Got my new comp today..any tweaks?

[GZsound]

I took delivery of my new dedicated music computer today. It has XP Pro installed.

I have been using 98SE and really don't have much clue about performance enhancements or tweaks in XP.

I have disabled all screen savers, all power saving features, set the "performance" tab to spend most of it's power on program, and disabled any programs running in the background and a whole hose of check boxes regarding fading in and out of programs, etc.

Any other suggestions?

I got a 2.4 gig Celeron D, an MSI motherboard, five PCI slots, one gig of ram, a 450 watt super quiet power supply and two SATA drives, a 60 gig for program and a 160 gig for data and a Plextor Plexwriter CD-R. I paid $350 for it.

So, please don't hurt my feelings with "you should have gotten..." stuff, just let me know if there are any tweaks you suggest to get the most out of it.

[itsplayed]

Go to www.musicxp.net

[MrM]

I second that.

[roughrider]

Thanks for the post and thabks for the replies, i've been looking for something like this for a while.

i've stumbled fromm 2000 to xp and although i dont really have any problems i haven't done many tweaks at all.

I'll have a new laptop system up and running next week and it's imperative that i get it right as it's for live stuff.

DL70 15.4 Widescreen Centrino,Intel 915 chipset, 128Mb ATI X600 Graphics, Pentium M 2.1GHz, 2Gb Ram, 60Gb 7200rpm internal drive, 200Gb External Lacie Firewire, Lacie Firewire 800 PCMCIA card, MOTU Traveler i/o

As this is to be used both for live playback and recording i figured i should have a dual boot system.

I imagine there'll be more replies to this thread regarding specific xp tweaks, so i'm looking forward to that.

There used to be a setting in 9x where you could configure the pc as a server, and therefore buffer the ram more aggressively, is there a similar tweak in xp?

[itsplayed]

All helpful, specific tweaks for your DAW running XP, can be found on musicxp.net. For general knowledge on, and tweaks/tips for Windows operating systems, you can try www.blackviper.com

[Easto]

Black Viper dot come is no longer up and running. If you search via google you can find some sites that are hosting his tweaks. I've used his tweaks for years. My standalone DAW only uses 65mb of memory when first booted (W2K) and only has about 14 processes runnning.

[itsplayed]

Originally posted by Easto
Black Viper dot come is no longer up and running. If you search via google you can find some sites that are hosting his tweaks. I've used his tweaks for years. My standalone DAW only uses 65mb of memory when first booted (W2K) and only has about 14 processes runnning.

Wow !, I did not know that. Too bad, it was a very good and very insightful site.

[jmail]

1st & foremost, put your interface PCI card in a slot with an exclusive IRQ (if you're using a PCI interface) and use a PCI bandwidth tool, as at:

http://www.audiotrak.net/support_faq.htm

Look for the link where it says: "PCI Latency Tool 2.5 (MAYA 7.1 and INCA 88 users look here)". It's probably available elsewhere. (Even firewire use the PCI bus.) Watch for how much bandwidth the video card and your SATA eat up.

Be sure you have the latest drivers and firmware. Most of your audio stuff is done in the background, so you want to "optimize" for "Background Processes" instead of programs.

Also, get yourself an extra heaping helping of patience for the inevitibility of problems to come. And remember, let's have fun out there.

[GZsound]

I didn't realize I needed to optimize for background programs.. I did just the opposite, thinking the audio "program" would need more attention.

But you suggest changing to background processes? I'll give it a try.

I didn't get a huge hot rod video card, since I don't need it, and so far, all my old drivers are working just fine.

Thanks..

[MrM]

Absolutely! Windows first priority is looks or visuals.
So optimizing for background programs will give most CPU to the audio.

[GZsound]

Thanks again for all the help.