upgrade to Windows 7 or stick with XP ?

[leighbeynon]

ok ive just bought halion sonic and was wondering if ableton and the rest of my set up would benefit from the windows 7 upgrade, or would it just cause me more trouble than its worth ?

also ive not changed my sound card for 5 years + does it really make much difference to sound quality or is it just a basic interface for your midi keyboard and amp ??

currently using dual core pc , 2gig ddr 2 ram, pc is offline for music only,
soundcard m-audio audiophile

help and advice would be really appreciated !
many thanks leigh

[102455]

I'd say stick with XP. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Down the line we won't have much choice in the matter but, until you really need to, stick it out.

[McQ714]

normally i'd say upgrade as it is all-around a better OS, but in your case, the computer may struggle slightly with windows 7.

[leighbeynon]

yeah good its as much as i expected, i get the occasional crash but i can just imagine more issue with a new operating system and its a head ache i just can do without really

many thanks leigh

[leighbeynon]

normally i'd say upgrade as it is all-around a better OS, but in your case, the computer may struggle slightly with windows 7.

why would my pc struggle with 7 ? i did want to put alot more ram in my pc but since xp max is 2 gig i cant really do anything else as it wont recognise the ram,

if i did move to 7 i would put more ram in, is this why you think i would struggle?

[fx23]

you can but not sure benefit that much, exept ram (could run XP64 too)

Personally I would keep actual setup if worhing good, for again a few time, then upgrade all computer/W7

[fl0w]

xp64 is a joke when it comes to drivers...

[fx23]

yeah, totally right,but if find them for lighweight perf/system ratio it's very good one.

i would stick on XP32 on dual core, then buy a later I7 W7 64 rather installing XP64 by the way..

[leighbeynon]

yeah i know i could go to xp 64 and extend the ram, but i already have windows 7,

just waiting until its more stable for music and worth the upgrade, i just know ill probably have issues and all my plugs wont work etc,

what about my soundcard does this really make any difference in sound quality?

[mothergarage]

winxp can handle more than 2gb, I have 4gb. xp shows that it can use 3.5 of it. So I would upgrade RAM first.

[leighbeynon]

sorry my mistake yep i do have the max ram and mine doesnt show all the ram thats actually in there, i didnt realise at first and though i had faulty ram until i checked it out

[fx23]

it makes no differenece in sound quality at all, but can have potential drivers or softs issues still remaining.
i found myself lot of old plugins that were coded via synthedit doesn't work anymore on 64, but maybe there is
something do do about this, also i had few midiyoke issues at start and went to loopbe, but as well that might be
fixed now, but definitely some slight issues in your setup will emmerge that's why i would wait a bit more.

edit: are ya running in /3GB mode?

[Piplodocus]

If it works I wouldn't bugger with it. You could have issues if you use lots of plugins.

I certainly wouldn't get XP 64 bit. I think with Win7 you may as well get 64bit though as there's a lot more drivers for it than XP64.

I was surprised how lots of old networked single core PCs at work seemed snappier with Win7!!! Doubt that holds true for a DAW though...