Future of Windows in pro audio

[audiojunkie]

Interesting! Personally, I have no preference, other than making sure my software purchases are are supported by the leading architecture. And as I said previously, Linux runs on all of it—including the M-series Apple chips.

However, remember: Windows is moving to ARM too, so they are not out of the game….yet.

[legendCNCD]

IF ARM can keep scaling, as it has, then it opens the real possibility that translation layers, which run X86 code on ARM, could be faster than running the X86 code natively. If it can get to that point then it’ll potentially have some pretty big implications for the Windows side of things.

Yeah I am thinking of getting ARM laptop next, but as someone said X86 is dead now, it sure does not seem so _yet_

[VitaminD]

Cubase is even releasing recent Windows on Arm builds of Cubase and Nuendo now.

I suspect we'll see a 5-10 year transitional period if somehow Arm does take shape more. People aren't going to drop their x86 hardware just because Arm is available. It's going to have to be so mature that it is seemless to what they come to expect (with x86).

And, more so if gaming isn't 1:1 between architectures, I think it will be a slower process to see adoption. Entertainment tends to direct society's direction.

[audiojunkie]

Linux is also damn fast, and solid. But is there quite the range of software at the moment? No.

And is the audiostack as solid? No. Sometimes graphics updates break low latency audio badly.

I've never experienced this, nor have I heard anything from anyone else about it. I wonder if you are thinking about the problems people used to have with Nvidia graphics cards and their closed source drivers. That caused some problems when people tried to do things like virtualization and such, but I never heard of it causing problems with audio.

But even that is largely a thing of the past now, since Nvidia open sourced their core drivers and the problem was mitigated. I'm unaware of any current graphics problems on anything now.

[Jim Roseberry]

My company builds custom PC DAWs professionally...

Then you owe it to your company and your clients to know what’s going on in Windows world. You seriously don’t know about the planned elimination of local accounts? You haven’t experimented at all with the Windows 26H1 previews since October?

Also, 26H1 will introduce a major shift towards ARM processors.

You're assuming a lot...

Let's talk about the real reason Microsoft wants folks to use a Microsoft Account.
That would be Data Mining.
Microsoft does it.
Google does it.
And... wait for it... Apple does it.

If someone thinks they're avoiding data mining by using Apple products, they'd be mistaken.
If someone thinks they're avoiding data mining by using Linux, they'd also be mistaken.

Google is building a massive "Cloud Facility" about 10 minutes from our house.
It looks more like a military compound than a "Data Center".
Massive cryogenic cooling towers, warehouse space the size of an automobile factory, etc.
That Cloud Facility has to be 10s of Billions of dollars for the land, construction, infrastructure.
Data Mining is Trillion dollar business.

Think your Apple products aren't mining your data?
Have your iPhone in close proximity... and talk about purchasing something obscure and expensive.
As a test, the wife and I were talking about Slingshots (three wheel motorcycle)... which we don't normally discuss. The next day, guess what ads were showing up on my phone, tablet, computer? It sounds tin-foil-hat... but it's happening.

Back to Local accounts:
Someone mentioned it wasn't possible to use a local account with Windows 11.
That's obviously incorrect.
You are assuming there won't be a means of using a Local account with future Windows 11 builds.
I don't care what Win11 preview builds suggest/insinuate. They're beta releases.
Remember the original install requirements for Win11? They've already been loosened... and there are 3rd party utilities if you wish to avoid them entirely.
I'll continue using Local accounts for as long as possible.
If/when the time comes where I can't... guess what I (and millions others) will do?
You guessed it... We'll use a Microsoft account.
Local account is a "moral victory"... but it's not a solution to the underlying problem.
That problem unfortunately isn't going away... and it's universal (not limited to MS).

Regarding ARM CPUs:
They're primarily for laptop and small form-factor machines... where power-management, battery-life, TDP, performance, and noise are a delicate multi-facet balance.
For the foreseeable future, power-users won't be choosing ARM.

[BBFG#]

My company builds custom PC DAWs professionally...

Then you owe it to your company and your clients to know what’s going on in Windows world. You seriously don’t know about the planned elimination of local accounts? You haven’t experimented at all with the Windows 26H1 previews since October?

Also, 26H1 will introduce a major shift towards ARM processors.

You're assuming a lot...

Let's talk about the real reason Microsoft wants folks to use a Microsoft Account.
That would be Data Mining.
Microsoft does it.
Google does it.
And... wait for it... Apple does it.

If someone thinks they're avoiding data mining by using Apple products, they'd be mistaken.
If someone thinks they're avoiding data mining by using Linux, they'd also be mistaken.

Google is building a massive "Cloud Facility" about 10 minutes from our house.
It looks more like a military compound than a "Data Center".
Massive cryogenic cooling towers, warehouse space the size of an automobile factory, etc.
That Cloud Facility has to be 10s of Billions of dollars for the land, construction, infrastructure.
Data Mining is Trillion dollar business.

Think your Apple products aren't mining your data?
Have your iPhone in close proximity... and talk about purchasing something obscure and expensive.
As a test, the wife and I were talking about Slingshots (three wheel motorcycle)... which we don't normally discuss. The next day, guess what ads were showing up on my phone, tablet, computer? It sounds tin-foil-hat... but it's happening.

Back to Local accounts:
Someone mentioned it wasn't possible to use a local account with Windows 11.
That's obviously incorrect.
You are assuming there won't be a means of using a Local account with future Windows 11 builds.
I don't care what Win11 preview builds suggest/insinuate. They're beta releases.
Remember the original install requirements for Win11? They've already been loosened... and there are 3rd party utilities if you wish to avoid them entirely.
I'll continue using Local accounts for as long as possible.
If/when the time comes where I can't... guess what I (and millions others) will do?
You guessed it... We'll use a Microsoft account.
Local account is a "moral victory"... but it's not a solution to the underlying problem.
That problem unfortunately isn't going away... and it's universal (not limited to MS).

Regarding ARM CPUs:
They're primarily for laptop and small form-factor machines... where power-management, battery-life, TDP, performance, and noise are a delicate multi-facet balance.
For the foreseeable future, power-users won't be choosing ARM.

I am surprised that it took them a whole day to send you "related" ads to to you though. My wife and I make jokes about a product and how ridiculous they are and the ads show up in less than five hours. And that's with all built in microphones turned off by default. And the only time I connect my studio computers to the net is the seconds it takes for a C/R.

And on the computers I use for downloads and social media I've learned if they start posting ads that disgust me (usually more about phishing than retrieved data), I will purposely go to an arbor nursery or wildlife so at least everything flashing is flora and fauna.

Off topically, my favorite ads are the unintentional meanings they didn't catch. Currently the one where the media to digital transfers start with the phrase, "do you have pictures and movies that are degrading..."
To which our automatic reply is "then you should probably burn them". But I swear hardly anyone gets the double entendre without explaining it to them.

Viva la airgap FBSD Dragonfly!

[keys_au1]

Just did a search on Dragonfly BSD, looks arcane, but interesting

[audiojunkie]

My company builds custom PC DAWs professionally...

.

If someone thinks they're avoiding data mining by using Linux, they'd also be mistaken.

EDIT: I may have misunderstood your comment, so I am revising my comment.

Data mining has been brought up in regards to cloud-based logins vs local logins for Windows. I don't know about Apple, but I suspect it scrapes data too. That said, I can assure you that this isn't the case with Linux. I can only assume, with your linux comment, that you are referring to the site scraping that occurs regardless of where you go on the internet, and not from within the OS itself.

While it is true that site scraping is hard to avoid in much of the internet, regardless of OS, it can still be largely mitigated by the careful and cautious. And this starts with an OS that doesn't scrape your data for the benefit of the company providing the OS. Of the big three OSes, only Linux has the ability to clearly state that none of that takes place within the OS itself.

I want to make sure that it is clear to everyone that Linux is different in this respect to the other OSes.

[jamcat]

Regarding ARM CPUs:
They're primarily for laptop and small form-factor machines... where power-management, battery-life, TDP, performance, and noise are a delicate multi-facet balance.
For the foreseeable future, power-users won't be choosing ARM.

But we’re talking about music creators, not “power-users.”

For music creators, noise IS a major factor. Power is much less a concern at this point. Any modern system can run hundreds of plugins in real-time, and what most people are doing is not that demanding. I work at 96kHz, reproduce a complete 24-channel signal chain of around 12 drum channels, 2 to 4 guitars, bass, vocals, and synths into a tracking console then into a mixing console, and often do mid-sized string sections physically modeled in real-time with SWAM. I’m on a 10-core M1 MacBook and could use a little more power in some fuller productions, but a 16-core M5 would more than suffice.

Having zero noise even under full load, and being able to throw my MacBook in a carry-on and board a plane to record and mix anywhere in the world makes my ARM-based laptop more valuable to me than anything you could build me. I used to build Windows machines, too, but that’s a bygone era now.

[Jim Roseberry]

Regarding ARM CPUs:
They're primarily for laptop and small form-factor machines... where power-management, battery-life, TDP, performance, and noise are a delicate multi-facet balance.
For the foreseeable future, power-users won't be choosing ARM.

But we’re talking about music creators, not “power-users.”

For music creators, noise IS a major factor. Power is much less a concern at this point. Any modern system can run hundreds of plugins in real-time, and what most people are doing is not that demanding. I work at 96kHz, reproduce the complete 24-channel signal chain of around 12 drum channels, 2 to 4 guitars, bass, vocals, and synths into a tracking console then into a mixing console, and often do mid-sized string sections physically modeled in real-time with SWAM. I’m on a 10-core M1 MacBook and could use a little more power in some fuller productions, but a 16-core M5 would more than suffice.

Having zero noise even under full load, and being able to throw my MacBook in a carry-on and board a plane to record and mix anywhere in the world makes my ARM-based laptop more valuable to me than anything you could build me. I used to build Windows machines, too, but that’s a bygone era now.

FWIW, I'm not out to sell you on anything.

You may not be a power-user... but a lot of my clients are (many compose for TV/Film).
As I've mentioned in other posts, I own the fastest Mac Studio and Macbook Pro currently available. They were purchased to run Lightkey (Mac only DMX lighting control).
They're no quieter than the 9950x based machine I'm using to write this message.
I can have a condenser mic a couple of feet away... and not pickup any noise.
A local client uses his machine in a voice-acting studio where he needs the noise-floor down at -70dB. When it comes to noise, he has to worry more about passing trucks/planes than his DAW.
Unless you've spent a lot on physical construction, an ambient noise-floor (never mind the DAW) of -70dB is hard to achieve.

Speaking strictly for myself (I am a power-user), there's no way I could stand using a MacBook Pro as my main workstation. I have half a dozen M.2 drives. The logistics would be a mess (5 tethered drives), I'd be leaving lots of disk performance on-the-table (vs internal), and I'd be dealing with noisy fans on faster M.2 enclosures. That's not even touching on performance.

My focus has (and always will be) on pushing performance limits.
I want to do things like run The Grandeur at 96k using a 32-sample ASIO buffer size.
I want to run the likes of Helix Native or ToneX at those same settings (1ms total round-trip latency - which is superior to the hardware processors).
Not only those things, but I want to do this within performance demands of full projects.
That requires speed, optimization throughout, and the DAW application itself plays a role.
ie: Cubase is wonderful for composing... but it's not ideal for this scenario.
I choose exactly what goes in... and how the machine as a whole is configured.

Regarding Windows:
Think about it rationally/logically... (whether you like the OS or not)
When Windows runs on 70+ percent of all computers, it's probably not going away any time soon.

FWIW, I'm not a fan of either Gates or Jobs.
I'm not much of a follower of anyone or anything.
I love music (what's driven me all these years).
I love technology (studied EE when younger).
I love solving problems.

[Jim Roseberry]

My company builds custom PC DAWs professionally...

.

If someone thinks they're avoiding data mining by using Linux, they'd also be mistaken.

EDIT: I may have misunderstood your comment, so I am revising my comment.

That said, I can assure you that this isn't the case with Linux. I can only assume, with your linux comment, that you are referring to the site scraping that occurs regardless of where you go on the internet, and not from within the OS itself.

This is correct.
Yes, you can circumvent data mining from the OS itself... but (unless you live isolated and cut-off with no Internet connection), you're subject to it via the Web, Smart Devices, etc.

[legendCNCD]

Linux is also damn fast, and solid. But is there quite the range of software at the moment? No.

And is the audiostack as solid? No. Sometimes graphics updates break low latency audio badly.

I've never experienced this, nor have I heard anything from anyone else about it.

I have experienced this and it was even not on a low latency audio. Also have experienced window manager getting sluggish when machine was on for days in a row. Mouse pointer started to move very slowly too, it was on nVidia gpu machine. Sure, this was a few years back.
It reminded me of W2k days, with VIA chipsets

[audiojunkie]

nVidia…yeah those cards have been a pain in the butt for years. I always avoided them. That’s probably why I never experienced the problem—I am very careful with what hardware I use. The good news is that it should no longer be a problem, since nVidia started open sourcing their drivers.

[dellboy]

So, after reading comments in this thread I splashed out and bought a new M4 Mac Mini on Friday. Before this I had been on Windows 11 on a laptop.

Like most things in life there are pros and cons do far. The Core Audio aspect is mostly a Pro, except I now have to "eject" the drive of my Kurzweil K2700 before shutting down? (it has a built in audio interface).

Folders seem to proliferate everywhere and I am constanly closing them. I gave up trying to install my Aruria software because it kept asking for my password over and over. Probably a lot of my problems are newbie, but in many ways I prefer Windows OS. I did manage to setup with just a local account though. Will things get better over time as I learn the OS?

[Grizzellda]

But even that is largely a thing of the past now, since Nvidia open sourced their core drivers and the problem was mitigated. I'm unaware of any current graphics problems on anything now.

Good graphic performance, in my view, is quite important. Also, a good modern PC! , (well, that's right...but still... a shout out to all Apple fans!)

Well if it can do good graphics then it will process audio efficiently, pretty sure.