Windows 8 experiences...?

[golemus]

Now that Win8 is finally officially out, share your experiences. How does 1. 32-bit Live8, 2. 64-bit live8 work...?

Here are some rumors that I have heard.

- some version of Live (64bit...?) is much faster on windows 8 than on windows 7. Which aspects of the program get faster..?

- Sylenth1 does not work with Windows 8. Does this apply to Ableton live and does it apply to: 1. live32-bit, Syl32bit, 2. Live64bit, Syl32bit w. JBridge, 3. Live64bit, Syl64bit.

- USB3 problems are in history with Win8. Can you confirm this? Does your audio interface work now as expected..?

[3dot...]

USB3 problems were only on Macs afaik...
Live runs smoothly on windows8... (only used the pre-release version)
all VST plugins I've tried (NI/Waves/VarietyOfSound/Aether) work as expected

Cakewalk geeks benchmark:
http://blog.cakewalk.com/windows-8-a-be ... lications/

Summary and Analysis
The results of the benchmarks were surprisingly good! Windows 8 performed better than Windows 7 across the board in all categories, and in many cases with fairly dramatic performance gains.

Disclaimer: Though this benchmark was performed in a relatively controlled environment, it represents a single hardware configuration. As such the results here cannot be assumed to be generally valid until such tests are validated across a larger variety of systems. Also the tests were performed by running the application with sample sets lasting a few minutes. To be more conclusive the tests would need to be repeated multiple times to reduce jitter error.

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.

Conclusion
All the tests above were done running the current shipping version of SONAR X1 with no special Win8 tweaks. The tests ran very smoothly with no problems noted under Win8 using SONAR X1. In fact you could push the system harder under Win8 without getting glitches in audio as compared to Win7. The tests show that despite the controversial changes to Windows, there are some significant benefits even for standard Windows desktop apps running Windows 8. This is great news for existing Windows 7 users who are considering an upgrade to Windows 8.

Regarding Metro however, the jury is out on whether it will be a suitable platform for high performance music production applications. Until Microsoft addresses some of the concerns in Metro, WinRT is unlikely to be very robust as a platform for building such applications.
Since this article was written there have been updates to the information about metro. It appears that the low latency concerns have been somewhat allayed since WASAPI exclusive mode is indeed supported.

[ian_halsall]

My son keeps asking me to upgrade to win8.

And I say "why should I?".

And that's what I would ask you to consider.

If you have win7 or win xp working fine then why bother?

Unless you've got a very good reason to upgrade then stick with the system that is working otherwise you may spend quite a lot of time messing around with computers instead of making music.

Which maybe what you want to do anyway..

[3dot...]

have you read the above ?
there are considerable performance improvements... directly related to audio...

[sebrov]

Sylenth1 does not work with Windows 8

Thats strange because win8 is just a more efficient version of win7 but with a touch friendly start menu/screen that runs RT apps. Whatever worked in win7 should work in win8.

I've been running it since the consumer preview and i've had no issues. Live 32bit crashed i think twice in the 9 months i've been using win8. I changed from XP and i noticed considerable performance improvements, still my system is limited from being 6 years old.

I'll be upgrading my laptop as soon as the laptop i'm waiting for (Asus UX51VZ) is released in the UK with or without touchscreen. Hopefully some RT apps will be developed for controlling Live via a surface or other win8 RT tablet.

[Evengy]

i worked with windows 8 rc, cp, enterprise and now with win 8 pro since release date. no problems here
but there are problems with usb 3 and audio interfaces. i read an article where they said that it is a driver fault because they don´t support asynchronous audio streaming or something like that. i tried a pcie usb 3 card and the interface worked but the sound was totally distorted.

i like a lot of things about microsoft (and win . it´s very stable, fast and i got an audio performance boost.

[J0n35y]

Windows 8 user here who was subsequently sucked in by Live 8 Suite and the free upgrade to 9 at the weekend...

Anyway, has been working fine overall on my 3 year old quad core laptop. The only problems I encountered may or may not be Windows 8 related but for some reason, one file on each of Suites DVDs refused to copy to the HDD. It would just jam up at 33% (I was copying to HDD first to speed things up) or would crash Ableton if trying to copy directly from disc.

The discs worked fine on my ancient and pathetic Vista laptop though so was able to eventually get the files transferred over.

Possibly an optical drive issue but have had no other problems with discs to date hence the Windows 8 suspicions though happily acknowledge it doesnt make much sense!

[ian_halsall]

have you read the above ?
there are considerable performance improvements... directly related to audio...

Why do you think I didn't read it?

What I am saying is that unless you are having problems with your current o/s or you can see some benefit then don't bother upgrading.

I don't have any problems with win7 at home and in testing in my office and in talks with my infrastructure guys we have talked about it being another Vista.

[3dot...]

Windows 8 user here who was subsequently sucked in by Live 8 Suite and the free upgrade to 9 at the weekend...

Anyway, has been working fine overall on my 3 year old quad core laptop. The only problems I encountered may or may not be Windows 8 related but for some reason, one file on each of Suites DVDs refused to copy to the HDD. It would just jam up at 33% (I was copying to HDD first to speed things up) or would crash Ableton if trying to copy directly from disc.

The discs worked fine on my ancient and pathetic Vista laptop though so was able to eventually get the files transferred over.

Possibly an optical drive issue but have had no other problems with discs to date hence the Windows 8 suspicions though happily acknowledge it doesnt make much sense!

there was a known issue + a fix issued by ableton back then...
(it was with the EIC2 woodwinds or brass if I'm not mistaken...)
https://www.ableton.com/en/packs/essent ... lection-2/
anyways... it's best to download and install the latest version rather than the one on DVD
get the updated version of all your packs:
https://www.ableton.com/en/your-packs/

[3dot...]

or you can see some benefit ....

read the above performance improvements...

simple logic...
if you could make your hardware perform better...
by simply upgrading the OS and how it performs/manages resources...
then it's a no-brainer really...
if you're afraid to delve into uncharted/unsupported territories...
then don't upgrade to Win8 until Ableton officially supports it..
(although it has already been tested by var. people already and works fine)
and even then.. you could always revert back to a previous version of windows...
there are such things as backup..
other than that I see no reason to not upgrade win7->8... it simply runs better.
(this goes double for old systems which could run windows more smoothly now)

I really don't understand where all this fear and negativity is coming from..
Windows8 Developer Preview was running smooth 8 months ago...

[J0n35y]

there was a known issue + a fix issued by ableton back then...
(it was with the EIC2 woodwinds or brass if I'm not mistaken...)
https://www.ableton.com/en/packs/essent ... lection-2/
anyways... it's best to download and install the latest version rather than the one on DVD
get the updated version of all your packs:
https://www.ableton.com/en/your-packs/

Ah ha! Thanks for that. Good memory too, it was the woodwind on the EIC2 disc and a couple on the Drum discs (Oldschoolle and I cant remember the other one just now).

I did try finding a download from my account but I couldnt see an option that would allow me to download - only an authorise option. Am I missing something obvious? (probably am!)

[3dot...]

are you logged in ??

edit :
you seem to be right... not everything is available for download from "your packs"
I suppose these are the things included in the Live Suite+Content download

[J0n35y]

Figured as much. Not all that fussy for the time being. I have more than enough to keep me occupied for the x months it will take for 9 to emerge. Glad to hear it was a known issue that and a: wasnt my computer, and b: wasnt me being stupid about something or other though! Cheers.

[simonlb]

I'm excited if it has audio improvements, been having a very hard time getting Serato working smoothly without pops/glitches on my Win7 laptop.

[pencilrocket]

Windows 8 uses 14% less amount of ram resouces than 7 uses. It looks very lightweight OS.