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fresh vegas 11 install – not complaining but what’s my computer actually doing?
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thanks John!
One more thing…. I have to say I am glad you guys on these forums persuaded me to see the error of my ways (doggedly refusing to give up XP x64 with Vegas 8.1…..)
Version 11 seems VERY snappy and responsive … and I don’t have to do any of the tweaking I had to do with 8.1 (I had to convert using Quicktime Pro my Kodak Zi8 files and Playtouch files before importing etc)
But BEST OF ALL I can easily render to 1080×1920 AVC Sony with nil effort. Also, I dont get crashes like I used to (unless I accidentally crop outside a clip boundary which is clearly a stupid thing to do, but reliably crashes Vegas)
Still… I am yet to be convinced regarding W7 … i need to do some research and figure out what I can disable to get rid of some of the unecessary fluff. Also, I used to be able to play my hi def videos using VLC – they now stutter on W7. Going from perhaps 15 processes (XP) to about 50 seems (W7) to be the price to pay for progress 🙂
Vegas 8.1, XP64(yes you read that right!), HP Pavilion i7 12GB RAM, separate disks for projects and OS
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[andy abulafia] “Still… I am yet to be convinced regarding W7 … i need to do some research and figure out what I can disable to get rid of some of the unecessary fluff. Also, I used to be able to play my hi def videos using VLC – they now stutter on W7. Going from perhaps 15 processes (XP) to about 50 seems (W7) to be the price to pay for progress :-)”
VLC is a pretty awful video player. Don’t get me wrong… it has many capabilities, it’s open source, it runs independent of system CODECs. But even the latest has weak GPU acceleration, and it seems to have file I/O problems.
On Windows 7, you ought to see extremely smooth playback of pretty much any AVC file, even under the usually weak Windows Media Player. I can play back 1080/60p video under Windows 7 on my dual-core, 2.4GHz Core2 laptops, at full 60p, even in WMP. The reason here is Windows 7. First, it supports the DXVA 2.0 APIs introduced in Vista.. that’s video-specific GPU acceleration, which is way more efficient than using something like OpenCL or CUDA for this kind of work. And second, Microsoft added their own H.264 decoder in Windows 7 (which VLC doesn’t use… it’s using x264 I think), which uses DXVA for acceleration.
Even better, something like Splash Lite will give a much better looking video playback. Now sure, if there’s some special reason you need VLC… RTP streaming or something, then maybe you just need VLC. The latest does seem a bit better in Windows 7 than it did a year ago, so make sure you update.
Processes themselves take up memory, but they don’t use CPU unless they’re actually running. This is true of all modern operating systems. Most system processes are waiting on something, and sitting on a wait queue somewhere until that thing happens. They don’t burn CPU. I upgraded my desktop directly from XP to Windows 7, and found Windows 7 faster and superior in all ways. That’s me, but I’m sensing you haven’t really given it a real-world trial.
When I upgraded from NT 4.0 to Win2K, and Win2K to XP (in theory it was this same machine, though I’m not sure, with over 12 years of upgrades, there are any original pieces left), I always installed the new OS on a separate partition. I bought three copies of Win7 at the $50 special upgrade price, and put one immediately on my laptop — it shipped with Vista, so really, could it get worse? It didn’t, and as a result, it was a no-brainer: XP had to go.
-Dave
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[Dave Haynie] “When I upgraded from NT 4.0 to Win2K, and Win2K to XP (in theory it was this same machine, though I’m not sure, with over 12 years of upgrades, there are any original pieces left), I always installed the new OS on a separate partition. I bought three copies of Win7 at the $50 special upgrade price, and put one immediately on my laptop — it shipped with Vista, so really, could it get worse? It didn’t, and as a result, it was a no-brainer: XP had to go.”
funny you should mention NT4… I’d be still running it if only it had USB support!
And rest assured – in 10 years time I will be clinging on to W7 like grim death!
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Vegas 11, Win7, Intel i7 w/12GB RAM – In need of a decent SSD, methinks 🙂 Sony TG5V, Kodak Zi8, Playtouch. -
[andy abulafia] “Funny you should mention NT4… I’d be still running it if only it had USB support!
Naaa… it was missing too many things. Also, it did graphics in user-mode. Good for security and crash resistance, but kernel drivers made things go fast.
I went to NT as a nice middle-ground. I was mostly telecommuting to a job that ran its stuff on either OS/2 or NT. And I was trying to use the same PC for music.
But that’s actually what got me into Vegas. I had been running Windows something-or-other on my home PC. When I updated to NT, my applications actually worked ok (those that counted, anyway) but I lost my Turtle Beach sound card (Tahiti) and my MOTU MIDI interface.
Then I found that Pete Haller, independent software developer, had written drivers for both of these devices. Furthermore, the MOTU driver actually worked way better than MOTU’s drivers in Windows.
I read PC-DAW regularly, and offered my hardware system designer expertise as needed (pretty often, actually… PCs were terrible, terrible machines back in the day, and it was hard enough to keep audio and MIDI working, forget about video). One day, there was some big argument about audio bottlenecks in multitracking… Pete on one side claiming it was the hard drive, and nearly everyone else claiming it was CPU. And this was before plug-ins started sucking up CPU time. I replied with a verbal kotegaeshi, explaining things like seek time vs. buffer size vs. latency, etc. The other guys shut up.
Awhile later, I got comp versions of Vegas 1.0 and Acid 1.0. Actually, a very fine investment on Sonic Foundry’s part… I’ve owned nearly every version, and recommended them both, almost exclusively (I’m still up to date on Cakewalk Sonar, but Acid is usually my go-to, particularly given the “quick, I need music for video” nature of most projects these days).
[andy abulafia]
And rest assured – in 10 years time I will be clinging on to W7 like grim death!”From what I’ve seen of Windows 8, I’m right there with you, buddy.
There’s a lesson in all of this, that Microsoft seems to learn, but only for one major revision of Windows. There are many reasons to make a new OS. But Microsoft has a big one: OEMs (HP, Acer, Dell, etc) want a new version of Windows every three years or so. Many users buy new PCs, and won’t venture an OS upgrade on their current HW.
But given that, they have other motivations. The one I want to see: a really good reason for me, as a user, to upgrade. In short, you give me something I want, that I don’t have now, that’s worth the upgrade price.
And then there are motivations I don’t care about. For example, building the Microsoft empire. Vista was all about that… changing APIs, adding in DRM, etc. Nothing much for me.. and many others felt the same way. Microsoft did learn from that, so Windows 7 was very much consumer oriented… even the $50 intro upgrade price.
Windows 8, so far, is all about Microsoft. And in fact, all about the fact that Microsoft failed to realize that both smartphones and tablets today as also personal computers. And likely to overtake PCs at some point. TVs are probably going to personal computers soon, too (I tried that one at a startup company called Metabox, back in the late 1990s). But on one really wants MS’s cellphone OS, and today’s Windows isn’t functional on a tablet without a mouse.. or at least a stylus. From all views, Windows 8 is putting a tablet/cellphone on Windows proper, in order to hopefully leverage the might of the desktop onto MS’s shrunk-down Windows for tablets and phones.
Here’s the thing.. even if this was the best cellphone/tablet OS in the history of the multiverse, it doesn’t belong on my desktop. Touch interfaces are put on highly mobile devices because they’re small and I’m travelling. Neither of these things are true when I’m at my desk, with my real Bella keyboard (Vegas edition), high precision mouse, and pen-based graphics tablet. I have no use for a substantially inferior interface device (eg, my fingers), nor a UI optimized to make that bad UI device usable.
-Dave
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[Dave Haynie] “Touch interfaces are put on highly mobile devices because they’re small and I’m travelling. Neither of these things are true when I’m at my desk, with my real Bella keyboard (Vegas edition), high precision mouse, and pen-based graphics tablet. I have no use for a substantially inferior interface device (eg, my fingers), nor a UI optimized to make that bad UI device usable.”
Well said Dave. I took a look a Windows 8 beta and concluded that Microsoft obviously doesn’t get this. I recently switched from Windows to a Mac and the change was like night and day. Apple “gets it” and has everything well integrated on all of their devices (I now have an iPad, iPhone, and MacBook Pro and the experience is seamless across the three). I understand now why they won’t allow their OS on other hardware. The software and hardware integration on a Apple’s devices could only be pulled off by a single company controlling the quality. Microsoft is just floundering by comparison (what a mess).
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
[andy abulafia] “Still… I am yet to be convinced regarding W7 … i need to do some research and figure out what I can disable to get rid of some of the unecessary fluff.”
What unnecessary fluff? If you think you need to tweak Windows 7 like you had to tweak XP by turning off services, forget about it. I’ve been using Windows 7 out-of-the-box with no tweaking since the day it was released (I pre-ordered it) and I have’t had any problem on my 5 year old Quad Core computer and it runs fine. Just install it and use it, and forget about tweaking.
If by “unnecessary fluff” you mean the Aero graphics, I find them a refreshing change but in case you were wondering, you can make Windows 7 look just as bad as XP if you really want to. 😉
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
[John Rofrano] “If by “unnecessary fluff” you mean the Aero graphics, I find them a refreshing change but in case you were wondering, you can make Windows 7 look just as bad as XP if you really want to. ;-)”
LOL how did you know? I actually *was* thinking about Aero 🙂 but to your point, everything *does* run smoothly (i begrudgingly admit) the ONLY issue I really have is around permissions. From Vista onwards everything became “secured” and now I seem to have to run everything as an admin…and mess with the registry just to get to my NAS drives and other attached storage. But, that’s just teething trouble, it is fixable 🙂
HAve a great weekend.
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Vegas 11, Win7, Intel i7 w/12GB RAM – In need of a decent SSD, methinks 🙂 Sony TG5V, Kodak Zi8, Playtouch. -
Hey Andy, yea the permissions thing is really messed up. I am shocked that Microsoft can’t get this right. It works in Linux, it works in Mac OS X, but Microsoft can’t seem to make an OS where everyone doesn’t have to be an admin. It’s sad really.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
[John Rofrano] “[Dave Haynie] “Touch interfaces are put on highly mobile devices because they’re small and I’m travelling. Neither of these things are true when I’m at my desk, with my real Bella keyboard (Vegas edition), high precision mouse, and pen-based graphics tablet. I have no use for a substantially inferior interface device (eg, my fingers), nor a UI optimized to make that bad UI device usable.”
Well said Dave. I took a look a Windows 8 beta and concluded that Microsoft obviously doesn’t get this. I recently switched from Windows to a Mac and the change was like night and day.”I don’t think Microsoft has every really “got” user interface, certainly not the way Apple has. It’s just not really in their DNA.
With that said, I’m not sure how much of Windows 8 comes from things they think are good ideas, and how much comes from a dark place full of fear. Microsoft seems to have peaked too soon in mobile, and like so many Microsoft things, once they did well (pretty much beat Palm), they stopped thinking about it.
They woke up recently to a world in which iOS and Android devices aren’t simply PC accessories, as the Palms and the WinCE PDAs once were, but personal computers in their own right. And Microsoft is year behind taking on that same market. I think the point of pushing the touch interface onto the desktop is to force feed that to desktop users, so they’ll see the Microsoft mobile devices as a reasonable alternative to iOS and Android.
Now, if you think about it the other way, you get Apple. Apple’s more or less bailed on their pro markets (the Mac Pro is aging, and there are rumors Apple’s going to scrap it entirely and just count on “appliance” computers like iMacs and laptops), but their consumer market is growing. In fact, it’s the only segment of the desktop PC market growing significantly, and it’s entirely the “iOS coattails” effect. So from Apple’s point of view, they can take what’s good about iOS and put that on the desktop, in a way that makes iOS users even more likely to jump to Apple. As the Mac represents 20% of Apple’s market now, this is absolutely the right thing for them to do. UI wise, there are various things I’ve never liked about MacOS, going back to the late 80s. But I’ve always found it slick and self-consistent.
[John Rofrano] ” I understand now why they won’t allow their OS on other hardware. The software and hardware integration on a Apple’s devices could only be pulled off by a single company controlling the quality. “
Having actually designed personal computers, I kind of reject the “integrated hardware/software” argument. Apple’s shipping pretty bog standard PCs in pretty casework. Some of what they do is simple enough: Apple’s always been into hardware minimialism, and they still do that — everything you need it build in, nothing extra, and that’s all you get. That’s why iMacs use laptop motherboards… they come with nearly all the drivers you’ll ever run, like a laptop. And most of their laptops and iMacs have fewer functions, fewer ports, etc… less stuff to go wrong. And they’ll use that same chipset on laptops and desktops… very few different models per year.
Any PC company could do the same. Some do, but others have this PC of the month thing… models change all the time, different hardware in them, code probably written from outside vendors, not understood by the PC supplier. So they never have the level of understanding of their system. But that IS a policy decision, not some magic thing… Apple’s in general OEMing the same hardware everyone else does.
Microsoft’s problem is one of distance, but also of the position they assume in the market. Microsoft has a copy of every device that goes through WHQL up there in Redmond, but they don’t necessarily know the hardware well enough to fix a bug, much less write the driver. And they don’t adopt the position that it’s their problem… they certified the driver as a service to the customer (and a way to control hardware developers), but they don’t take responsibility for fixing it. Similarly, if I bug a PC from HP, let’s say, it’s HP delivering my support, bug fixes, etc. Not Microsoft’s problem, officially… up to the PC vendor to be like Apple, or not.
-Dave
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[John Rofrano] “Hey Andy, yea the permissions thing is really messed up. I am shocked that Microsoft can’t get this right. It works in Linux, it works in Mac OS X, but Microsoft can’t seem to make an OS where everyone doesn’t have to be an admin. It’s sad really.”
There’s an old saying some of my UNIX friends have: “Those who fail to learn from UNIX are doomed to recreate UNIX. Badly”. Of course, Linux is a UNIX clone, and MacOS, pretty much too (originally based on CMU’s Mach kernel and BSD UNIX). Programs can inherent room permissions, or even be set to execute with root permission. So you don’t get 10 requests for password popping up when trying to do just one “thing”, far as you’re concerned, even when it involves a bunch of “sub-things” the user’s not supposed to know about.
Windows since NT has some pretty good ideas deep down. They got some things, like fully symmetric multiprocessing and multithreading totally correct, long before UNIX did (though some of that same stuff was kind of the point of CMU’s Mach). But Dave Cutler and crew were VAX/VMS guys, and didn’t steal the stuff they should have from UNIX.
Microsoft never seems able to fix these sort of very glaring design flaws. They still do automatic configuration (Plug-and-play) wrong; that’s something we did totally correctly on the Amiga. Fortunately, new tech forced them to fix it a little, but you still get really stupid behavior, like a new driver install if you happen to plug that USB device into a different port from time to time. But at least it doesn’t likely demand a reboot… Windows 9x wasn’t doing much more than setting software switches in the registry to replace the hardware switches (address, IRQ, DMA, etc) that had been voted out of existence. It actually needed to reboot to adjust to most driver changes.
-Dave
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