I know very little about Windows, but in this forum (and my old notation forum), there seems to be a world of hurt relating to sound hardware and drivers.
I’m not convinced the problem is “Windows” per se. It’s the fact that the hardware is an open environment, and people who don’t really know what they are doing pick an assortment of the cheapest hardware components they can find, build a system themselves, “optimize” it with “advice” from random websites whose contributors also don’t really know what they are doing, and then (big surprise!) the whole thing isn’t very reliable or stable.
Get a Windows PC from a reputable supplier (that doesn’t mean companies the size of Dell or HP - there are plenty of smaller companies some of whom specialise in media creation systems) who gives a decent guarantee (my current desktop system came with a 5 YEAR guarantee plus unlimited free tech support from the builders - not that anything every went wrong with it in those 5 years) and it will “just work” exactly the same way as Macs are claimed to “just work”.
(You can find exactly the same syndrome on motoring forums - the classic joke being somebody ranting that model X cars are rubbish, because no matter now many times they replace the spark plugs they still keep getting punctures, and even spending $000’s replacing the complete ignition system didn’t make any difference…)
I had a somewhat painful week last year in which I couldn’t get my soundcard to work nicely. It turned out an updated driver had installed itself. Oh, and then graphics switching stopped working entirely - I now can’t use onboard graphics at all - I’m stuck with the separate chip. The computer’s even been back to HP and they can’t figure it out…
Well, apart from sympathy, I don’t have anything positive to say about HP. A few years ago they completely shafted my employers by doing a “good deal” and dumping about 1,000 end-of-product-line boxes which not only didn’t work, but the warranty was worthless because they were no longer making the proprietary spare parts which were failing.
The fact that a few weeks after that signing off that “good deal” on the recommendation of the company who supplied our IT services, that service company was then bought by HP, was pure coincidence no doubt.
HP used to make excellent lab electronics equipment back in the day when there were two guys called Hewlett and Packard involved with it. Now, it’s just a bunch of rip-off artists IMO.
I like the old joke about IT Support:
Q: What does an IT Support guy do when he gets a flat tire?
A: He changes each wheel in turn, and tests the car, to see which one it is.
Q: What does an IT Support guy do when he runs out of petrol?
A: He changes each wheel in turn, and tests the car, to see which one it is.
For Core i-series laptops in 2019, a quad-core i5 cpu can already run Dorico well.
You can use SSD. Never think about mechanical hard drives, never.
RAM >= 8GB. I recommend >= 16GB.
I second the SSD remark. Don’t settle for a spinning disk. New SSDs (and NVME SSD’s!) are soooooo much faster. SSD at home: dorico boots in seconds. Slow spinning disk at work: Dorico takes a literal minute to boot. This is due to the fact that certain large parts of the program have to load in sequence. The drive is slow, so the loading is slow. (Confirmed by Steinberg based on diagnostic file.)
If going for a new MacBook Pro (I have already decided on a 4 core processor and 16GB RAM): does it make a big difference - in Dorico’s terms - wether I choose an i5 or i7 processor? I tend to run my computers for a long period (this MacBook Pro already for nearly 11 years). Thank you for an advice.
The i7 has Hyperthreading, giving you 8 ‘virtual’ cores, but the i5 is not going to be a limiting factor in the real world. Dorico should not trouble either of them.
ok, I decided for the i5 Quad-core, thank you for your help!
be careful withe the number of USB ports on the laptop … Mine has only 2 and that leads to problems
One does need to connect external devices like
- External Hard disk for backup
- Hard drive or USB key storing large amount of not changing date (like Sound samples) - that reduces backup times and required disk space
- USB key Internet through phone networks
- External printer
- USB key for external mouse / keyboard. Bluetooth ones exist but BlueTooth HW on my 2016 laptop doesn’t work reliably.
- last but not least Steinberg USB-eLicenser . Make sure you read and understand everything about it.
while 1 and 4 are only needed from time to time, 2, 3, 5, 6 may be needed simultaneously
The USB eLIcenser is not necessary if you only use Dorico on one computer.
I know from another thread that mhch4 has got into a tangle with the licensing system, but I have been running Dorico since version 1.0, and gone through several major Windows upgrades since then, and I don’t even HAVE a USB licencer.
One of my laptops only has two USB ports. A USB hub can be had for about £10/€13/$13 which nicely solves the problem. Go for a powered one, but experiment with which of your devices actually need the extra power and which don’t. That way you know whether you need the extra transformer in your bag when you’re working on the move (I don’t).