How will DAW builders (ADK/pcaudiolabs, etc) react to the new Ryzen?

[keyman_sam]

I'm curious what are the professional DAW builders reaction to the new Ryzen chips? Do you plan on incorporating them to your systems and/or passing down the savings to the customer? Excited about the new chips?

[Zexila]

Well, Kaine from SCAN contributed already.

viewtopic.php?p=6718770

[nIGhT-SoN]

I think most of them will wait for stable bios versions before reviewing.

[keyman_sam]

Well, Kaine from SCAN contributed already.

viewtopic.php?p=6718770

Yes - I saw that only after posting the thread.

Good to know a DAW builder is getting on it right away. However I visited their website and they're currently shipping Ryzen systems which has me wondering how they got it through QA and rigorous testing so quickly when the Ryzen-Windows quirks haven't been ironed out yet.

[Kaine]

Because the QA test's for hardware stability and to ensure the system is working within the established metrics, which to be fair it is.

As I mention in the coverage I did previously, the platform itself is perhaps the most stable I've handled in a long, long time at launch. I've not seen a single BSOD or driver hang in days of thrashing it.

It's just the performance of the CPU itself isn't up to scratch in certain scenarios, if those scenarios are a problem for you as a user that is up to your usage to dictate, we're just issuing the warning up front.

We wouldn't advise an Atom or a i3 for audio usage either, but if your determined to do it then we couldn't stop you buying it! I do have a stable spec however and acknowledging that some people will buy AMD regardless, I'd rather have a known working spec up that I know isn't going to fall over every 10 mins, rather than have people buy the gaming specs we sell instead and then be getting phone calls via my support desk asking why our gaming systems are not running stable with Ableton/FL/Cubase etc....

[wickfut]

rather than have people buy the gaming specs we sell instead and then be getting phone calls via my support desk asking why our gaming systems are not running stable with Ableton/FL/Cubase etc....

Why would a PC for gaming be unstable when running a DAW?

Wouldn't that mean that your gaming systems aren't set up correctly?

[bustedfist]

rather than have people buy the gaming specs we sell instead and then be getting phone calls via my support desk asking why our gaming systems are not running stable with Ableton/FL/Cubase etc....

Why would a PC for gaming be unstable when running a DAW?

Wouldn't that mean that your gaming systems aren't set up correctly?

More likely means he's done his homework and knows what works best for what. For one, who'd want a super graphics card with a fan whirring like a banshee? Others could be expansion slots, firewire/ thunderbolt support, the list goes on.

[Dominus]

rather than have people buy the gaming specs we sell instead and then be getting phone calls via my support desk asking why our gaming systems are not running stable with Ableton/FL/Cubase etc....

Why would a PC for gaming be unstable when running a DAW?

Wouldn't that mean that your gaming systems aren't set up correctly?

Or it could be that some BIOS/Windows tweaks are better for gaming performance than audio recording.

[wickfut]

More likely means he's done his homework and knows what works best for what. For one, who'd want a super graphics card with a fan whirring like a banshee? Others could be expansion slots, firewire/ thunderbolt support, the list goes on.

GPU fans don't make a noise unless the GPU is being taxed. GPUs don't get taxed running a desktop and DAW.

[edit] I'm bored . I just took out my SPL meter and measured the sound of my PC desktop vs PC off from my listening position with the SPL meter perched on the back of my chair..

Ambient room with the PC off is 36db
PC running desktop with all the fans is 38db,
a car passing outside raises the level to 41db.
Running the PC with a graphic benchmark (Valley) for 5 minutes doesn't make the fans kick in louder even though the temps hit 82' , so 38db

Or it could be that some BIOS/Windows tweaks are better for gaming performance than audio recording.

Which is why I asked. I'd rather he explained though rather than others speculate.

He did say that he deals with DAWs crashing gaming PCs though, which unless you have some daft unstable overclock or you've set something incorrectly, it shouldn't be any issue.

[Kaine]

He did say that he deals with DAWs crashing gaming PCs though, which unless you have some daft unstable overclock or you've set something incorrectly, it shouldn't be any issue.

Some hardware just doesn't play nicely with DAW software. Sometimes it comes down to BIOS options designed to push the performance (some performance tools on ROG boards), sometimes it comes down to driver required for hardware on the board (MSI boards with Killer NIC).

Some pump and fan monitoring software can do it, some of that is default on some of our gaming specs. Absolutely fine for gaming, absolute nightmare when you throw an ASIO device on it.

Our main concern remains DPC as Microsofts own "best practice" for driver writers says no more than 1000μs for each driver to execute in sequence within a cycle. So if you have 30 drivers in there all doing 800μs each, then that would be technically a pass as far as best practice goes.

For audio we need ALL drivers to complete the entire cycle within 1000μs other wise it'll glitch the audio, which means if you have 30 drivers running with 100μs latency rather than the more regular 10μs or less each then you're going to be pretty stuffed for stability.

Our gaming ranges are all overclocked and designed to make use of the bells and whistles, as such I don't know if they are going to be fine for audio usage. Completely different team here and I don't get a chance to test their rigs whilst they are testing.

And yes, I've dealt with customers who have bought a gaming machine, used it for a few years with no issues at all and then run into system halting issues the first time they plug in an audio I/O and fire up a DAW package.

[wickfut]

Thanks for the explaination Kaine. Just realised you're from Scan.

I have a dual boot PC with 6x drives in, 2 of which are for gaming and a general OS, the rest for DAW OS , song and sample libraries. The dual boot OS drives and their data drives are invisible to each other.

I guess I'm lucky , I've bought my last few PCs parts from yourselves and built them myself. The only bios settings I've ever had to play with are setting up the memory speeds correctly and turning off the onboard Intel GPU, then again, I've never installed some daft fan monitoring software or overclocked anything.

How would you know/check if drivers are cycling correctly? Do you have special monitoring software or is it something anyone can look at?

[chk071]

He did say that he deals with DAWs crashing gaming PCs though, which unless you have some daft unstable overclock or you've set something incorrectly, it shouldn't be any issue.

Some hardware just doesn't play nicely with DAW software. Sometimes it comes down to BIOS options designed to push the performance (some performance tools on ROG boards), sometimes it comes down to driver required for hardware on the board (MSI boards with Killer NIC).

Some pump and fan monitoring software can do it, some of that is default on some of our gaming specs. Absolutely fine for gaming, absolute nightmare when you throw an ASIO device on it.

Our main concern remains DPC as Microsofts own "best practice" for driver writers says no more than 1000μs for each driver to execute in sequence within a cycle. So if you have 30 drivers in there all doing 800μs each, then that would be technically a pass as far as best practice goes.

For audio we need ALL drivers to complete the entire cycle within 1000μs other wise it'll glitch the audio, which means if you have 30 drivers running with 100μs latency rather than the more regular 10μs or less each then you're going to be pretty stuffed for stability.

Our gaming ranges are all overclocked and designed to make use of the bells and whistles, as such I don't know if they are going to be fine for audio usage. Completely different team here and I don't get a chance to test their rigs whilst they are testing.

And yes, I've dealt with customers who have bought a gaming machine, used it for a few years with no issues at all and then run into system halting issues the first time they plug in an audio I/O and fire up a DAW package.

I really wished some people who constantly moan about their DAW performing poorly would take note of your points here. Maybe then they'd realize that it isn't as easy as blaming it entirely on the DAW (or the sequencer, to be precise).

[wickfut]

[
I really wished some people who constantly moan about their DAW performing poorly would take note of your points here. Maybe then they'd realize that it isn't as easy as blaming it entirely on the DAW (or the sequencer, to be precise).

Why? It's software and the problems are generally fixed with software updates.

My Cubase manual doesn't say you have to jump through hoops and fiddle with bios settings to get it working, neither do they issue refunds if you discover you have some sort of problem with incompatible hardware.

So yes , if your DAW software doesn't work on your PC and it's a fresh and correctly installed OS with the latest drivers and updates then it is entirely the DAWs fault.

[bustedfist]

Not bragging, just stating a fact, I've run Cubase for over a decade on multiple systems with no issues.

How can you expect a DAW company to test all the possible hardware/ software interactions with their product? People clamor for updates as it stands, imagine if you had to wait until every bit were tested before release? Add to that the vast research resources available today and responsibility falls to the individual to perform due dilligence before any purchase.

[PurpleSunray]

How can you expect a DAW company to test all the possible hardware/ software interactions with their product? People clamor for updates as it stands, imagine if you had to wait until every bit were tested before release? Add to that the vast research resources available today and responsibility falls to the individual to perform due dilligence before any purchase.

Sry dude.. but I do expect exactly that.
My DAW is the most expensive piece of software that is installed on my system.
It's no 0.99$ single-developer shareware crap, where I can fully understand that he cannot spend a lot of effort on quality control. No.. it's a company with hundert of employees, mio. of $$$ of revenue, expensive products.. in a business where is all about high quality / stable products (nobody wants to use unstable software for making music).
So you tell me that time to market is more important than quality? Hmm.. ok, maybe it is for you, but for me it isn't. I rather wait 1 month to get a stable product, instead of getting banana-software NOW!!

I can just repeat my experience with audio interfaces again, which nales it down perfeclty.
Was using Focusrite products for a long time, but with win10 and/or a PC update (don't know that cuased it) things stopped working. Audio crackles, blue-screens, auto-reply support responses and no driver updates from Focusrite, .. They obviously have not tested their stuff on system setup like mine, because there are tons of threads here at KVR, from users that report same issues with simliar setups.
After all that huzzle I decided to break with Focusrite and switch to RME.. and I was stunned how professional a company can act, compared to the last one. You can check about compatibility online, they even have 2 firmwares on theit interfaces to handle compatibility issues (PC vs Mac).
I wanted to get absolutly sure that this inteface works on my PC (because it's really expensive), so asked RME support and got a reply like "Hello. We have tested your mainboard + CPU + Windows 10 on our Testing Lab and can comfirm that all RME products are working properly". Yeah guys! That's what I expect as an answert.. not like "Please update your BIOS and chipset drivers" .. telling me that they have not even read my initial email.

So long story short.. that "it's not possible to test" is a myth introducd by software devs that are too lazy to test or to run a quality control team.