Tascam Computer Hardware manual

Optimizing W indows 2000 a nd Win dows XP for Aud io Introduction ................................................................................................................... .............. 2 Deciding on an OS .............................................................................................................. ....... 3 Windows XP ?[...]

2 Introduction Many of our users have asked us for an update on Dave Casey’ s excellent article on PC optimization for audio. They’ve o bserved that, while the hardw are info in the article is useful for all P C users, the article is heavily focus ed on Windows 98 and Windows ME, the dominant operating sy stems when the article was w ritten. A [...]

3 Deciding on an OS Should you opt for Windows 2000 or a version of XP? Windows 2000 has been around longer and many pros consider it more stable. It’s true that XP’s still working out some o f the kinks, but by and large it’s pro ving to be pretty robus t. W2k has had more time in us e, thus benefits from more us ers’ problem reports and ([...]

4 Update or fresh install? Generally speaking, a fresh install on a wiped hard drive is the best insurance against potential problems; lef tover registry items and other orphaned legacy f iles can lurk in you r system for months, only to cau se unanticipated conflicts with a newly-installed program or driver at a later date. Unless you are upgradin[...]

5 Preparing for installation Even after confirming that the computer you want to install X P or 2000 on meets Microsoft’s recommended minimum specifications , yo u still may wish to do a little more investigating before you attempt an install or an upgrade, to make sure that all of y our hardware is compatible w ith Windows XP or 2000. There are [...]

6 Before you begin the install, it’s a goo d idea to download all necessary drivers for you r PC hardware from the I nternet. Pay particular attention to drivers for yo ur graphics adapter, and any au dio and MIDI interfaces. A s well, make su re your printer, CD burner and any other peripherals are covered. If you’ll be using the computer fo r[...]

7 Booting from CD You will need to tell your computer to boot fro m the Windows CD-RO M instead of yo ur (presu mably blank and format ted) hard drive. To do so , yo u must access y our computer’s BIOS (u sually hitting DELETE key during boot u p will access the BIOS; some computers us e F8 or another key, so check your computer’s documentation[...]

8 One other interesting point: NTFS can read the "resou rce fork" of SDII files from MacOS, and can t herefore recognize t he timecode stamps used in these files; FAT( 32) can’t do this. If you do a lot of work wit h Pro Tools or other MacOS-bas ed DA W applicat ions , yo u should consider at least one NTF S partition in your system. (N[...]

9 Dual Boot The compatibility w ith legacy (older) software in Windows 2000 and XP is considerably more restricted compared with Windows 9x; this is intentionally designed to insu re stability against any kind of application failure. I f an inco mpatible program is run, Windo ws 2000 or XP will stop it as so on as it tries to access that program. I[...]

10 Multiple Users While Win9x also off ers the option of setting up multiple users o n a single compu t er, the implementation under W2k and XP offers far more independence between these multiple user accou n ts. If you will be using y our compu t er for mu ltiple functions, it’s a good idea to set up s eparate user accounts fo r audio applicatio[...]

11 System Performance Tweaks – Stuff to Do After Installing Windows Messenge r One of the ‘features’ of XP is the deeper integrat ion of Windows Messenger. While Messenger may be u seful for on-line communication, it’s a real res ource hog; w e recommend disabling it for audio use. To do this, right-click on its ico n in the task t ray and [...]

12 Display properties While pretty photos and animated graphics are fun, t hey als o contribute to bo gging down your lean mean audio machine. A nd in keeping with Microso ft’s tradition o f making looks a high priority , those fancy visuals are programmed t o t ake pro cessing priority away from what w e co nsider important, process ing audio. D[...]

13 Now disable visual effects. Select the “Appearance” tab, click t he Effects bu tton and disable "Use transition effects…". It's also a good idea to disable "Show window contents while dragging". Now select the “Settings” tab. Set y our display color quality to 16Bit. Setting it to a higher (24 or 32 bit) depth [...]

14 Next select t he ‘Screen Saver’ tab. Screen savers generally tend to kick in when you least wa nt them to; we recommend choosing None. On the same page, select you r monitor power saving options. Windows usually defaults t o relatively short times of inactivity before shutting off your mo nitor and hard disk and activating hibernate mode. We[...]

15 System Restor e Windows is set up to write periodic “restore check points” so that, in the event of a crash or a corrupted file, your system can restore to its mos t recent functional settings. Some users recommend disabling sy st em restore to improve performance. NOTE that this is not recommended unless you ma ke regular system ba ckups. T[...]

16 performance of backgro und services” to ens ure lowest latency with A SIO-based drivers (A SIO drivers run as backgrou nd services in Windows). W2K: Right click on My Computer and choose Properties. Select the Advanced Tab, then click the Performance Button. C hange the mode from A pplication Response to Background Services Virtual memory Wind[...]

17 NOTE: Some users advise disabling virtual memory fo r increased performance. We do not recommend this unless you have at least 512 MB of RAM. Even then, note that this is not practical for all systems, as it can t end to make s ome machines less stable. That said, if y ou choo se to disable virtual memory y ou can do so on the same page ( Contro[...]

18 machine. A ll those applications running in the background require s ome degree of CPU usage, as well as RA M. To disable this featur e, go to C ontrol Panel, and u nder “User Acco unt s” click on “Change the way users log on and of f” and uncheck “fast us er switching.” Auto Start and System Services Earlier versions of Windows used[...]

19 particular service is running pres ently, as well as whether it loads automatically on boo t up, manu ally ( called up by either the user or a program) , or is disabled. You can edit any service by double clicking on it. Some s ervices can not be disabled for safety reasons – without these Windows will not run, or will su ffer seriou s perform[...]

20 Disk I/O Performance Logging Windows defaults to continual lo gging of Input and Output data to your hard drive. Disabling this will free up some reso urces. To dis able performance logging, go t o the Start menu and select Run. Type in “diskperf –n” ( minus the quotes) and hit Okay. Write Behind Caching Windows defaults to write-behind ca[...]

21 Windows 2000 and XP can recognize a DMA capable device, and will detect and activate DMA mode by default whenever one is connected. Most drives manufactured in the last few years support DMA, and most modern motherboards’ chipsets detect this. You can check or change yo ur settings by o pening Device Manager (right-click on My Computer, select[...]

22 drives, and while SC SI still has clear advantages in using mu lt iple drives , UDMA drives are now rivaling them in throughput and performance; that and a much lower price point have helped find their way into more and more audio setups . Probably the single most important thing you can do f or you r system to increase performance and track cou[...]

23 PlugIns and other Goodies The Web is fu ll of DS P PlugIns, ranging from freeware to shareware to demos of high-end packages. You’ll also find hu ndreds of virtual instru ments in VSTi and DXi formats. While many of these are of excellent sound and quality, it ’s bes t to carefully consider befo re you install. Do you really need 26 dif fere[...]