I cannot speak for those with Macs but reading through the many posts, there are a lot of comments regarding audio performance problems, crashes and BSODs. I had a fairly expensive time learning the basic fact that some PCs, particularly laptops, are not built for audio. I wondered if it might be helpful if those people who are running C7 and not suffering these problems tell us what PC configuration/laptop they have?
Or if you have experience of a PC motherboard or laptop that never worked well, share that with us?
My present very stable set up:
2nd Generation Intel Core i7 2700K 3.50GHz Socket LGA1155
Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3P-B3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) Motherboard
4 x Corsair Vengeance 8GB (1x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Single Channel Module
Steinberg MR816x audio interface (the above motherboard works beautifully with the MR816)
Unstable setups
By far the worst - Dell Laptop Studio - I found most Dell laptops fail the test with the DPC Latency Checker.
Sony Vaio F Series laptop I7 with 8Gb RAM - just could not cope with the load - CPU temp at 80 deg C and fan going mad.
Also always struggled to get the MR816x to work with the above laptops firewire connnections, only by winding things down using the Utility tool in the MR software.
My own verdict PCs are far more likely to work well than laptops.
i have a sony Vaio f13 with C7 and MR816 connected to MB FW .
it was hard to get it to work but after “regular” pc tweaking its allright .+ using utility tool+ disabling WiFi and for most stable system when needed also disabling ACPI battery
as the fan going mad. well its kind of noisy . i dont use steinbergs power scheme for less noisy fan.
Unfortunately, nowadays it is very hard to find laptops that work with FW interfaces unless you go for the high end ones. The problem lies in finding a laptop with Texas Instrument (TI) FW chipset built into the MOBO. And even when you do find it, not all TI chipset FW controllers are the same, so it may still not be compatible with your interface. It’s much easier to find TI chipset in Desktop computers, and that’s why you’ll run into less compatibility issues there.
I have a PCAL Custom made rack mount PC(i7 990x, 24g ram, 1 SSD, 2 RAID Setups)… Have NEVER had a problem from C6, 6.5, C7… I’ve been watching my PC’s performance monitor(task manger) since the C7 update… seems a lil more taxing on my SSD and memory but with no obvious problems. Note: I am always in 32bit Float/96k.
Now… I also have an older PCAL laptop(dual core, 2.9 ghz, 4 gigs ram)… and HAVE had crashes/glitches while using midi controllers and heavy VSTi’s… external eSATA HD may have had something to do w/ that though. Again:32bit/96k
IMO, good PC performance is completely relative to Proc/Mem/HD power… which shouldn’t be eye opening to anyone. Keep evrything up2date, watch order of events when updating/installing, and do not run internet on your music PC(I don’t care how powerful it is).
Desktop: self-built i7 3770k 32 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, 2 TB SATA III (audio), 3 TB SATA III (Kontakt libraries), 3x 3TB USB 3.0 (backup/archives), RME UFX (works great with both USB 2.0 or FW.)
Laptop: 17" HP EliteBook 8770w (i7 3820QM, 16GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, 1TB SATA III), RME Babyface (tested with UFX in FW mode and it still works great.)
Win 7 Pro x64 on both, Cubase 7.02 (usually on the desktop), Sonar X2a (usually on the laptop.)
Everything works perfectly, typically at 128-sample setting and no need to dial it up for the mixdown. Never had a single crash with Cubase 7 (or Sonar X2) on either one. I don’t use a million VSTi’s, most of my projects include lots of Kontakt instances, Omnisphere, Trillian and Alchemy. More rarely Absynth, Massive and a few others. Don’t have a million effects either because I tend to stick with the few that work for me.
That is no longer necessarily true, unless, maybe, if you use an older FW interface. I’m 100% sure my HP EliteBook 8770w doesn’t have a TI chip and yet it works perfectly with my RME UFX in both USB 2.0 and Firewire mode. High-end laptops tend to have very good FW controllers that work with FW interfaces in current production, regardless of maker.