't see myself doing so any time in the future.

So with that in mind, is it worth my time upgrading to Win 7? Has anyone else done so and how do you find it? Would I have to replace my plugs with 64 bit versions or would I run them at 32 bit with wrappers or bridges or something? I've read that this can be problematic, and sometimes a real PITA. I know that the plugs I use the most are 32 bit only so it would mean bridges/wrappers pretty much across the board.

As it is I'm more than happy running XP, but at some point I will have to upgrade, I suppose. I'm thinking now could be a good time as I have to reformat anyways...

Dual boot is an option, I guess, but seeings as my SSD is an SSD and hence is only 128GB, space is a premium. Win 7 takes up a lot of room whereas XP is very small in comparison. Obviously I have other drives for my files etc, so the SSD will be for OS and programs. I can't remember how much space was used on my failed drive out of its 320GB, but I'm pretty sure it was around the 120GB or so mark, though I had some files on it too (which I can hopefully retrieve!).

But yeah, any thoughts are very much appreciated.

krd

pinksoir wrote: »

I've also moved on to Reaper (which is just amazing...


how is it so cheap? Seriously.)

Because it's so horrible. ....What were you using before?


I can't understand why anyone likes reaper.

mada999

Dude def go to Win7 64 bit and upgrade the ram if your system allows it. I was running Win7 (32 bit) with reaper (32 bit) and I had podfarm vst going and alot of other VST's going and my system was really sluggish..upgraded to Win7 64x and 4GB of RAM (total of 6GB) and it runs sweet..

32 bit vst's should be fine

mada999

krd wrote: »

Because it's so horrible. ....What were you using before?


I can't understand why anyone likes reaper.

Really love Reaper because it was freeish (have a license now) and really easy to use but I'm not a pro and I've never used Pro Tools so I'm prob dont know what I'm missing..but for me Reaper does the job fine

old gregg

I guess my needs are different than yours in that I'm working with Ableton on a lappy and it operates either as a system for composition or during the summer as one for gigging. Most of my VST's are 32 bit old favourites.

I've been using Win 7 64 bit for the last 12 months and having spent the usual first day stripping every program, service, option I'd never use the main thing is that it's been rock solid. Even more so than XP was for me and a million times better than Vista. As I'm still for the moment using 32 bit Ableton with 32 bit VST's I'm not seeing a performance improvement there but it's the overall stability and faster processing that has me glad I made the move.

Even booting up at a gig and knowing that within 30 seconds I'm good to go and my controllers and AI are 100% happy every time is enough for me.

pinksoir

@krd

I find Reaper to be great, why do you think it's horrible? It compliments my workflow perfectly and it's like they took all the good bits from other DAWs and made a simple and intuitive, and above all cheap, DAW of their own. Plus it's open source which is always cool. They also have some really, really great themes for it like White Tie Imperial. I love the routing options in it too, they're endless.

I was using Nuendo 3 up until the switch, but I've used Reason, Med Soundstudio, Cubase, Protools and Logic before. As far as ease of use goes, Reaper stands out above the rest. It's also super lightweight and uses crud all processing power. I'm constantly being surprised by the little things they've done, just really simple stuff that makes me say 'wow, that's clever'. It performs faaar above its 60 dollar price tag.

@mada999 and old_greg

Cheers for your thoughts. The thing is, XP has been running really smoothly for me up until now, especially since my CPU upgrade and moving to Reaper. I've had the odd crash though when loading a plugin... I've got 7 on my laptops and they crash programs themselves (photoshop/gimpshop/general program crashes) often enough so I'm sceptical about 7 being crash free for music production. XP doesn't crash that often, and I save my work very regularly so I've only had a few occasions where it's bitten me in the ass.

The main reason I'd switch to 7 would be to utilise more ram. My motherboard can handle up to 8GB so that'd be nice. That said, I've found my current 4GB to be enough so far but, you know, future proofing and all. If I end up just using 32 bit Reaper with 32 bit plugs, I'm not sure it'd be worth the money to upgrade. My ram is DDR2, which is very expensive now, and I'd have to buy 7 too. I wouldn't mind doing that if it was a great improvement though...

Hmm. Decisions... Anyone else have experiences, positive or negative?

omen80

If you're using Reaper then you could install Ubuntu since it's cross-platform. Ubuntu runs better on 1GB of RAM than Win7 does with 4GB of RAM.
If your VST's are 32 bit then install Reaper 32 bit version, it doesn't matter if your OS is 32 bit or 64bit.

ciaranmac

Windows 7 has much improved support specifically for SSDs, compared with XP and Vista.

pinksoir

Cheers. I guess the SSD support is something to consider, but it might not be a game changer.

Ubuntu I'd be open to alright, I didn't really consider it. The main thing is getting my VSTs installed. I'd hate to find that any of my most used VSTs were incompatible. Also, I've never used Linux before so it would be completely new to me, I'd have to spend a good bit of time learning it. Though I like new things and if the reward was worth it I'd invest the time.

pinksoir

Ok, after some further reading it looks like SSDs with XP are a field of landmines. There seems to be a ton of tweaks that need to be done, as well as using ram as a disk for paging files, cache etc, which severely depletes the amount of ram available for other system resources. So it looks like I'm going to have to make the move to 7.

Turns out it is a game changer! XP with an SSD could be a lot more bother than it's worth... Windows 8 is out in October though.

jiltloop

Just some input as regards running 32bit VSTs inside 64bit OS and DAW, I've had no problems there at all. I recently got a new 64bit laptop and transfered all the 32bit programs and VSTs I was using previously and upgraded to Reaper 64bit, there were no problems or issues whatsoever.

pinksoir

Cool. That's good to hear. What plugins are you using? My main concern is Superior Drummer, URS Console Strip Pro and PSP EasyVerb. Other than them I use the Kjaerhaus Audio Classic series of free plugs a lot, as well as a bunch of other free plugs.

jiltloop

I use Reaper as my DAW and use Absynth, Reaktor, Poseidon and a multitude of other various free plugins including some of the Kjaerhaus ones too IIRC.

pinksoir

Cool. I guess I'll give 7 and Reaper x64 a go. If it doesn't work out, then it's no big deal, I can just install 32 bit Reaper. Even with 32 bit Reaper you can run plugins as separate processes, so I could still utilize the extra RAM if/when I put more in.

Speaking of which, how much RAM are you using in your setup?

jiltloop

I have 6 gigs of RAM in my laptop, although I wouldn't run anything too taxing it's more than enough for what I do. I was having problems initially with glitchy audio but turned out to be my audio drivers. Downloaded ASIO4ALL and have had no problems whatsoever since.

pinksoir

Ah right, cool. My mobo is for DDR2 RAM which is dear now, so I might only upgrade by 2GB to 6GB myself.

jiltloop

TBH I'd say 6 gigs should be plenty unless your running an awful lot of VSTs at the same time. I've found Windows 7 and Reaper 64bit to be pretty solid. On my old pc I was running XP and Reaper 32bit and I had alot of crashes. It was the main reason I decided to go all out and get a new laptop. It's good to finally have a solid set up! I don't have to save every 15mins now.

i57dwun4yb1pt8

reaper 64 on win 7 with quad core and 16 gig ram
SSD OS drive .

fantastic setup.

note -
make sure you
1/ turn off core parking
2/ ensure all software is compatible
3/ midi can be a tad flaky - win7 is not as midi friendly as XP .

i use midi drum kits and keys and they work great - the odd glitch .

i also use NEBULA - which is a little crashy on reaper 64 and big sessions.


and reaper is as good as any daw out there ( maybe logics default synths are worth having )

but it works with nearly anything .

Welease

Might be worth mentioning to you that if you are a student or parent/guardian of a child in primary, secondary or college education than the www.software4students.ie site is worth a look.. Just picked up a copy of Win7 64Bit Professional Upgrade for €54 incl. shipping. About half the price of anywhere else I could find.

(It's a legit software reseller program endorsed by Microsoft)

pinksoir

@DaDumTish That's good to know. The max ram my motherboard can take is 8Gb so it won't be as nice as your setup. I'm also on an older chipset and DDR2 ram, which is crazy expensive (and not as fast) compared to DDR3, which you probably have. I'm not using any really resource heavy programmes besides Superior so I reckon I'll be grand though.

I'm kinda looking forward to moving to 7 now. I'm loving Reaper too. I can't believe how good it actually is. The more I learn the deeper I find it is, but it's also very easy to pick up and use so it's been a really simple transition from Nuendo. I especially like that you can run a plugin as an external process and embed it in Reaper, so even if x64 isn't working so well I can go back to 32 bit and still use the extra ram. It'd be cool to have Superior, and maybe convolution reverbs running outside and keep the normal ram for eqs, compressors an other effects. Are you using mostly 32 bit or 64 bit vsts?

I must say too, the Reaper community is great!

@Welease Cheers for the link. I forgot about that site, I don't qualify though. Damn my childless late-twenties! I think I'll be able to pick up a copy from a friend though. I like what I'm hearing about Windows 8 at the moment too regarding DAWs, so come October I reckon I'll upgrade. Upgrade is only €15 if you bought 7 in the last few months, or $40 for a regular upgrade. Which is nice.

i57dwun4yb1pt8

mainly 64 bit vsts a few 32 bit ones .

my ram is ddr 2 - i found a special company that found the correct ddr2 in 4 gig sticks for the mother board - as i didnt want to dump the board and cpu to go 64 bit .

8 gig is loads though ,

superiour drummer loves this setup , as does nebula .

problem with a lot of i7 boards is the PCI bus isnt native , and i have pci cards i need to be working .

but i may go i7 at some stage in the next few years .


the only limitation i have is latency in my interface - i use a tc konnekt 48 , which is a great sounding device , but has a higher latency than say RME - its a problem with the interface not the pc.

( i can get down to 128 latency on multi mic tracking or 92 on single mic - but RME'S can go down lower )

jsut be careful if you optimise win 7 for audio - as turning off some processes can mess things up alot ( audio can stop working if some audio unrelated stuff is turned off - no idea why ) .

do some research before turning off processes you think may not be needed .


i did find reaper and win 7 didnt like working with the ALPHATRACK fader too well, so if you have one
you may want to rethink it.


i think toontrack are going to revamp SD in the future - i asked them if they could convolve the rooms so you could use the room responses on your own mics ( i use real mics for hi hat and cymbals ) - instead of having to try to recreate the rooms they have for the close mics .

hopefully they can do it in some way .