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Windows 11 for audio?

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cedricm

Cédric
I've been extremely reluctant to upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11.

However, according to this video, audio performances as tested by Dawbench* have increased 15-20 % at low buffer sizes on dsp tests, while similar with a loss at most of 5 % on AMD and 2 % on Intel on the virtual instruments tests.

For those who took the plunge, how do you like Windows 11 for composing, producing, mixing, mastering?

* AMD 5950X, Intel 11900K, RME Babyface.

Click to read more...
 
12900K, Win 11, RME UCXII absolutely flying! Using both Cubase 12 & Reaper.

Edit: was actually built by the guys in the video who I highly recommend
 
I've done the switch on three different machines (two laptops, one desktop) over the past few months and found no real-world difference. But then again, I've found no real-world differences in performance across CPUs and OSs for about the last decade. However, I don't use DAWBench as a reference, I have my own set of benchmark projects that span several different types of work (full orchestra, pop, etc.).

I have not found DAWBench results to be representative of real-world scenarios. The video editing guys have the Pugent Bench suite that does represent reality but we in the DAW world don't have anything equivalent. So keep that in mind and temper your expectations accordingly.

rgames
 
If this is true, I might update the OS on my DAW in due time. The other systems that I use are not compliant.

Funny, most of the reviews and tests I've seen so far say that the performance of 10 & 11 is comparable in most cases. However, there is also a lot of talk about performance issues, especially with AMD Ryzen 7 (which is what I'm using). This is likely fixed by now, but I'm careful.

In general, the only thing that really draws me toward W11 is a more consistent look and the fact that W10 won't be supported in the future.
 
One thing that does worry me with Win 11 is people reporting DAWs not playing nice with the latest update (22H2). I'm avoiding it for now, but has anyone had any issues with it?
 
inthevoid said:
One thing that does worry me with Win 11 is people reporting DAWs not playing nice with the latest update (22H2). I'm avoiding it for now, but has anyone had any issues with it?
Click to expand...
Not sure if it's the latest S1 build or Win11 or what, but, yes, I'm getting more glitching that I can't track down - S1 shows red, I hear the glitch, but S1 doesn't indicate what caused it, and either does LatencyMon even though it's running.
 
I've noticed no difference working with 10 and 11. The upgrade went extremely smooth, the only thing I had to relearn is the new task bar where the icons are not in the left corner any more but in the center, 25 years of muscle memory and I always looked for the icons from the bottom left, took months to get used to them being in the center.
 
AceAudioHQ said:
I've noticed no difference working with 10 and 11. The upgrade went extremely smooth, the only thing I had to relearn is the new task bar where the icons are not in the left corner any more but in the center, 25 years of muscle memory and I always looked for the icons from the bottom left, took months to get used to them being in the center.
Click to expand...
Change it to left in seconds!
 
Windows 11 has been fine for music production for me. No trouble with FL Studio (Not sure if I noticed much of an upgrade in performance.) You can try it out and then easily revert back within 10 days of updating if you don't like it or if there is a problem. I'd also recommend using software to clone your C drive beforehand.
 
For the people having problems after windows update, check the power plan and make sure its not in "economic" or power saving mode, it hapened to me that i had a power plan focused on performance and high energy, and after the update it changed to "economic" mode, that was limiting the power on my cpu andni was having audio dropouts, after i changed the power plan for the high performance it works like it should with no audio drop outs
 
Here Cubase 12 and Acoustica 7 are working fine in Windows 11 (i7-12700, 64GB). For video editing and other creative endeavors I don't have any glitches either, so I'd say it's all good, but I can't talk about performance changes because my current machine is quite different from the previous Windows 10.
 
Xabierus Music said:
For the people having problems after windows update, check the power plan and make sure its not in "economic" or power saving mode, it hapened to me that i had a power plan focused on performance and high energy, and after the update it changed to "economic" mode, that was limiting the power on my cpu andni was having audio dropouts, after i changed the power plan for the high performance it works like it should with no audio drop outs
Click to expand...
Yeah that's a good point - I didn't have any issues with my desktop but Win 11 seems to handle power plans very differently on laptops. I've always used the "Steinberg Power Plan" on my laptops but had to disable it with Win 11. It was a crackling disaster, at least it was with a 12th gen CPU.

Also, at least when I was making the switch a few months ago, Win 11 lets you change stuff in the power plan that doesn't actually do anything on a laptop. I always used to do everything from the "Power Plan" setting in the control panel but on laptops there's another place where you set power options in Win 11 - I think you can right-click on the battery to go right to it. The control panel settings sometimes have no effect depending on the setting in the other location. That confused the crap out of me for a good two hours or so. Bad software design...
 
vitocorleone123 said:
Not sure if it's the latest S1 build or Win11 or what, but, yes, I'm getting more glitching that I can't track down - S1 shows red, I hear the glitch, but S1 doesn't indicate what caused it, and either does LatencyMon even though it's running.
Click to expand...
Thanks, that's good to know. I might hold off on updating for the time being in that case!
 
I only tried W11 on my laptop and I don't see any performance gain. The only difference is extreme battery drain. From about 10 hours of heavy use to max 3h of using Teams or Web browsing. I see that others also having this problem and there's no solution for now.
It's even draining battery when laptop is supposed to be shut down. Apparently normal shut down is not shutting down PC like it was in previous Windows versions.
W11 - the most eco friendly OS in the world 😁
 
pixel said:
I only tried W11 on my laptop and I don't see any performance gain. The only difference is extreme battery drain. From about 10 hours of heavy use to max 3h of using Teams or Web browsing. I see that others also having this problem and there's no solution for now.
It's even draining battery when laptop is supposed to be shut down. Apparently normal shut down is not shutting down PC like it was in previous Windows versions.
W11 - the most eco friendly OS in the world 😁
Click to expand...
Quite extreme.
Did you try:

Running Power troubleshooter
Enabling battery power saver
Disabling fast start
Disabling Bluetooth & WiFi when not using them
Stop apps from refreshing in the background
Lower the refresh rate for your display
Use a dark background or theme
Decrease time for lock screen timeout
Video Playback : Optimize for battery
Lower screen brightness
Disable autostart apps
 
cedricm said:
Quite extreme.
Did you try:

Running Power troubleshooter
Enabling battery power saver
Disabling fast start
Disabling Bluetooth & WiFi when not using them
Stop apps from refreshing in the background
Lower the refresh rate for your display
Use a dark background or theme
Decrease time for lock screen timeout
Video Playback : Optimize for battery
Lower screen brightness
Disable autostart apps
Click to expand...
I'm a heavy OS tweaker since Windows 2000 :) I did what I could. No difference.
After seeing how my wife is working with audio on her Mac without any problems I decided that after over 20 years with Windows it's time to abandon this sinking ship. Win7 was the last version that I enjoyed. Since then MS is doing more and more user unfriendly OS. I'm done 😀
 
pixel said:
I'm a heavy OS tweaker since Windows 2000 :) I did what I could. No difference.
After seeing how my wife is working with audio on her Mac without any problems I decided that after over 20 years with Windows it's time to abandon this sinking ship. Win7 was the last version that I enjoyed. Since then MS is doing more and more user unfriendly OS. I'm done 😀
Click to expand...
I'm quite satisfied with Windows 10.
With it, I'm using hardware designed for Windows XP. A compatibility I would never get on Mac.
 
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