Just wanted to point out, to my mind, the biggest change from 7.5 to 8…
Cubase 8 -requires- an ‘Aero’ theme.
This is perhaps a non-issue for many users, but for those of us who prefer the ‘classic’ windows desktop… it’s a big change.
The ‘classic’ desktop has traditionally run (most) apps a bit faster without requiring a higher-end video card. And cheaper video cards tend to have no fan (quieter.)
This change -is- in the ‘requirements’ but it’s in a teensy, weensy little footnote and I think it should be displayed quite prominently as this is basically the first -required- change to system setup in a long time.
In my case, I’ve spent a lot of time with Fences, getting my desktop set up ‘just so’, and this will require some real work to tweak. So in that sense, it is a real ‘upgrade’.
I agree that this was an unwelcome surprise. I don’t have issues with the greater efficiency of the non-aero UI, but I vastly prefer the “classic” UI for aesthetic purposes. Aero seems a bit gaudy to me compared to what preceded it.
Ironically, this would make me strongly consider moving to Windows 8.1… The default UI for 8.1 is MUCH more readable than this Aero thing. Even with the translucence turned off, all the first-year art school gradients drive me nuts.
My PC is primarily used for music production as well as trading financial instruments. I am running an older okta card (eight monitors) which cannot handle Aero themes and DWM composition really well and runs extremely slow (not to mention how much I dislike Aero themes anyway). Upgrading my card is well in excess of 5K and I am not prepared to change it for the sake of Cubase. I tried tossing between Aero crap when in recording mode and the preferred Classic mode for everything else but it became a bit annoying constantly switching between the two. I wish I knew this before I upgraded to Cubase 8.5. I kept running Cubase 7.5 because of this issue but finally decided to move to Pro Tools 12 due to upgrades. I would go back to Cubase if the software engineering team brought back the possibility to enable Cubase to run on our preferred windows themes in Windows 7.