KVR Audio

djsubject · Post by **djsubject** » Sun May 05, 2013 11:27 am

Hay All!

Not Trolling!! real question,

i am happy with win 7 sp1, but my mate keeps BANGING on about Win 8,

some of the claims are hard to believe! (30% more plugin power on the same PC just by installing windows 8?)

if there is a good thread about this please point me to it & accept my apology for not finding it when searching Google)

i have a new Rig with 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 Ram & a Intel Core i7 3770K Processor, so i'm happy with the power i have already (i can easy clock this system up to 5GHz. Not that i need to!)

i find the win8 start menu ugly to use with a mouse but i can live with cosmetics!

thanks for your time!

Subz

djsubject · Post by **djsubject** » Sun May 05, 2013 11:35 am

& i use a Focusrite Pro 14 Firewire audio card i read there are problems with Firewire in windows 8?

Subz

julioelgenio · Post by **julioelgenio** » Sun May 05, 2013 12:37 pm

You do see an improved CPU usage but not that dramatic, 8 is streamlined with newer code so there would be no reason it wouldn't help. I personally use windows 8 as if I still had 7, I can't really tell a difference seeing that I just use my computer to make music and browse the web.

Cimbasso · Post by **Cimbasso** » Sun May 05, 2013 1:01 pm

bmanic · Post by **bmanic** » Sun May 05, 2013 1:11 pm

djsubject wrote:& i use a Focusrite Pro 14 Firewire audio card i read there are problems with Firewire in windows 8?

Subz

Any device that requires the Windows LEGACY fire wire driver can not function in windows 8 unless you find a specific fire wire card which includes that driver and can install it onto windows 8. I think somebody found a solution here a few weeks ago..

Anyhow, if it works with normal FW drivers then I do recommend windows 8. For my taste it's a definite step up from Windows 7, mainly the quick shutdown and boot is a real blessing at home.

Cheers!
bManic

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Sun May 05, 2013 2:09 pm

Gonga · Post by **Gonga** » Sun May 05, 2013 2:52 pm

SIIG makes a PCI-e card that works great under Win8 64, but you don't need drivers - it doesn't ship with any either. So Windows 8 64-bit has native Firewire drivers apparently, contrary to what we've heard.

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 76#5344476

I prefer Win8, but I do use the freeware Classic Start Menu with it. If you have a nice big Synaptics touchpad for 2, 3 and 4-finger gestures, that helps a lot. Some of the free apps available are pretty cool already...icing on the cake.

murnau · Post by **murnau** » Sun May 05, 2013 3:12 pm

djsubject wrote:some of the claims are hard to believe! (30% more plugin power on the same PC just by installing windows 8?)

D-Fusion · Post by **D-Fusion** » Sun May 05, 2013 3:13 pm

I tried windows 8 2 times and are back in win 7 again.
1'st time i had many problems with some of the programs i use (Not music related).
I also lost connection with my Focusrite Scarlet and sometimes when watching a movie i got garbled sound.

Second time i tried i did all the updates right after installing win 8 and then it decided that it didn't want to boot after restart and using windows repair didn't work either.

So i will wait for Windows blue and see if that will fix those problems.

And before you ask. Yes i have a brand new motherboard that is built for windows 8

bmanic · Post by **bmanic** » Sun May 05, 2013 5:02 pm

Gonga wrote:SIIG makes a PCI-e card that works great under Win8 64, but you don't need drivers - it doesn't ship with any either. So Windows 8 64-bit has native Firewire drivers apparently, contrary to what we've heard.

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 76#5344476

I prefer Win8, but I do use the freeware Classic Start Menu with it. If you have a nice big Synaptics touchpad for 2, 3 and 4-finger gestures, that helps a lot. Some of the free apps available are pretty cool already...icing on the cake.

Aren't Native drivers and "legacy mode" two different things? Some interfaces require windows to use the legacy driver/firewire mode, this is apparently not possible in Windows 8.

Gonga · Post by **Gonga** » Mon May 06, 2013 12:33 am

I didn't realize that. In any case, Windows 8 has drivers for this card, which works like a charm for me so far. I run 16 discrete channels of digital audio with low latencies. On the other hand, I had an old PCI Firewire800 card that used to use Windows XP native drivers, and it didn't work properly in Win8 64-bit.

My old Gigabyte x58 motherboard had a TI firewire chip on it, and that worked with Win8 64-bit before I got the new MB. Not sure what that means...

I do know that Win8 uses the same WDM driver model that began with Vista and Windows 7. But from what you're saying, it sounds like it no longer ships with specific drivers for older legacy models?

We currently have three Win8 machines in the house. They are the most popular, and fastest, PCs we have. My tower is a monster of a self-modded PC. For example, it has 17 drive bays and 10 fans, and it's not really all that noisy either.

It's a mod of this case - highly recommended if you want a case that'll last for many years and can do anything.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811112387

xNiMiNx · Post by **xNiMiNx** » Mon May 06, 2013 2:19 am

30% boost? Are we talking fresh install of win7 compared to the fresh install of 8? Or are we talking some skanky, years old, win7 that hasnt been cleaned and maintained?

Ive seen ~30% improvements in performance on same hardware, even with the same OS installed, with a fresh install.

An old OS with installed/uninstalled software, drivers, web browsing, etc, leaving junk, vs fresh install, isnt much of a comparison, no?

You said youre happy with 7, so my vote is dont upgrade.

UltraJv · Post by **UltraJv** » Mon May 06, 2013 11:16 am

I compared win 7 to win 8 a while ago on same PC, no more CPU advantage but things were a bit snappier to open. Startup and shutdown were quicker than 7.

paterpeter · Post by **paterpeter** » Mon May 06, 2013 11:28 am

I updated all my systems to Win 8 during the cheap intro price period, mostly because I'm a developer and I'm more or less required to own the latest stuff. I prefer it over Win 7. Win 8 feels a tad faster and has a couple of nice improvements over Win 7. But there's no pressing need to upgrade to 8 if the Win 7 system runs fine. If you had neither and nothing speaks against it (drivers), I'd say pick Win 8. But in your case, stay with what you have.

electro · Post by **electro** » Mon May 06, 2013 11:45 am

I don't believe there will be any significant performance difference between W7 and W8

Where are the benchmarks that show a performance difference?

Win 8 or stick with 7?