Just switched to Windows 10 from OSX - astonishingly bad...

[dr_yolo]

I've been going strong with my 2010 Macbook pro for quite some time, but recently decided I was due an upgrade. Got myself a PC that has significantly better spec than the Macbook, and I have to say there seem to be some serious issues with Windows 10 compatibility.

The program frequently goes unresponsive while attempting to do basic things such as adding or deleting a channel, but then says it is using 0% CPU in task manager.

I'm currently trying to work with a couple of very long audio files (each has a size of roughly 1GB) and just trying to load them in makes Ableton totally freeze for around 10 seconds between clicks. My macbook handles this with absolutely no issues at all.

Has anyone else had similar issues with Windows, or has any suggestions to how I might be able to solve this? I guess I'll try re installing if there are no better ideas. Pretty bleak if this is an accurate representation of Windows' users Ableton experience though.

[cotdagoo]

Assuming the pc you bought was a laptop.. assuming it's underclocking your cpu speeds to save energy..

just a guess, but that's generally the case when people post about new computers being slow around here..

[miyaru]

https://support.focusrite.com/hc/en-gb/ ... Windows-10
https://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/ar ... indows-10/

And so on.... google on "optimizing Windows 10 for audio".

[miyaru]

Windows 10 ain't to bad; just made the step from Windows 7, and I think the performance is better.

What are the specs of your new PC anyway? If you are running an i3 it will be horrible, but if you are running an i5 or i7 it should be ok. You should have at least 8 GB of RAM and an SSD for your system.

Buying a cheap laptop is not the way to go, I am afraid......

[Tagor]

Windows 10 ain't to bad; just made the step from Windows 7, and I think the performance is better.

thats it here too!

[Stromkraft]

a PC that has significantly better spec

Says who?

Anyway, in order to use Windows 10 (Pro?) for audio you need to make sure you set your processor for real time audio work and turn off all that fluff you don't need. Also, make sure you control automatic updates as much as you can.

I will never use Windows 10 myself. Life's too short.

[miyaru]

a PC that has significantly better spec

Says who?

Anyway, in order to use Windows 10 (Pro?) for audio you need to make sure you set your processor for real time audio work and turn off all that fluff you don't need. Also, make sure you control automatic updates as much as you can.

I will never use Windows 10 myself. Life's too short.

Always funny, the ever ongoing debate of what is better.... .

Stromkraft believe me: a good tuned PC can be really powerfull, though out of the box it is a nightmare. But raw processor power is there anyway if one uses i5 or i7 systems. I have a i7-7700 based PC, and it is really powerfull! I have no problems running PC's for music, I have done so since windows 98 2nd edition. I have had one mac for music, it was nice, but I returned to PC again. For all of the benefits a Mac has, there is a pricetag for it. And I am not willing to pay for that.

That does not mean, I can't see the qualities of a Mac and the need of tuning of a PC. I have given the OP some links to look at, and hopefully it will help him/her to tune the PC!

[Stromkraft]

a PC that has significantly better spec

Says who?

Anyway, in order to use Windows 10 (Pro?) for audio you need to make sure you set your processor for real time audio work and turn off all that fluff you don't need. Also, make sure you control automatic updates as much as you can.

I will never use Windows 10 myself. Life's too short.

Always funny, the ever ongoing debate of what is better.... 8O .

No, no, no. That's not what I meant at all. My own preferences aside, I couldn't care less what people use. But there are indeed a lot of PCs being sold that may look good on paper, but in reality are not as powerful as one may assume. Especially for audio and certainly laptops.

CPU power saving issues are the most common also on actually well-designed machines, as I think have been pointed out already. After that I think comes proper updated drivers.

In addition, Windows 10 may need some shape up of preferences and set up in order to have the machine work well for audio work.

[jestermgee]

Windows 10 user

Windows user since 3.1

It runs fine (great) if you know what you are doing.

Since you decided to have a little moan without posting anything at all that could help then I can only assume your machine is powerful enough to actually run Live and possibly as has been suggested you just have not optimized CPU/USB/HDD/OS settings to run real time audio.

Before asking US questions, how about you post:

- OS version and type
- Motherboard models
- HDD types and speeds (HDD/SSD etc)
- RAM
- CPU
- Audio Interface
- etc....

of both machines so we can get an idea of what you have.

What you have said is basically "I had a car in the past, it work great. I now have new car, it dont work great. What is issue? halp"?

[miyaru]

OK, Stromkraft, not trying to start a PC-Mac fight here either LOL.

Jestermgee is right; we need more info!

[dr_yolo]

Windows 10 user

Windows user since 3.1

It runs fine (great) if you know what you are doing.

Since you decided to have a little moan without posting anything at all that could help then I can only assume your machine is powerful enough to actually run Live and possibly as has been suggested you just have not optimized CPU/USB/HDD/OS settings to run real time audio.

Before asking US questions, how about you post:

- OS version and type
- Motherboard models
- HDD types and speeds (HDD/SSD etc)
- RAM
- CPU
- Audio Interface
- etc....

of both machines so we can get an idea of what you have.

What you have said is basically "I had a car in the past, it work great. I now have new car, it dont work great. What is issue? halp"?

Hey dude, yeah I take your point. You are definitely correct in your assertion that I do not know how to optimize for real-time audio! Unfortunately I became accustomed to CoreAudio on OSX where everything runs perfectly with no questions asked...

I've attached my PC spec to my signature. Only thing that could conceivably be causing a problem would be my motherboard, but I only say that as I don't know enough to say either way.

I am pretty sure it is an issue with drivers and my soundcard on further investigation. I've think the freezes are only happening when I am using my external soundcard - using the Focusrite ASIO drivers. Not really sure what the best audio driver setup on Windows should be at all so any advice on this front would be amazing.

[dr_yolo]

a PC that has significantly better spec

Says who?

Anyway, in order to use Windows 10 (Pro?) for audio you need to make sure you set your processor for real time audio work and turn off all that fluff you don't need. Also, make sure you control automatic updates as much as you can.

I will never use Windows 10 myself. Life's too short.

What do you mean says who? Obviously me lol. I own both a Macbook and a PC. And the PC has significantly better spec (in particular the processor)

[cotdagoo]

I've attached my PC spec to my signature. Only thing that could conceivably be causing a problem would be my motherboard, but I only say that as I don't know enough to say either way.

I am pretty sure it is an issue with drivers and my soundcard on further investigation. I've think the freezes are only happening when I am using my external soundcard - using the Focusrite ASIO drivers. Not really sure what the best audio driver setup on Windows should be at all so any advice on this front would be amazing.

Looking at the manual for your motherboard, it seems like there's an EZ System tuning control in the BIOS allowing you to operate Quiet/EnergySaving/Performance modes.. Being a desktop, you can likely set it to Performance to squeeze every last drop of power from your cpu and ram and not have to worry about heat being a problem as you would with a laptop and limited cooling.

If it's not already set to performance, could be worth giving it a shot. If it's under powering your cpu and ram to be quiet, or save energy - this could easily be a bottleneck with good hardware (if it's not running at it's peak performance).

While you are running a ASIO interface, the system still needs cpu power to do all the other tasks - so the more power you can have available all the time for other tasks helps a lot.

Setting a proper power profile in Windows is key too - as often the pre-loaded profiles are setup for the same as your bios settings Quiet/EnergySaving/Performance - there's all kinds of guides around for this step.

Barring all the other optimized audio/win10 steps others have suggested - I always recommend Latency Mon - http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon to see if any drivers are causing latency/dropouts (I used to have a laptop with a wifi module that would cause dropouts - hard to pinpoint without this tool).

[dr_yolo]

I've attached my PC spec to my signature. Only thing that could conceivably be causing a problem would be my motherboard, but I only say that as I don't know enough to say either way.

I am pretty sure it is an issue with drivers and my soundcard on further investigation. I've think the freezes are only happening when I am using my external soundcard - using the Focusrite ASIO drivers. Not really sure what the best audio driver setup on Windows should be at all so any advice on this front would be amazing.

Looking at the manual for your motherboard, it seems like there's an EZ System tuning control in the BIOS allowing you to operate Quiet/EnergySaving/Performance modes.. Being a desktop, you can likely set it to Performance to squeeze every last drop of power from your cpu and ram and not have to worry about heat being a problem as you would with a laptop and limited cooling.

If it's not already set to performance, could be worth giving it a shot. If it's under powering your cpu and ram to be quiet, or save energy - this could easily be a bottleneck with good hardware (if it's not running at it's peak performance).

While you are running a ASIO interface, the system still needs cpu power to do all the other tasks - so the more power you can have available all the time for other tasks helps a lot.

Setting a proper power profile in Windows is key too - as often the pre-loaded profiles are setup for the same as your bios settings Quiet/EnergySaving/Performance - there's all kinds of guides around for this step.

Barring all the other optimized audio/win10 steps others have suggested - I always recommend Latency Mon - http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon to see if any drivers are causing latency/dropouts (I used to have a laptop with a wifi module that would cause dropouts - hard to pinpoint without this tool).

I'm very sure its not an issue with the available CPU power - I'm not trying to do anything intensive and even if I was - i have 4 cores of 3.9ghz.... Also my PC works fine for other intensive applications. The other weird thing about the freezes is that Task manager shows Ableton as using 0% CPu during the freezes, so it seems to me more like a driver not working correctly?

[Stromkraft]

What do you mean says who? Obviously me lol. I own both a Macbook and a PC. And the PC has significantly better spec (in particular the processor)

Don't assume your machine MUST be more powerful because the numbers tell you. Prove it to yourself!

You just said all that as if we we're all mind readers. Do I know how experienced you are? When you don't even present which driver you use I must assume you're not very experienced.

You have been given sufficient and excellent advice by the other contributors to be able solve this now. I wish you luck with this. I know how painful it can be with malfunctioning technology.