KVR Audio

iDavid · Post by **iDavid** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 5:18 pm

Is there a benefit or draw-back for having windows on its own partition?

Hunter · Post by **Hunter** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 5:42 pm

i do this, it makes it really easy to reformat C/reinstall windows if it all goes pear shaped, or r-e-a-l-l-y slow as it does after a few months and loadsa software install/unistalls.

not sure about possible drawbacks myself though, probably some though!

jim

mmdejonge · Post by **mmdejonge** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 5:50 pm

My humble opinion:
You'll never completely separate windows and your applications. It's wise though to use the fastest partition available (usually the first one on a HD) and fix the length of the swapfile - about 2.5x internal memory will do fine in most cases. Also leave enough space available on that partition for your most used applications and put everything else (samples / vsti data maps etc) on other partitions / hd's.

Cheers,

Mike

DevonB · Post by **DevonB** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 6:33 pm

Microsoft would disagree with the 2.5.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.as ... duct=winxp

1.5 is correct. I've seen other MS articles say 1.5 to 2 times the size. Either way, I even disagree with them. If you have at least 512 megs of ram, disable the swap file, UNLESS an app comes back stating that you need it. So easy to reenable it anyway.

Although, I did find one article that said you can do a max of 4 times the size... but the article # was only 5 digits, and mentioned if you only had 4 megs of ram, you could do a 16 meg swap file... I think it's a little old.

Devon

Durk · Post by **Durk** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 7:02 pm

I totally agree. I'm using a partition of 4000 MB (the first one) for Windows. Easy reinstalling without backup issues.

I agree with DevonB considering the swap file issue. I've got mine on Windows 2000 Professional at 2 MB; the smallest one you can get in Windows 2000 without having Windows creating a temporary swap file.

The reason I'm using Windows 2000 is that it takes a little less memory than Windows XP. So there's some space left for samples..

Oh... it saves me an upgrade too!

Of course I've tuned the system nicely so that there's no unneeded proces running anymore.

DevonB · Post by **DevonB** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 7:08 pm

Durk wrote:The reason I'm using Windows 2000 is that it takes a little less memory than Windows XP.

A little? How much is it taking up for Win2k? I've noticed that a machine with 512 megs of ram and WinME can load in the exact same amount of samples in Gigastudio 2.5 than a WinXP machine with 768 megs can load. That's a huge overhead! That's even with Phyiscal memory saying I'm only taking up about 95 megs of ram for the instance of XP running.

Devon

iDavid · Post by **iDavid** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 7:19 pm

So, if I have windows on one partition and all my apps on another, then I end up reinstalling windows, my apps will still run OK. Won't the registry get screwed up and windows won't be able to find them after a reinstall?

mmdejonge · Post by **mmdejonge** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 7:38 pm

You'll have to reinstall most of your apps that use the registry, even if they are still on another partition. The registry is missing keys and windows is probably missing a lot of system files after a clean install. Maybe you should use ghost to create a standard image with windows and you're most used apps.

DevonB · Post by **DevonB** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 7:51 pm

After working for about 7 hours on Saturday with imaging my drive, and transferring over a couple of dozen VSTi's, it's not always as straightforward as you would hope. (swapped my 15 gig drive out for an 80 gig instead.)

Plus - I didnt' have to reinstall all my apps and the OS, and the drivers, etc etc etc.

Minus - Getting drive letter assignments right and having to start from scratch once really slowed me down. Also, quite a few plugins required re-auhtorization as well.

Anything with NI required me to redo my authorization in short, and all I changed was my hard drive, but kept the same drive letter even. Let's just say I'm GLAD I know Windows VERY well, and I still had issues, but I got them worked out in the end.

Devon

mmdejonge · Post by **mmdejonge** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 7:54 pm

DevonB wrote:Microsoft would disagree with the 2.5.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.as ... duct=winxp

Maybe I'm pushing my machine too hard. This is an interesting read as well:
http://www.petri.co.il/pagefile_optimization.htm

olepro · Post by **olepro** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 8:19 pm

I have two windows partitions.
One is used ONLY for making music and the other i´m using for all kinds of crab!
When i´m trying new programs i allways do it on the "crab" partition... that way i can test it before i install it on the music partition.
And another idea is to make a mirror off the music partition before installing any new programs so you can get back to where it worked if anything should go wrong.

Durk · Post by **Durk** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 8:19 pm

DevonB wrote:
Durk wrote:The reason I'm using Windows 2000 is that it takes a little less memory than Windows XP.
A little? How much is it taking up for Win2k? I've noticed that a machine with 512 megs of ram and WinME can load in the exact same amount of samples in Gigastudio 2.5 than a WinXP machine with 768 megs can load. That's a huge overhead! That's even with Phyiscal memory saying I'm only taking up about 95 megs of ram for the instance of XP running.

Devon

I didn't try XP, but I can imagine that if you both tune them to hell, the difference is not really huge anymore. Win2K and WinXP look more the same than WinME and WinXP. What kinda OS are you using Devon?

Durk

DevonB · Post by **DevonB** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 8:21 pm

Mike Almighty wrote:
DevonB wrote:Microsoft would disagree with the 2.5.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.as ... duct=winxp

Maybe I'm pushing my machine too hard. This is an interesting read as well:
http://www.petri.co.il/pagefile_optimization.htm

Looks like he said 1.5 pretty much throughout. Maybe I read it too fast? Either way, anything you do with teh paging file is reversable. Try it both ways, without, with, 1.5 the size, etc. and see what works best for your system. BUT, anything that takes away drive cycles from your audio, since it's real time, can cause pops and crackles. It just seems systems with like 256 megs of ram really benefit from the page file, but once you hit 512, in my experience, it really wasn't needed. YMMV, as always.

Devon

DevonB · Post by **DevonB** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 8:22 pm

Durk wrote:
I didn't try XP, but I can imagine that if you both tune them to hell, the difference is not really huge anymore. Win2K and WinXP look more the same than WinME and WinXP. What kinda OS are you using Devon?

Durk

XP and ME these days.

Devon

Durk · Post by **Durk** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 9:55 pm

DevonB wrote:
XP and ME these days.

Devon

Ah okay, anything against Windows 2000? Or don't you just own Windows 2000?

Sorry to ruin this thread... I'm way too curious, I suppose...