Optimizing Windows XP for audio applications

Starting from November 2001 one will hardly be able to acquire a new PC on 
which Windows XP is not pre-installed. Before this background and additionally 
in view of the fact that the new Windows XP interface has made a giant leap 
forward compared to Windows 9x/ME and Windows 2000 it is now time to take 
a closer look at the new Windows regarding the application of audio software.

This article deals with preparing the PC for Windows XP and then preparing 
Windows XP for audio software. It will include detailed optimization hints.
There is no equivalent site on the net [yet]. However, since many musicians 
will encounter this new operating system sooner or later it is not a bad idea to 
take a look regardless. 
The hints stated here are no secrets and may be passed on freely if a reference
to the original web page is included. it is recommended to link to this page instead,
however, since additions to this site are to be expected - I like to learn new things,
too.

Version questions - XP Home or Professional? 

Whether to use the Home or Professional version, is up to you. Basically, the Home 
edition is completely sufficient if the computer is not to be merged into a network 
domain - and Domain Controllers are pretty uncommon in the studio or at home. 
The missing backup program represents the only remarkable difference. 
Also the missing possibility is of assigning access rights at file level isn't too bad
since a PC optimized for professional audio use will usually be a single workstation 
computer anyway.
Nevertheless: Windows XP Professional is only insignificantly more bloated than its 
predecessors; all said here therefore applies to both the Home and the Professional 
version. And again: The version choice is completely up to you and solely depends 
on your past operating system (and its update possibilities) and the size of your 
wallet. Hint: You should invest in 512mb or, better, 768mb RAM - shouldn't be a 
problem at current low RAM prices. You can get away with 256MB RAM if you are 
not planning to use any software samplers.

pic caption: Cubase VST under Windows XP

Preparing for installation

Before you install, you should download all necessary drivers for your PC hardware 
from the Internet. Rule of thumb here: Drivers written for Windows 2000 will work
for Windows XP 90 per cent of the time. Drivers written for Windows 9x/ME don't
work at all and drivers for Windows NT 4 sometimes work if you are persistent and
if ACPI is deactivated (see further below).
If there is no Windows 2000 or XP driver for a certain component available and there
is none planned either than your unfortunate choices are either to stick with Windows
9x/ME or to get rid of the old bugger and buy a supported alternative product.
Especially old scanners and ISA audio cards are at the top of this list.
Subsequent costs for new hardware can also develop. That is exactly the reason why
should do a driver search *before* you get Windows XP.

In any case you should locate these:

Ø Driver for your graphics adapter
Ø Driver for your audio/sound card/adapter
Ø Driver for your MIDI INTERFACE 
Ø Driver for your scanner, if applicable

The last three are usually the ones which pose most problems and only the most 
recent driver for your graphics adapter will ensure maximum performance in Windows
XP.

Update or full installation on a (wiped) harddrive ?

Another simple rule of thumb: An update is worthwile if are using Windows 2000 so far;
there are rarely any (unsolvable) problems encountered here. The only thing you should
do before you update is uninstall any software capable of CD burning for safety reasons. 
You can reinstall the software after the update - provided it is Windows XP compliant.
If in doubt check the manufacturers website. Nero 5.x works, so does CDRwin 3.7(+) and
Steinberg's Wavelab is burning to roast your CD-R's under Windows XP again, too.

For those updating from Windows 9x/ME we strongly recommend a parallel installation into 
a new folder or, better yet, a separate partition of your harddrive. That way you can revert 
to your old system if the XPeriment fails and save yourself from a lot of trouble with 
incompatible software, drivers and other settings. Once you have Windows XP all set up and 
running to your satisfaction you can safely delete the old Windows folder from your harddrive 
and its path from your BOOT.INI and you'll end up with a fresh Windows XP install. Yet another 
hint: You must reinstall all applications in Windows XP when you do a parallel installation.

During the installation 

There is one thing to look out for during the installation. After the first reboot you are 
at some point prompted to press the key ' F6 ' in order to install additional drivers for 
mass storage devices. At this point you should definitely press the key 'F5' instead.
A little later an on-screen menu will be displayed leaving you a choice between an
' ACPI-PC ' and a ' standard PC '. It is crucial to select 'standard pc' at this stage. 
ACPI simply creates too many problems and is inclined to configure all PCI cards on one
INTERRUPT (IRQ) which has been proven as a performance killer. 
Later during the installation you are asked which file system you system to use. If you 
are doing a parallel installation with Windows 9x/ME leave everything with FAT32. 
If your PC is set up as a single workstation computer, which a dedicated audio PC should
be, you should also select FAT32 for all partitions; it offers small performance advantages
to NTFS. Same applies if you use the Home Edition of Windows XP; the crucial advantage 
of NTFS, the possibility of assigning access rights at file level doesn't work here anyway.

If you also use your PC to browse the internet or have/are part of a LAN and own the
Professional version of Windows XP you should select NTFS for all partitions except for
those which are to accommodate your audio data later. Only NTFS can limit access rights
to your files and therefore secure your files against inadvertent modifications from the
outside. The earlier said performance difference is not as substantial to sacrifice this
security. The largest advantage to formatting the audio partition with FAT32: defrag-
menting is substantially faster and this is something one should do regularly anyway.

During the installation Windows XP will ask you who later will be using your computer.
At this point you should create two user accounts. Call one 'music' and another 
'work'. Our optimizations will concentrate on the 'music' account. The good thing
about XP: Contrary to Win9x/ME user accounts are really to a large extent indepen-
dent. While the user 'work' can later enjoy all the nice little gadgets that XP comes
with we will try to lean down the interface on our 'music' account as much as possible
in order to gain maximum performance from the OS. For those coming from Windows
2000 this will be an old hat but Windows 9x/ME users can now benefit from this feature
for the first time.

After log-on

Once logged on as 'music' install your graphics adapter driver if Windows XP hasn't
already done so and set up your displays settings. Next are drivers for your MIDI
INTERFACES and audio cards/adapters. You should assign user 'music' administrative
rights if you are using the Professional version (default anyway). The reason is: You
can only burn CDs under Windows XP if you are logged on with administrative rights.
And who wants to log off just to secure their work ?

Check the Windows XP tutorial that will be displayed after successful installation if
you like. Next thing to do is get rid of Windows Messenger because it can be a real
ressource hog. To do this you use a right-click on its icon in the task tray and select
'open'. If an assistant pops up just cancel it. Now you can deactivate automatic start
under TOOLS -> OPTIONS -> PREFERENCES -> 'Run this program when windows starts'.
Now you can close Windows Messenger (right-click on its icon and 'Exit'). Simply shutting
it down wouldn't suffice - it would be loaded again next time you log on to Windows XP.

Display properties
Let's zap all those fancy visuals now. Right-click on your desktop and select 'properties'.
First select the tab 'Themes' and choose your work theme. I couldn't find any big
performance differences between the old style and new (XP) style interfaces.
Click on 'Apply' if you made any changes and would like to keep them. If you modify
your theme later you will need to adjust all settings again. System sounds will also
be restored then (which should be disabled). The original author prefers the new XP 
interface with the blue theme.

pic: Display properties in Windows XP

Next you need to deselect your screen saver (choose 'none') on the appropriate tab
Adjust your energy saving functions for to 'always on' while you're there, too, and
make sure the 'Settings for Always On' for both your monitor and hard drives are set
to 'never' turn off. The appearance tab hosts two buttons. Click on the upper button
('effects') and turn off everything you don't really need - basically all of it. Once you
have made your settings click on OK and confirm the following dialogue. Now on to
the lower button 'Advanced' on the appearance tab. Clicking on it will bring up another
window. You should reduce the size of the 'active title bar' from 25 to 20 points to save
some space if you are using the new Windows XP theme. You can now click on OK and
then 'apply' your changes.

Let's kill that windows sound scheme now. Select 'Sounds and Audio Devices' in the
control panel and switch to the 'sounds' tab. Choose the 'No Sounds' sound scheme
and click on OK. Now open display properties again and save all your settings as a
new 'theme'. Give it a descriptive name like 'Music Theme'. This way you can easily
revert back to your settings later if anything goes wrong.

Speeding up the system

Now on to some important system adjustments. Select 'performance and maintenance' 
from the control panel and then 'system' or simply 'system' from the control panel if you 
are using the classic windows theme. In contrast to the last section all settings made 
here apply to all users of this computer.

First thing to do is switch to the 'System Restore' tab and turn off system restore
for all drives - audio performance in Cubase will degrade substantially should Windows 
attempt to write a system restore check point while recording. Now switch to the
'Advanced' tab and click on the performance setting button to bring up a new window
with checkboxes for visual effects. Choose 'adjust for best performance' and then 
switch to the 'advanced' tab to set up processor scheduling. Choose to adjust for
best performance of background services (programs is default) to ensure best latency
with ASIO drivers in Cubase (ed.: ASIO drivers run as background services). On that 
same tab, you can also set up your PC to use no page file (virtual memory) at all by
clicking on the 'change' button and seleting 'no page file' in the next dialog.
This is only advisable, however, if your system has more than 512MB ram. Your PC might
get just a little bit slower after this but on the other hand Windows won't constantly
write to your page-file anymore which is much more important than a few per cent of
more performance. Two tips for this:

1. Don't abuse your system to the extreme when you are not using a page file. Cubase 
should not be wasting more than 250MB of your 512MB RAM even with all plugins and samples 
loaded so you still have enough RAM for the cache left. Should you be in the lucky position 
to own 768MB RAM you may assign up to 450MB of it to Cubase. You can check how much memory 
an app consumes by calling the task manager (right-click on taskbar and choose 'task manager' 
or the old CTRL+ALT+DEL). You never know how Windows might react when you are running out of 
memory. One time you just get a message and next time you might loose all your work and have 
+to force-quit Cubase.

2. Diagnostic programs like 'Sandra' will still report a page file of 100-250MB, though, but if 
you start a search for it on your PC you won't find it anywhere. Windows seems to dynamically 
reserve a certain percentage of your RAM as a page file (similar to a RAM disk) when you prohibit 
the use of an actual page file. This might also be the reason for the slight performance loss when
not using a page file as memory pages will require more shifting around that way. And this is most
likely also the reason why you are able to run Windows XP without a page file in the first place 
since some programs would not run with former versions of Windows if it was disabled while these 
same programs work perfectly well in Windows XP with page file disabled.

Once you have disabled you page file you will need to restart your PC to apply the changes.

Zapping - Fast user switching 

Windows XP offers a completely new function, too: While one user is logged on 
another can logon without having to logoff the first user. The applications 
that the first user started will keep running in the background so he can 
continue where he left off once the second user logs off again.

While this feature is pretty neat for companies and such it is a ressource-hog 
for any audio PC. All those programs running in the background require CPU performance 
and, even worse, use up your RAM which should be put to better use by filling it 
up with samples instead, right ? So there you have the reason why you should 
disable this feature. You can do this in your control panel under 'user accounts',
'change the way users log on or off' and then disabling 'fast user switching'.

Services ...

Perhaps the newest thing to all users migrating from the Windows 9x/ME family 
are the system services. This means all those background processes running on your
PC that Windows will start without ever asking you. Services are started when you boot
Windows - even before the logon screen. This has many advantages. An example: You don't
need to log on to a PC locally if it's on a network as its server service will already
be started and you may log on to the machine from a remote PC if you have the necessary
user priviliges and the machine is running at all (obviously).

Now, before millions of Windows 9x users try to jump out of the window: These services
will be totally transparent to you as they run in the background. Windows XP features 
improved multi-tasking so they won't harm audio performance much, either. In fact, these
services do not do anything most of the time. Many of them are still essential for Windows
to function properly, though. 

Nevertheless we will now disable some of the unnecessary servoces. The reason for 
this is simple: Each running service requires some memory which we should find a 
better use for instead (eg. loading additional HALion samples). First of all we will
need to check which services are already active.

You can find a list of them by selecting the 'Administrative Tools' from the control
panel and then choosing services. Each service will have a short description and tell
you its start-up type and whether it is running (and therefore using memory) or not.
The start-up type 'automatic' means the service will start when the PC is booted.
'Manual' will start the service once a user and/or program calls it while 'disabled'
means that the service will not start at all. You can edit the properties of a service
by double-clicking on its name. Some services cannot be disabled for safety reasons - 
these are the ones without which the usefulness of Windows would be degraded to that
of a light bulb.

But STOP: Don't just stop or disable any services without knowing what they are for
and whether other services or programs depend on them (yes, that's possible). For ease
of use just stick to the translator's services list provided below which has some major
tweaking applied to it already.


pic: An example configuration for system services on Windows XP

There are some things left to consider, though. Many virus scanners for Windows 2000
and XP will install their guard programs as system services while some will leave you 
a choice (ie. Kapersky AVP) which is generally the better solution. You should
manually stop these services before starting Cubase to further enhance your performance.

Reboot your computer once you are done. If everything went well your PC should now
start Windows XP just as before but with much better performance. You are now set to
finally make some music. Have fun with Windows XP.

Autostart of programs under Windows XP 

Just like with other Windows versions some programs that are started automatically
during boot-up might also use different means to accomplish this than the system 
services. To see which programs get loaded click on Start -> Run and type in 
'msconfig' (without the quotes) and click on OK. This little application will allow 
you to disable some of these programs in order to determine which ones of them are 
not needed by you. Many programs will indicate their actual usefulness in their name.
Something else: If you really need MS Office on your machine by all means deinstall
or deactivate (in msconfig) the 'indexing service' for all drives.

Common mistakes when using Windows XP

- You choose a different theme for your desktop but forget to disable system
sounds afterwards. Result: Cubase looses sync every time you click on a menu
item. Solution: Select the 'no sound' sound scheme.
- You set up the classics windows theme for your dektop and expect a massive
performance increase which does not occur - at least the original author
didn't feel a difference while the translator of this article could bet it
does. So whether you choose the blue, olive, silver or classic theme - it's
completely up to you and you should not feel any performance differences on
any recent hardware.
- You would like to limit the amount of RAM Windows uses as cache to 2MB so
you edit the [vcache], MaxFileCache and MinFileCache entries in your SYSTEM.INI
file as you did with Windows 98. Unfortunately this doesm't work. The only
thing you can do to alter cache settings is hidden in the control panel but you
should try to avoid messing with it. Absolute numbers can't be entered there
anyway.


Created 09.10.2001 
Last update 18.10.2001 (translation date)

TRANSLATED BY Q-RIOS


I'd like to thank the translator for the hard work, and hope all english friends 
will find this text useful. Best regards, Timo

This text is a translation taken from 'Timos Cubase VST Home'
The original text is in german language.

The download section might interest you (most of the time available):
www.timos-welt.de/weiter2.htm