Holy resource hog, batman! (Windows Vista)

[eryque]

I'm at the tail end of setting up a new computer. I couldn't pass up the deal, $300 for a Compaq with a P4-3.4Ghz and 1GB of ram. It came with Vista and I thought I'd give a shot.

I wanted to give Vista a shot, even though I'm usually a curmudgeon about upgrading an OS. Well, that shot didn't last long. Just the OS consumed an average of 50% of the processor and 60% of the RAM, and any multimedia bogged it right down.

Installing XP has been a long and arduous process, thanks to a couple of hardware issues, but man is this box fast now! iTunes is busily converting my music library, and when the CPU usage spikes it's all the way up at 30%, and less than 25% of the RAM is being used.

[tazzboy]

How much memory do you have and what type of CPU (Intel or AMD) Do you have?

[ibobunot]

I have 2GB of ram in all my computers, most modern OS's suck up a lot of ram and hard drive space for virtual memory...

Ram and HD's are cheap now anyway.

[eryque]

Originally Posted by tazzboy

How much memory do you have and what type of CPU (Intel or AMD) Do you have?

(see above) P4 3.2 Ghz, 1 GB of RAM.

And quite happily zipping along on XP Pro.

[tazzboy]

Yeah I beginning to think if Vista is such a resource hog that best type of Processor is Dual Core processors and probably 4 gig memory (that's what I have in my computer) would probably work

That's why I build my computers because of cheapness of companies like Compaq/HP, Dell, and so on. They put a lot less into then they should cause they expect you to go a spend more money on upgrades and stuff like that.

[Skully]

(see above) P4 3.2 Ghz, 1 GB of RAM.

That's a pretty old processor, so it shouldn't be too surprising that it's having trouble with Vista.

My laptop crapped out recently, so last week I ordered an HP Pavilion dv9500t with Windows Vista Ultimate (64-bit), Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 (2.2GHz/4MB L2Cache), 2GB DDR2 System Memory and a 7200 rpm hard drive. When I arrived Monday, I found that Vista runs very quickly and smoothly -- probably faster than Windows XP does on my desktop, which is a high-end Dell that's about 16 months old. Among other things, the boot process is infinitely faster.

The only problem I have is that a lot of music recording software, hardware and plug-ins don't work with Vista. My Sonar Producers Edition does, but the soundcards I've tested don't. (I still haven't tried my Edirol FA-101, which has drivers for Vista.) My decision to run Vista at 64 bits has also reduced it's compatibility. Fortunately, I already have two recording set-ups (one in my office and one in my garage, and I don't need another one. But I wanted to have the option to use the laptop for recording. I still can, in a fashion, but the system won't match my other set-ups.

[eryque]

Considering that my last machine was a PII, it's quite a step up :)

I can't slight Compaq for making a low-end system. I knew what it was when I bought it. It was $350 including tax and shipping. I looked into building my own system, but I honestly couldn't do any better for the price. In fact, I'm not sure I could come close for the price.

[Skully]

I looked into building my own system, but I honestly couldn't do any better for the price. In fact, I'm not sure I could come close for the price.

I think it's like building your own guitar. You're not going to do it cheaper than an assembly line in China that gets the best deal on all the parts.

[eryque]

Skully, that's exactly it. If I needed a high-end system I could have easily compiled the components for far less than any of the manufacturers would have asked, but I just needed a basic system that will be stable and reliable. I bought something equivalent to the Fender MIM Standard, and it suits me just fine. When I find a good deal I'll max out the RAM and be done with it.

The vista gadets were kind of cool, but not cool enough, I guess :)

[esteban]

::cough:: Linux ::cough::

[tazzboy]

Originally Posted by Skully

I think it's like building your own guitar. You're not going to do it cheaper than an assembly line in China that gets the best deal on all the parts.

Yeah it's a bit pricey but I didn't want to do any upgrading down the road. My first build lasted me 4 years until I had to upgraded it. I am hoping that this one last the same amount of time until Microsoft works out all the kinks in vista Then I will consider another upgrade.

[TDPRI]

I've been running Vista for a few months non-stop with no problems what so ever. Runs every bit as fast as the XP Pro that I had on this computer before. And, I have only 1 gig of mem.

I've heard others tell tales like yours... I just don't have any idea why they're having those problems.

I've got a 15 month old Dell with one gig of ram and it runs Vista Ultimate without hangups, holdups, slowdowns or problems. I guess it was some other problem on your computer. 'The OS is easy to to take pot shots at, but works like a charm at my house.

Paul Green

[tazzboy]

Yeah but what kind of processor do you have in computer Paul?

[TDPRI]

Originally Posted by tazzboy

Yeah but what kind of processor do you have in computer Paul?

2.8 Ghz Pentium D -- which is older than the Dual Core and Core 2 Duo. It's just a step ahead of the P4 HT. But, it is two processors on one chip. As I said, I got this computer in Jan 2006! It's not some new speed demon.

Paul Green

[Grin'n'pick]

That's quite heartening Paul. I've been considering Vista for a while on a machine of roughly the same vintage but don't know anyone who is using it other than on brand new PCs. My main worry is compatibility with hardware and certain applications, how have you found the transition in that respect? Did you, or any of the other users, have to do a lot of manual driver installations and have you experienced many problems in those areas? There are a few features of Vista I'd like, but I don't know whether it's worth it. I am running a P4 on the machine I'd like to put it on although there's plenty of RAM, and from what's been said I'm wondering if I'd be scuppered with that. I was thinking of flooring the machine anyway so I'm tempted to put Vista on it if I'm going to reinstall the OS anyway.

[Lostheart]

I'm not sure whether I should change at all...I've heard quite a few people say that Vista doesn't offer much to justify a switch.
Some friends changed simply because they got sick and tired of the ol' blue look of XP but I've changed the appropriate .dll's a long time ago to accept visual styles to have a fresh new look whenever I feel like it.
I sure would like to try it but the worries I have (which has kept me from buying Vista) are that some of the programs I frequently use (some obscure Photoshop add-ons for instance) seem to not work on Vista PC's...
I sit back and wait a while for the first or second Service Pack (and for Vista to become a little cheaper)...

[gastronome]

My Wintel PC has been on its last legs for several months and the Mrs. has been bugging me for a PC of her own for about as long. I checked into Dells a while back and couldn't find anything that didn't come with Vista. (That situation has recently changed, however, as vendors have hammered M$FT over the resource and compatibility issues.)

Anyway, my computer guru who lives in Chicago sold me on the idea of having his son build me two PCs with XP Home (which at the time he was still able to acquire somehow). We're getting two machines with 2 Gb memory, speedy Intel processors and other high-quality components for less than $1K. (I've already got the monitors we'll be using.) That certainly beats anything I've seen offered online or in any of the big box stores.

I'll be doing the Chitown road-trip next month to pick up the PCs in exchange for my old Tele FMT, a Marshall combo amp and cash considerations.

[StuH]

I would love to upgrade .... my recording software is 64 bit Vista capable....but I'll have to hold off as my external gear has no Vista drivers yet which really ticks me off.

XP has been really solid for me maybe I should just hold off for a year.

[TDPRI]

Originally Posted by Grin'n'pick

Did you, or any of the other users, have to do a lot of manual driver installations and have you experienced many problems in those areas?

I had to download and install one driver for my Cannon Scanner. Other than that Vista did a much better job of finding, updating and installing my hardware and associated drivers than XP did the first time I installed it.

In fact, Vista found one really obscure thing that I had really had no expectation that it would find.

This computer is new enough (18 months) that it came without a parallel printer port. I had installed a PCI card to attach an old printer to the computer. Not a very common card at that. Vista found the card, voided the XP driver, got a new driver from the Internet, installed the card, recognized the 10 year old printer and got a driver for that and installed that as well.

All as a standard part of the OS install.

Anyone thinking of upgrading to Vista though should go to the Windows website and download the Upgrade Adviser program. After running that program it will point out any hardware issues or driver problems to correct BEFORE attempting the upgrade.

[ddewerd]

might be some helpful tips here.

Vista Tips

I haven't messed much with it yet though....

Cheers,
Doug

[Wildhawk]

Originally Posted by webmaster

I've been running Vista for a few months non-stop with no problems what so ever. Runs every bit as fast as the XP Pro that I had on this computer before. And, I have only 1 gig of mem.

'The OS is easy to to take pot shots at, but works like a charm at my house.

Paul Green

Same here. Went from XP Pro to Vista Home Edition without a glitch. 3.0 P4 with 1 gig RAM.

Was suprised to find that even the lowest version of Vista allows multiple user setups each with a different desktop. Thought I would dump it but can't find a reason to go back. About the only thing I did was change the start menu from the new Vista look back to "classic".

[eryque]

Originally Posted by Wildhawk

Same here. Went from XP Pro to Vista Home Edition without a glitch. 3.0 P4 with 1 gig RAM.

Was suprised to find that even the lowest version of Vista allows multiple user setups each with a different desktop. Thought I would dump it but can't find a reason to go back. About the only thing I did was change the start menu from the new Vista look back to "classic".

I want to know how you guys with similarly performing machines got it to run so smoothly. I suppose it is easy to blame the OS, but I guess it was especially easy for me since I was watching the OS eat up my processor capacity with nothing but basic OS processes running. I didn't even have antivirus or any of the extra Compaq crap running.

I'm working in an office where they won't even think of deploying machines with Vista, even with a clean install, because the hardware required to get similar performance as we're getting with XP and 2000 is such a step up. And the machines we're buying are no slouches.

[CrazyManAndy]

I don't like updating my OS until sometime after its initial release. I like to let them work out the bugs first.

Vista is a resource hog, but I'm not exactly sure why your having such trouble. I think it should be mentioned that higher Ghz doesn't necessarily mean better. CPU type and architecture have a lot to do with performance. The same goes for RAM.

You have to consider the overall quality of the PC as well. And a lot of manufacturers put a bunch of junk on the computer before you get it, which can cause major slowdowns. Of course, how you set up your OS will have a major affect as well.

I have to say, I haven't really done any serious reading on Vista. I'm pretty content with XP for the moment, and I don't see anything in Vista that really warrants such a major upgrade. I'm waiting to see what happens in the next year. Lately, I've gotten interested in trying out some alternatives, like Mac and Linux.

CMA

[Oskar]

Having fiddled with home computers for the past 25 years I've come to the conclusion that sometimes the need is driven by the technology, not the other way around. I know people who are still using Win '98 and it works fine for what they want to do.
I still use XP Pro and I probably won't have a need to ever upgrade again. It does everything I would want it to do and really can't think of anything I NEED to do that it can't. Vista certainly provides some interesting upgrades in terms of media and internet integration, but I just don't have a use for that, at least not so much of a use that I want to upgrade.
My feeling is if you're happy with what you have and an upgrade isn't going to make things better by a fairly large degree there is absolutely no reason to move up.

[RichardM]

I've been using Vista since beta 2, and I wouldn't go back to XP pro for anything.

It does need a highish PC (I have a Core 2 1.86 and 2Gig RAM) but it's SO pretty and MORE stable than XP.

The rest of my household is still on XP pro (four PCs) but only 'cause they don't wish to change.

(I also have two servers running Server 2003 SP2)

As for Linux...
Tried it a few times, with different releases.
But anything that needs me to fiddle to get it to run OK can lay there 'til it gets it right.

Those of you running Vista with 1Gig, try it with 2 (or more). You'll wonder why you didn't from the start.

[RichardM]

Originally Posted by Oskar

..... I know people who are still using Win '98 and it works fine for what they want to do.............

What, crashing every five minutes?

But yeah, I hear where you're coming from. One of my clients has an old laptop running Win98, and it's the only PC of his I haven't had to work on.

It has never been connected to the Internet and runs a propriety engineering program. Still works, so why change?

[TDPRI]

Originally Posted by eryque

I want to know how you guys with similarly performing machines got it to run so smoothly.

There are a great many reasons that your computer could be running so slowly. When you first install Vista it will take days, maybe even weeks, indexing every file on your hard drive. And, it's indexing it like Google would index it. The idea is that later, after everything is indexed you'll be able to find the most obscure file in seconds.

On my computer, it spent so much time indexing that it got in the way of my work. Vista indexes in the background, but it starts up if you stop working on the computer even for a few minutes and then when you expect it to respond it's slow to stop indexing and give you back the computer.

This is why you saw such high CPU and HD usage most likely.

Also, at first, Vista will nag you about just about everything asking you if running this or that program is something you want to do. It's a hassle but it's learning what you do and what's OK. After it does this learning thing you don't get asked all that often for permission to run things. But on the upside, if you open an email and it has a worm that tries to install something or open something new Vista will stop it and ask you if it's OK.

I've turned my indexing off. I know where stuff is on my computer and I don't search for things with the search applet more than once or twice a month.

Also, Vista has a feature called "superfetch" and it loads your most used programs into memory to speed their loading. This uses nearly 50% of your RAM but it is instantly released if something else needs it.

Here is a link to some Vista "speed" tips: http://winvistaforums.com/windows-vi...eed-speed.html

[imwjl]

Originally Posted by eryque

I'm at the tail end of setting up a new computer. I couldn't pass up the deal, $300 for a Compaq with a P4-3.4Ghz and 1GB of ram. It came with Vista and I thought I'd give a shot.

I wanted to give Vista a shot, even though I'm usually a curmudgeon about upgrading an OS. Well, that shot didn't last long. Just the OS consumed an average of 50% of the processor and 60% of the RAM, and any multimedia bogged it right down.

Installing XP has been a long and arduous process, thanks to a couple of hardware issues, but man is this box fast now! iTunes is busily converting my music library, and when the CPU usage spikes it's all the way up at 30%, and less than 25% of the RAM is being used.

YMMV, but I'm not giving up better user rights, DEP by default, ASLR and wasting time and money with upgrades when XP is obsolete when RAM is a fast and cheap fix. Opinion made even stronger after fixing up a site where the Vista systems did not get a root kit and XP systems did.

I would question the original load as well as the amount of RAM considering my lack of big performance differences between the two. A $300 computer may well have had crapware loaded and running.

Bottom line is all's well as long as you're happy and it's not rocket science to think performance would be poor when even an XP system does better with 2 GB if you're patched and running AV and malware apps.

Good luck and don't forget that backing up is not just for truck drivers.

[GUITARmole]

Which variety of Vista are you running? My wife's PC has Vista Home Basic w/ a Celeron 3.2G processor and 1.5Gb of memory and it runs fantastic so far. It ran OK w/ the factory 512Mb but it definitely needed more memory to run everything smoothly.

This is coming from a guy that hates XP compared to Win2k (IMO XP=Win2k+bloat) for robbing system resources.

My music PC runs Win2K Pro but will likely be upgraded to XP Pro when I
rebuild it with my dual core 6700 so I can use all the features of the CPU.

[Skully]

Windows Vista actually seems to use system resources more wisely than previous operating system. But I wouldn't update an old computer, especially if you're using it for home recording. A lot of hardware still doesn't have Vista drivers and I can't get Waves plug-ins to work with Sonar in Vista.

[StuH]

Originally Posted by Skully

But I wouldn't update an old computer, especially if you're using it for home recording. A lot of hardware still doesn't have Vista drivers and I can't get Waves plug-ins to work with Sonar in Vista.

They should work if you process at 32 bit no? Can you set Vista for 32 bit processing?

[StuH]

Originally Posted by StuH

They should work if you process at 32 bit no? Can you set Vista for 32 bit processing?

Try rendering at 32 bit in Sonar instead of 64

Global settings/audio data tab

[Skully]

They should work if you process at 32 bit no? Can you set Vista for 32 bit processing?

I'm running Vista with 64-bit processing, which is something that has limited my use of some old programs. But I'm might still try your advice about running Sonar at 32 bits.

[TDPRI]

Yeah Skully, 64-bit Vista is more difficult to live with due to lack of drivers and some compatibility issues.

Why are you using 64-bit? To use more RAM?

[Skully]

Yes, essentially. So, after further investigation, I won't run Sonar at 32 bit. Because it's programs like that one that demand the extra RAM. I tend to push my computers' capabilities to the limit with home recording, etc.

[TelecasterBlooz]

And now a blast from the past...

Think Mac!

[StuH]

Originally Posted by Skully

Yes, essentially. So, after further investigation, I won't run Sonar at 32 bit. Because it's programs like that one that demand the extra RAM. I tend to push my computers' capabilities to the limit with home recording, etc.

I was of the understanding that the only advantage running Sonar at 64 bit was less chance of truncated bits, more accurate mathematical rounding when processing. An advantage that is supposed to be undetectable except for transients by human ear. I was not aware running a 32 bit application on Vista affects RAM allocation.

One thing I know is if a $1000 dollar bundle of waves plugins won't operate properly. I'd d be switching back to XP.

[StuH]

Originally Posted by TelecasterBlooz

And now a blast from the past...

Think Mac!

When Mac changed operating systems the same types of incompatabilities plagued recording hobbiests, especially owners of 3rd party plugins. Takes time and the issues get fixed. Macs are no more perfect than PCs when it comes to audio recording. Perhaps they are perfect for everything else though.

[daddyopapa]

My new laptop with Windows XP Pro was stolen so I had to replace it and lo and behold, all the laptops now had Vista. So I picked up an Acer with a Centrino Core 2 Duo and 2gb ram. It works OK but when it is farting around with Outlook emails, it just freezes up for up to 30 seconds at a time. It never crashes and I like a lot of the features, but I wish I had my old speedy XP.