XXHighEnd

I honestly can't say I am the most enthusiast about W7.

To me it looks like the least intuitive OS MS ever built. Difficult to explain, but things are just not in place. One example, and let's imagine you are a completely new Windows user (while at the background we sure know how things were) :

There you are. A new fresh system. Hey, that's nice, we can drag our IE icon to the taskbar, and now there it sits as a button. Great !
So, I use that button (click) ...
Allright. Let's start another instance of IE.
What the heck ... where is my button ?

You see ? this makes no sense.
We -who really know- know about the shortcut taskbar buttons (at the left). Well, MS thought to trade them for this new feature just described. I don't know, but the one who invented this should be hospitalized.

And you know, the old way of those buttons really is still there. But don't think you will be able to find out yourself how to do this.


Ok, somehow I heard only positives of you out there. It feels faster etc. Does it ? Well to me it does not. At all.
To me it looks like some technical MS nerd was set to tweak the lot without touching the real stuff. Backdoor solutions. Take for example this forum; Besides it seems impossible to type texts in an area like I'm typing in now (in some occasions), maybe you noticed the orange bar scrolling from top to bottom when a page is displayed. Well, if you know what I mean, you may have noticed that all is scattering and flickering. And no, this is not about a malfunctioning video driver (I think). This is about some opposite of Vista which virtually was slow but actually was smooth. Now it is virtually fast (flickering) but actually is slow.

All is slow, and all is less responsive. If you think otherwise ... don't believe it. Just watch carefully, and know what to watch for. :yes:

Internal priorities are hopelessly flawed !

Who says ? me. And MS better listen to it.

I now know why many suddenly have problems with audio and hickups. Watch it : this is about those who started using W7.
One of the major flaws I discovered (but it's a general thing I think) is that "media" (hence audio) doesn't perceive the highest priority anymore. Thus, when a piece of kernel code is supposed to fill a buffer while another piece of user code is doing something else, that user code now has preference. STUPID ! This is just where Vista was good at, and now it is destroyed. I don't say this can't be solved, but in the mean time it now *has* to be solved, where Vista was ok with it. So thank you very much.

The sound ...
I don't know yet, but after two days of listening it seems that I hear what I see. At the rate I see "task switching" (take the orange bar as an example if you perceive that the same like I do) I hear a fake timbre in everything. More raw. This is a bit difficult because it could be real, but if that is real I don't like it much. Strangely enough this seems more apparent with WASAPI (Engine#3) than with Kernel Streaming. Or maybe it is logic ... (about task switching).

Take a look at the resource monitor; what the hell is all that network traffic doing there ? mind you, all to your own address. This wasn't before ...

Ah, my bloodily setup remote isn't working anymore. Why ? dunno yet. But I do know I don't like it.

Yes, XXEngine3 is a kind of demanding to the OS (about auto-shutdown services which I didn't see yet in W7) ... but what in heaven's name is happening with a window I cross away and which may take 30 seconds, in the mean time the red cross shivering and shivering again at that "task switching rate".

Funnily it now exhibits all the characteristics of using a wrong SSD like I did at first with Vista. Well, something *has* changed in that area for W7. Maybe it is related ?

Oh, just a minor thing : Vista already couldn't cope with WASAPI and hybernation (it just wouldn't after playing with Engine#3 for a while), but with W7 this is even more fun : Now it hybernates, but as soon as it is waked up, it shuts down. Hahaha.
Well, at least shutting off the hybernating now works, so problem solved. :swoon:

That OSD time showing for a second only ... when the Wallpaper changes the handle to the screen is distroyed. A technical issue of course, and now solved by recreating that handle. In the mean time this means a "memory leak". No big deal (because it hardly takes memory) but in the mean time a major incompatibility. Or call it a bug.


Allright, if it weren't for you out there just using W7 which *thus* has to be supported, I would go back to Vista !!
But, when I can't get the sound right, I will anyway. If I can't get those priorities right, we better all go back. Keep in mind : "you" now (mostly) solved this by "tweaks" meant for changing SQ. So, your bandwidth for that has been taken away. This is not the intention of it all ...

Peter
:cry:

I have found that I like Windows 7 the best and feel it is the most intuitive. Regarding the button issue, are you talking about shortcuts pinned to the taskbar? If you right click the Internet Explorer icon in the taskbar and click Internet Explorer it will open another session. I like it that the taskbar shortcuts become session icons when the program is running and only open new sessions if you want them to. This takes up less space in the taskbar and I am more likely to want to return to a current browser session than to open a new one. Some more info on the taskbar can be found here (http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/windows7/windows7_taskbar.htm).

The thing i agree the most is the new taskbar. I absolutely hate it with the explorer folders/library. i cannot open a second instance from there, i have to use the desktop.

I dunno about priorities and such technicalities, but in general the system FEELS (which doesnt mean is) smoother.

They said that they improved the audio stack. If and how i dunno, and let you and the drivers writers to do it. i do have a problem with latency on my dedicated pc and i already took the decision to go back to vista. Probably i'll stick to it until w7 SP1 comes out.

This is from an early adopter of all MS OSes. W7 betas and RCs had lots of problems, and the RTM needed about one month of updates to be stable.

Hi Peter,

I started to use the XXH under W7 since October 09 and was not familiar with the SQ under VISTA. 

My main target is to listen to a really good SQ, the menues of the OS are not that important.

VISTA SP2 is installed on the Sony VAIO laptop since 2009-12-29, and the difference of the SQ is by wide margin. I'm not talking about a small increment.
This are total different worlds.
Under VISTA the SQ has timbre, depth and width. Unbelievable.
For the next time the Vista OS with the XXH  is my preference for real music replay and I can sell my CD-player.

christoffe
 :)


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Windows VISTA SP2> XXHE 09-y4 / Q1/2/3/4/5 = 4/0/0/0/0 / No Invert / Playerprio = Low / ThreadPrio = RealTime / Scheme = 3 @ UnAttended / *Quad Arc Prediction Upsampling* > Sony Vaio VGN-AW4 Series>|- Weiss Minerva -|- Dartzeel NHB-108B > speakers: Anat Referenz II Studio>

Thank you for sharing Christoffe.

Btw, I am not here to stir something which may not be justified, but I think I know when I don't like something. For now this is the sound of W7, but it could be (somehow ?) my setup.

All I now by now (all confirmed today) is that the whole priority scheme is mixed, mixed up, doesn't work or anyway does not do at all what I expect from it, and what I was ever used to (hence the program is used to :)). For those with doubts : look at Taskmanager and the Performance tab. Isn't it so that it completely stalls when a track is loaded ? why ? there is no reason to. Not according the priorities, and not according the affinities (which processor core is allowed to do what).

I just spent several hours to get something running with some decency again, and it needed to set the lowest priority to a certain task, plus the deviding over two cores. Before it ran on the highest prio and one core was sufficient. It just doesn't make sense.

I know, to most of you this may encourage for a "so what ?" ... but I know how much these things influence sound. And coincidentally I don't like the sound at all.
If I do like something it may take a week before I don't. The other way around is no option ...

Bweh.
Peter :dntknw:

Well look what you've created now. Us W7 users are all frantically searching for our Vista disks now and dreading hours of reformating, reinstalling and reoptimizing...

Thanks Peter :cry:

Mani.

:rofl: ;)

Arghh, Seeing is believing, connected my Vista-laptop to the DAC and ooh..
Back (?) is a fullblooded sound that even surprised the little kids.
I tried the latest from Anouk which I almost had deleted for bad sound quality and
now it sounds incredible!


So how do I put Vista back from D: to C: after removing Win7 from C: ?
And what's the best way to use SSD on Vista?

So why everybody hears improvements but nobody hears things getting worse?

BTW I started to like the interface of 7 but had problems with videodrivers, satellite-tv and even the input of the phase 24FW was recognized as output.

Thanks Peter for getting us back to the right track!

So Peter.....as a customer, what do you recommend I do to get the best sound quality given I'm a new Win7 user?  Do I go get Vista and install that until you get a release that works as well on Win7 as it does on Vista?  Is there any issue with reinstalling XXHE using the same activation code on Vista?

Thanks.

I suggest to hold on a bit for now. You (all) didn't complain in the first place, right ? :no:

But if you go back to Vista and have problems with the Activation you'll get a new Code.

I still have my Vista (SSD) disk and will do some A-B the upcoming days.
But in the mean time, if people agree that SQ is worse, please let it know (and try to describe it).

Thanks,
Peter


PS: Remote works again (the 4 to be deleted Registry entries came back with the upgrade);
PPS: I deactivated TRIM because it seems to hurt more than it does any good (about the freezes); will let know what comes from this.

I certainly didn't. W7 seemed a step-up from Vista... not necessarily in SQ terms, but certainly in latency terms.

I have absolutely no complaints about the SQ of XXHE on W7. But I'm still running the evaluation copy of W7... I wonder if that makes a difference?

Mani.

Peter,

For me W7 is still the better feeling OS to work on, but very curious about an A-B to compare SQ.
I believe nobody did a true compare between the both, going back and forth I mean.

Do you have 2 SSD's (or partitions) to do a true compare between the two ?

And you are kind enough to let us know about your experiences.

To be honest, I did experienced the same thing like GerardA with listening to Anouk.(months ago)
Didn't like it, but didn't liked it much before either. (too harsh)
But a whole lot has changed in the mean time.
And then there is that latency thing

I will keep on using W7 untill the evaluation period expires (03-2010)
And we will see from there.

Still evaluating, I don't really care if its gonna be Vista or W7 on the audio-pc.

Roy

Peter, since I never heard XXHE on Vista I have no frame of reference regarding if Win7 is better or worse... :(

Case in point....it wasn't until I installed an Antelope DA in between my PC server and my DAC that I realized how much my sound quality was being degraded by noise.  Now that I've heard the difference I could never go back.

My sense is compared to Samplitude v10 (a reference point for me as I did hear it on WinXP before upgrading to Win7), XXHE has greater resolution by at the slight expense of added coarseness.  Of course, this could be that XXHE is just letting me better hear the deficiencies still in my AES link and/or DAC....   ;)

The only way to be sure is for you to do an A/B or for me to try Vista....  personally I vote for the former...   :)  In the mean time I'll continue to use Win7!

I do not like to see a new schism, as there was/is between XP and Vista users. I really hope that Peter knows how to unravel the Windows 7 architecture and bend it into our advantage.

In the meanwhile I wish everybody a great and musical new year.

Leon

The one thing I can't stand about 7: the auto-maximize window feature.

I often want to leave some windows organized on my kitchen Touchsmart PC and if you get to close, easy to do using your finger, to the top of the screen, the windows are pulled into full focus and maximized. Probably I way to disable it but I haven't checked yet.

Overall, I am very happy, as I think Vista was the most unstable operating system I ever used.

Example, new PC at work, and they asked me XP or Vista (this was 4 months ago). I reluctantly said Vista for some reason, and I have some strange bugs; mainly compatibility issues no doubt but 7 on my 4 other PCs at home is quite smooth.

To start with Leon's post : well, what I am trying now is making Kernel Streaming a standard. I love (mind that word and feelings behind it) the sound of it, and on W7 nothing bothers me about that. But beware, this is me and it could be personal.
If I had to describe the difference with WASAPI, I would say you would not "love" WASAPI. It is interesting, it may look as the best, but somehow it is technical. The KS as I have it is is just music.
Anyway, if this works out for all of us (I'm working on the last issues ... but they are tough) it could be W7 for all of us, and those with XP could use it just the same. Vista ? should also work (as I don't recall KS sounded different or better on Vista -> I don't know how it sounds on XP yet).

On to the useage of W7 vs Vista ... Some strange things seem to be going on;
First off, I may have been one of the few who (very explicitly) judged Vista as *faster* than XP. But to keep in mind : I only use(d) it for the audio development and playback of it. Of course there were all the IOs (for which I created that "Tweaked to death" topic), but further ? no problems, no bugs, no strangenesses and unexpected things. For W7 this is completely different, and I dare to say one thing :

W7 was not made for being downwards compatible with Vista.

This can be seen by changed functionalities like the taskbar shortcuts (compatible would have been : leave them where they were and allow them to be dragged away) and further intuitive things. I mean, who in the world (after so many years of windows) is going to expect that a rightclick on a button allows for the program behind it to be started. This never worked like that, won't work like that in 99% of cases (for normal buttons) and thus nobody is going to guess it works like that. It is stupid.

The maximizing window ... some nerd thought this would be a nice feature. Well, look at it. Drag the window to the top and it's maximized. Drag it down and it's back to normal. Drag it to the left and it's docked there ... drag it to the right and ... nothing happens (but it moves). Now drag it down again, and it's back to normal. The docking is no docking in this case, and the only thing which happens is that it maximizes vertically. What the heck to do with this ?

Go programming. Dive into an editor, and press (e.g.) DownArrow to scroll down. StutterStutterStutterStutter. It all behaves the same. Taskswitching anomalies. It's everywhere, up to deep down inside. It s*cks.

Read this if you have some time : http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=63895 (notice that GC = Garbage Collection and FW = Firmware);
Here the nerd invented TRIM but did not provide a solution for a disk coming from another PC or "situation". This means it is totally unuseable and even works counterproductive. You know I immediately said that things feld like a wrong SSD. Well it is true, and it is unsolveable (a fresh install is the only guaranteed solution as it seems). So you see, YMMV and if you don't have an SSD you won't have these problems in the first place. Anyway, I had my SSD perfectly working under Vista, and the same SSD now is a kind of destroyed. It is quite unworkable at times, and the system may stall for 30 seconds each minute (during working in the program).

This morning I woke up the screen (only disks and screen set to go sleeping) but my keyboard didn't work anymore.

If I now bring up XX to find a next album (while playing goes on unattendedly) it is totally unresponsive. Of course, this is because all what happens in the playback program, but hey, nothing of this unresponsiveness was going on with Vista. So this is the technical downwards compatibility;
Do you know how much time it took to get everything going - which is all about matching priorities and affinities ? it is totally destroyed now. And worse : I don't see the logic in how to fix it. IT IS BROKEN.

Under Vista -if I started two threads (processes) for conversion- it nicely used 100% CPU for two cores (not in 0.9y-4 because of a bug on my side); W7 ? it won't work. Only one core seems to be used, or both halfly. I don't know. The log files always showed which core was used, which btw is redundantly determined or IOW a deriveal of things. But it showed reality. W7 ? the log files now show that two threads run on the same core because processes are performed in a wrong sequence. It won't be reality, but because stuff like log files are not reliable, it is now out of control.
And, because I think I know a bit what happens and what I'm doing ... the same can be seen from the OS itself all over. Taskswitching is BROKEN.

Under Vista I had Kernel Streaming running which in my case is rather tweaky. Read : it can't make use of the more normal facilities for it, so I have to do things which depend on the internal clock (how much time has passed ? so do this and that). W7 ? somehow (I can't determine where it happens) I loose 4 seconds. As if the clock stops running. Take this as loading a track 4 seconds earlier compared to Vista or otherwise you are out of sound. 4 seconds !!


Ok, what I like to know : Do you also see Taskmanager stalling when a new track (part) is loaded ? (I use Threadprio RealTime and PlayerPrio BelowNormal (or idle) and Appointment Scheme 3). If you see that too, so be it. But if not I have hope it is something overhere and it can be solved.
Btw, I upgraded from Vista, and it has not been a fresh install. But I doubt this will make a difference.

Thanks,
Peter


PS: I may sound angry ... because I actually am.
:)

Hi Peter,
yes I see the taskmanager stalling for a few moments - followed by a 100% Processor Usage spike. Also look at the Latency Checker - same spike behaviour when a new track is being loaded. However, the music keeps playing without any interrupt!
I understand why you are angry (maybe a little frustrated too?). This is usually not the best state to be in when you have to take decisions. Tonight is a perfect moment to take a brake and handle the new challenges in 2010, like you did before.
Thanks for all you have done for us "in the field" and Happy New Year! :goodjob:

Cheers, Eric.

Ditto.

Wishing the best for you, Peter
- and for all of you nice folks in here

Per

taskmgr.exe on Win7 drops to priority "below normal" as soon as I click "Play" in XXH 0.9y-4. So it's actually going out of its way to make your life better :-)
I would suggest that you should use Process Monitor (procmon.exe) @ www.sysinternals.com to trace process interactions (there's a lot more documentation on kernel internals to be found on the sysinternals site). There's also a user forum on the same site if you wanted to reach out to the community for a broader discussion of your observations (e.g. somebody already asking why audiodg runs at normal priority http://forum.sysinternals.com/forum_topics.asp?FID=9 ).

Hope this helps,
Moritz

I also see that this user didn't get many answers. Haha. :)
But then it always (Vista) ran at normal priority and btw it doesn't say much about internal thread priorities.


True. But is/was the same with Vista, and there it doesn't stall. So, if TaskManager is representative for all the behavior, here you see how that is changed. And it is completely crucial !!

But thank you very much Moritz. I'll dive a bit into that forum (didn't know it) and I may post something in there.
Peter

The reason for the installation of XXH was to listen to our music with the best SQ available.

WE know that XXH was optimized for VISTA in the end, and an upgrade to a new OS will cause a negative (we should know the quality of the MS OS since years) effect to the SQ normally.

WE are the users to blame for, because everybody was eager to install W7 without any precautions (installation of XXH on a separate music system only).

As I wrote before, the first installation of XXH was under W7, and then I changed to VISTA by the end of Dec. 09.
The music under W7 was without air around the instruments, less depth and width in the soundstage in comparisions to my CD player. The sound was "compressed" and had a lack of timbre at the guitars and horns.         

The SQ under VISTA is superior and I will not change the present system until I get a signal/update from Peter if possible.
The present SQ is really amazing, and the CD player (Reimyo CDP 777) is ready for the shelf.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Windows VISTA SP2> XXHE 09-y4 / Q1/2/3/4/5 = 4/0/0/0/0 / No Invert / Playerprio = Low / ThreadPrio = RealTime / Scheme = 3 @ UnAttended / *Quad Arc Prediction Upsampling* > Sony Vaio VGN-AW4 Series>|- Weiss Minerva -|- Dartzeel NHB-108B > speakers: Anat Referenz II Studio>

Actually the work Peter is doing with XP sounds much more promising.  Many audiophiles have found XP to provide better SQ than either Vista or Win7.  It's just that to date XXHighEnd has been optimized for Vista but hopefully soon Peter will work in his magic for XXHighEnd and XP.

As for Win7 it may be too early to expect miracles.  Many of us expect changes from Microsoft and won't consider Win7 until R1.  I also expect driver support to lag, not that the hardware is not supported but that there is probably only a single choice for each hardware.  In contrast my Lynx AES16 card has several different drivers from which to choose for XP and btw, the latest does not provide the best SQ.

Robin Hood, have you actually tried the latest release of XXHE and the latest AES16 driver on Win7 to compare the sound quality?  If so, how do they compare?  I certainly hope Peter can realize the same or better SQ on Win7 ASAP as from a user interface standpoint it is superior to XP and Vista IMHO.

No, I haven't pulled the trigger on Win7 yet.  I was planning to upgrade one of my dedicated XP music servers running cMP/cPlay to Win7 so I could also install XXHighEnd and compare on identical hardware and OS.  But when I saw Peter's posts regarding his current efforts and impressions on the next release of XXHighEnd and XP versus the current version and Win7 I figured it best to wait for more definitive results.

I am currently running XXHighEnd 09-y4 under Vista 64 Home Premium and it sounds very musical.  Unfortunately my Vista computer is not a dedicated music server and is just an inexpensive Dell computer preloaded with Vista that serves many other functions.  I would probably agree with you that the user interface of Win7 is superior to either XP or Vista but I believe that should only matter if you have a non-dedicated music computer.  My experience with cMP/cPlay leads me to want to shutdown and streamline the Windows bloat and unnecessary services that affect or may affect the SQ.

Perhaps you and I may be disappointed six months from now if the latest versions of XXHE still sound superior under Vista.  I'm not looking forward to buying a standalone copy of Vista to install on a dedicated music server but I will if the consensus still indicates a Vista preference.  I realize that Peter and all of us are somewhat pawns to the whatever Microsoft provides :(.

Well, partly. I mean, maybe I should have been the early adopter just to try it out on behalf of you all. But to be honest, usually there's just no time for something like this, which I'd rather call "playing around" (if it were for beta versions anyway).

But I guess there is hope. That is, I start to see how W7 behaves (I see patterns now) and although I didn't start tackling it, at least it is a base;

What I see is what actually has been reported by a few, and that is that something has to learn to settle down. It is/feels completely strange to me, but for instance right after the conversion of an album - all the IO's long gone - it seems that the OS is out of breath and for a few minutes it needs recovery. This is "why" people experience a stall of sound at the first time something additional has to be performed, like showing the Wallpaper for the first time (actually the second, when the OSD time should jump in).

I can stop-start-stop the development environment as much as I want, but as soon as I do that right after playback, stopping it (!) takes a minute. A minute of nothing ! Play briefly (like 10 seconds) no problem, but play a whole track and there you go. Should indicate memory reorganization (garbage collection) but I don't see it happening.

Anyway ...

Since I encountered a severe degradation of sound at one time (just severe enough to call it destortion by something else), by now I'm fairly confident it is this "learning process" which does it (negatively). Something like : allow playback for a few minutes, stop, play again the same album (no conversions needed now) - and everything is used to it and now it sounds normal. I know, far out, but this is how it seems to come to me.

Or what about this one :
In 0.9y-5 I pre-read (and write) complete albums (but per track) in certain situations. Let's say each album contains 60 minutes of music. If that album contains 4 tracks it may be over and done with within 5 seconds. But if it contains 30 tracks it may take 2 minutes.
Why ?

So you see, I have a few "hard" things now of which the behavior can be copied and which can be sorted out. From there maybe they can be solved, or otherwise MS may work things out for SP1.

The main message is that I think SQ can end up allright if only things have settled down (better read : have recovered from). Mind you, this may not be the same for everyone. For example, do *not* copy to XX Drive and just have WAVs instead of FLACs, and not much has to recovered from to begin with.
... And as I just realize ... what I mentioned above about that pre- reading and writing ... nobody has that (yet). Only me.

Just hold on !

Oh, it can! uprading is never recommended. That also explains the dirty SSD.

Yes, of course.

After reading that thread about mall-functioning SSD's
Would not trust an upgrade.

W7 (Vista too) does "learn" somehow, kind of "prefetching" or settling down.
It becomes faster after a couple days.
When all programs and/or services are "spoken" to, it becomes more quiet. (This is also the case after a reboot, it takes minutes to settle down)
I don't know what accually happens, I am not a computer savy.

But things as stalling or freezing up, nothing like that happens over here,
I really "abuse" my setup by doing several heavy things at once.
Everything is always instant (Milliseconds)(except when some software has to start for eg. a sleeping hdd)(witch is stupid sometimes)
Even when its idle for hours, I open an program, all is instant.
Computer is defenitly faster than me.
This doesn't say anything about SQ, but hope you can manage to get xx less OS dependable (hope this will be the case when writing your own drivers and codecs)

Oh, something else,

Peter can it be possible that when playing Attended (or Unattended), 1 flac track is being converted by 4 (0r 2) cores.
I believe you do the same with flac/cue, just cut of a piece

Can you devide a flac track by 4 and then convert by 4 cores! (something like a fake cue)
Can this speed things up ?? (think about for eg. klaus schulze tracks, long)
So instead of 4 tracks being converted by 4 cores, just convert 1 track by 4 cores

Roy

I'm considering back-revving Windows from Windows 7 to Vista based on the reports of superior SQ with XXHE.  Before I decide to do that, can someone tell me how XP stacks up for XXHE?  I hear pretty regularly that XP is still the preferred platform for other computer-music components.  It seems to me that XXHE is pretty unique in its preference for Vista.  I'd rather kill two birds with one stone if I go to the trouble.  Thanks for your help.

G'day Dan,

as you are running Win7 currently you will derive no benefit from going backwards to WinXP, as you will lose the ability to use Engine#3 in XXHE. It is the latter that currently brings a noticeable improvement over alternative applications. If I'm right in assumming you have only been using XXHE now for a few months, I would suggest you continue experimenting with different parameters, particularly the "Q" ones, to get a good feel for how XXHE performs currently on your hardware.

Once you are happy that you have eeked out the best that XXHE has to offer on your current system, then by all means consider trying Vista as a comparison, but be sure nothing changes in the way of hardware when doing that or it may cloud the judgement. Going from one OS to another is most easily done using multiple partitions and a boot manager.

In the meantime, those of us who have been around for longer can perhaps more readily distinguish the differences between Vista and Win7, which should make it easier for novices to chose which O/S to ultimately end up with.

It goes without saying though, if you are PC savvy, and this applies to all here, feedback to Peter will be greatly welcomed if you are able to compare the two OS'es side by side.

Cheers,

Russ

Just wait a bit until the upcoming weekend. Engine#4 only brings me joy - and this is under W7 ...

Hi Peter. You mentioned in another post that Engine 4 "should" work in Vista; have you had an opportunity to test it in Vista? Just wondering.

It does. But notice that when I tested this, this was just the sound engine and not the device selection. This is ready now and *that* has not been tested in Vista. But there is no reason it won't work in there. However ...

In XP it does *not* work yet (the device selection) because I miss some Registry keys there. I just finished Googling for a few of hours on this, but nobody seems to miss those keys (while I have a couple of (HP) XP machines, and they all lack that key). Wait, I still have it under ctrl-v I think :

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\MMDevices\

If that is in Vista, it will be fine.

Yeah, it's in Vista. Am hoping to finally use the Hiface usb/spdif converter ( http://www.m2tech.biz/products.html ). It currently shows up in device manager but not in sounds under control panel. Am hoping it shows up in xx engine 4 in settings. Sorry about going off topic.....

Ok :offtopic: :)

Ah ... it is good that you mention that (again) ...

As how it is now, no, it won't work. Why ? well, because I take the devices from the control panel as base. If not there, no go.
Btw, I planned to do this otherwise (like taking something in the Registry as a base) but in the end could not proove that would bring more devices (for Kernel Streaming). Yea, wrong ones ! And I guess for your USB device it won't be different. But (and I thought you might have sent it back afterall because of the long wait) :

I have read that the first 100 units (seen by serial number perhaps ?) were faulty. I can't be sure it was about this aspect, but on the same forum I sure read about people having the same issue as you have !
So, maybe you can check this with the manufacturer ?


Uhm ... but wait. I also have read that Kernel Streaming plays. I think even you said that ?!
Ok, if that is true it must be possible to provide functionality which lets you add your own devices (my before plan).
... no wait ... you will be able to do that already (just for testing) : Change the name of a random sound device you don't use (Loudspeaker Icon in Taskbar Tray - Device Properties - topmost field) into what this needs, and it will work.

First you must have 0.9y-5 though and a log which will show you the discovered KS devices.
Peter

yes, I can get it to work now with Media Monkey even though it does not show up in control panel/sounds. Will wait for 9y-5 to see if it can be configured to work. I didn't return it cause M2tech told me they would have a WASAPI driver out this week-- still waiting-- and this other guy told me he'd have kernel streaming out in xx in January.....looked like a win win to me, though it has been an exercise in patience!  :)

Yeah Peter, when we gonna get the new version, for God's sake? I sat next to my PC waiting for it all weekend...

... It had better be good!

Mani.

Hey Mani, you weren't the only one sitting by the pc, waiting. Only thing I can figure is our guy is being careful with this release. Imagine having to deal with all the issues that come up for a "stable" release. So I continue to look to those strained pools of S-T-R-E-T-C-H-E-D patience.  :) :) :)

I'm glad somebody asks, because I'm not much used to say I'm late with software ...

I too sat next to my PC the whole weekend. And Friday, and today. All with the same stupid subject ... timings.
I just startedplaying through the loudspeakers (most testing can be done without sound) and my son asked "is it really to begin ?" with that referring to the normal playing of music which starts around this time every day (6-7pm). My respons : "I only need to hear things now because I think it works. Same as yesterday, some 24 hours ago ... :swoon::swoon:".

Two days ago I had it all working, but then it appeared that my Unattended testing wasn't sufficient to let it really work. I mean with Attended things have to be properly synchronized with the UI, and there nothing worked. Ok, it explained some anomalies I saw with the OSD Time at Unattended but ... in fact it was one big mess.

But now AT LAST I just ran trouble free through the last half of The Wall (gapless) at Attended, and it looks like all works now. So, now back to Unattended to see what happens there ... Should be okay, but it really needs a few albums to run through all the combinations.


Btw, when two days ago nothing would work anymore I was "forced" to use Engine#3 again, but man, got I used to Engine#4. Everything shouted to me, especially Jim Morrison and John Fogerty (but they have "similar" voices) so I thought to play something "technical" which became Ben Harper with Welcome to The Cruel World. Well, that still worked.

I may think that I can put it all up tonight, but I probably won't make it because of the Release Note stuff.

AND : Don't be over-enthusiast because nothing tells at least me your soundcard etc. will be able to use Kernel Streaming. For instance (Russ) a Juli@ does not. Not over it's SPDIF output. Maybe if the "Loudspeakers" can be rerouted to SPDIF, but don't have hopes.

Well, by I'm into the 4th track Unattended, and all still looks good.

Sorry for the waiting and sorry I didn't say anything yesterday.
Peter

Thanks a lot Peter, for taking time to tell us about your struggles. You don't have apologize for anything....

To me this sounds like a major update. Perhaps you should consider calling it version 0.9z instead? By the way: Would it be an idea to make a pre-release to a few experienced users in here first to catch the most obvious bugs before it is released to the public? To minimize your workload. Just a suggestion.

Good luck - we can('t) wait....  ;)

Per

Ditto.

Absolutely no need to apologise. You know, I really could live with 0.9y-4 indefinitely. But of course, if there's something 'better'...

Mani.

I know this is a Windows 7 thread but is 0.9y-5 also available on XP? I thought I read somewhere that it was but can't find it now!

I think you mean this,
http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=1007.0

Very curious what the next version will bring us.............

EEeeeeek !!

Standing by to trouble shoot here  :scratching:

I can imagine the frustration is getting the new version completed, but most advancements in life involve a few backwards steps along the way.

Cheers,

Russ

I guess I've already done this for you. So, your only hope is when the "Speakers" (= analogue) selection can be routed to the SPDIF output, because the "Speakers" work with KS. Maybe this can be done (with that Wire application from the Juli@) and *that* I didn't try.

The Juli@ is strange anyway;
I don't know about your version, but mine (under Vista as well as under W7) only shows the Speakers and SPDIF devices, while the manual talks about Ch34 and Ch1234 as well. No way they show up. But :
Internally they sure are there and I can let them work by a VERY strange means. I have a hunch that in XP this all shows normal (and a total of 4 devices I think). This still does not imply KS will work on XP with this card. But if you are anxious to know : plug it in one of your XP machines, drop the Foobar KS dll in the components folder, and see whether it shows up under a "KS:" device. If it does, it works. :yes:

Peter

I can't find back where I wrote about it, but one of the first things I noticed under W7 was that I was "missing seconds". Looks stupid of course and I couldn't even be 100% sure, but this was about Engine#4 which worked to some extend before I left for a vacation, and after coming back installing W7, and then the OSD Time wouldn't match reality anymore.
And now think of it, each and every day I tried to tweak it for the better (which would be some 26 days now) and only yesterday I succeeded. Btw, this is always a matter of "play time !" when this can be judged, so the time can be spent somewhat more efficiently (listen in the mean time). Also, it always takes several tracks to find out it's wrong again.

26 days.

I think I just found out what's happening here.

I received a log file from Per, and it occurred to me that in his situation per one second the exact number of bytes are being stuffed to wherever they need to go. And, since this is a recognizeable number, it just could occur to me that this "can" happen. So, it also only now occurred to me what is going wrong in my own system. Here it is :

Each one second (as per the internal clock) my system stuffs 1.4 % too many samples to their destination. That is 1.4 seconds per 100 seconds or 1 second per 71 seconds. This must be read the other way around : my time is running too slow, or IOW when it would run ~1.4% slower it would show the proper amount of stuffed samples.
This is how it functionally works out. But it is not how it technically is ...

Because the time also shows in the log file, I can see that my clock is allright, because after each one second of "a pass" just a little over one second is added. Say, 1.4% more. Per's system. shows exactly one second per a one second pass forever. To get the idea :

02:40:24.6081590
02:40:25.6081590
02:40:26.6081590
02:40:27.6081590
02:40:28.6081590
02:40:29.6081590
02:40:30.6081590
02:40:31.6081590
02:40:32.6081590
02:40:33.6081590
02:40:34.6081590

Forver and ever and ever. But this is my system :

09:51:08.3723166
09:51:09.3863183
09:51:10.4003201
09:51:11.4143219
09:51:12.4283237
09:51:13.4423255
09:51:14.4563272
09:51:15.4703290

also forever and ever. :)


Now, I just prove that this is not about a "sleep timer" being wrong or off. Thus, when I "sleep" 1 second, this shows a nice equal 1 second offset each time, up to the resolution (decimals) you see above. This means that the small code which is executed in between "sleeps" takes 1.4% time of a second or 0.014 seconds per second. This, while in Per's system this takes virtually zero time. Oh, it will take time, but it needs way more decimals to show it. Anyway, in Per's system over 2 minutes time this doesn't change up to the 7th decimal while in my system almost 2 seconds have "disappeared" over that time period.

That I can't depend on the "timing" is a nasty thing, but actually something to take into account always. However, once things have been setup consistently, it shouldn't change because of a new OS. Here it does. But, this is still not the most worst thing. This is though :

While this whole (SQ) audio thing depends on the most fragile stupid things in code (beyond imagination and beyond known science), here W7 is doing something which Vista does not. Actually it consumes cpu or waits for something, and I don't know what it is.

Ok, hold tight :

I just tested, and when I (just an example) had to determine the current time and all the formatting going along with that to show it properly, I can do that 6000 times to reach the equivalence of the time I loose in the process.
Ah, that didn't tell you much. Ok;
When I do nothing but performing a line of code, very similar to process an audio sample, I can do this ... 35,000,000 (that reads 35 million) times before I reach the equivalence of the time I loose in the process. That's near to processing a complete track !!  and can be performed in the 0.02 seconds I have for it.

Well, I hope you can imagine now that I feel this is totally out of control, and (something very) wrong in the mean time.
I covered for this "loosing seconds" now, but it took me 26 days throughput time, but only for Unttended. Attended will have similar issues which is worse and more dependend on the proper timing (because XXHighEnd runs totally independend of XXEngine3).

So, now you know. If you don't "hear" this, good. But, Bweh.
Peter

Peter, what are, or will be, the implications of this (if any) for the rest of us?

Mani.

Good question Mani. But I can imagine not even everybody suffers from this issue. I could try to find everybody's (coincidentally posted) log files though, and look. Or, by the time you are all more up and running I can ask you to just post them (X3PB). Btw, I can only "see" this with Engine#4, because of the way it is setup.

I can also imagine that one day I'll find out what actually causes this. But as I feel it from the start this is about task switching and then possibly nothing can be done about it (the before figures from my PC was without any audio running/playing). It will need time to spend on it, and right now I'm doing other things first.

Fact is that it is quite unworkable (for me, this project), although most of it has been dealt with (ok, for my device's situation, the others (like yours) yet to come). But as we know (or as I assume it) it also has implications for Engine#3, because remember, all those suddenly having (audio stalling) problems.

Lastly, but that may not interest you much, I have KS running now without issues (Unattended only) and most of the things, whether it were gaps, preeps or OSD issues, have been solved in a fashion "huh ? allright good, but why ?". It is nothing to like, and nothing with a spur of decency.

But I don't give up fast. :aggressive:
Peter

Hello there,

Because this topic exists as it is, it seemed a good idea to tell here, in this place, that currently I don't feel that I have any SQ problems with W7 and Engine#3 anymore. This was discussed already here : Re: Engine#3 Vs Engine#4 comparison (http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=1054.msg9161#msg9161) up to a few posts under that.

Key seems to be to use a high latency (large buffer) setting in the soundcard/driver. Or at least this helps me / my system.
I now use 2048 (samples) instead of the opposite - 48 which worked fine for Vista (at Quad A.P. upsampling = 176.4 KHz and 32 bit output).
I can't tell (yet) whether this helps everyone, but it could be an explanation to people not reporting SQ problems under W7 at all (those people possibly using a high soundcard/driver latency or not being able to set it, which will imply a high latency to begin with).

I was the one who started the stir about this; hopefully this stirs it down a bit.

If you can't agree with this (W7 still sounds like sh*t while Vista is very ok), please let it know !
Thank you,
Peter

In the meantime, those of us who have been around for longer can perhaps more readily distinguish the differences between Vista and Win7, which should make it easier for novices to chose which O/S to ultimately end up with.

Okay, are there any final conclusions and recommendations as to the choice of O/S that provides better SQ?

For me and my soundcard, Win7 wins, but I blame m-audio drivers. I couldn't get decent latencies on Vista and XP, even highly tuned (nLite, vLite). On the other hand, I find the sound of "Seven" less digital/harsh, but as I said - could be specific on my system.