We all fell in the W7 pitfall

[GerardA]

Did somebody make a direct comparison between Vista/Ramdisk and W7/Ramdisk already?

(I like W7 more then Vista, more stable, less hiccups, hiFace-drivers...(?)).
Problem now is the sounddevice is not freed after an application used it.

[Marcin_gps]

It's hard to make direct comparison if you don't have two identical PCs. However, I listened very carefully W7 right before I switched to Vista and then repeated the same album on a fresh system (about an hour later). Clearly- Vista is better.

But I wanted to improve the sound further, messed with tweaks and drivers and SQ is terrible now. Thankfully I did't install many apps and I'm about to reinstall my system again. Remember to be careful with your optimisations, better don't apply to many at once unless you're sure of them. This is very hard and requires time

[Per]

Anyone trying out / running XP?

Per

[GerardA]

It's hard to make direct comparison if you don't have two identical PCs.

I could try myself if it wasn't for a virus bugging my right ear.
Although I think other programs sound better in Vista too.. (a.o. Dvbviewer and PowerDVD)

[Nick]

Marcin, Roy,

My sound quality is also not as good on my attempt rebuild a thin Vista platform. I have managed to get a DPCLAT reading marginally better than my last build (average of about 2us with lots of 1us readings) but the sound is way too sharp compared to the previous build. I am trying to recall all the stuff I did to my thin Vista build over the last year or more, I should have kept more notes !!!!!

I’ve not had much success using vLite. When I exclude the stuff I think should not be installed Highend and RAMDisk will not install. So, I'm concentrating first on making some notes on what a nice working build should be and then we can see where to go from there.

Its likely that I can post notes on services still running, registry tweaks and Autoruns.
Nick.

[Marcin_gps]

Hi Nick, I was gonna asking about the services that you have running there, but I guess that's gone now? Or could you give us some recommendations? I'm back with fresh Vista installation, I have only sound drivers, ram disk and xxhe installed right now + the following tweaks:

- Control Panel > System > Advanced > [Performance] Settings > Visual Effects > Adjust for best performance
- Control Panel > System > Advanced > [Performance] Settings > Advanced > [Virtual Memory] Change. Select No paging file and click Set. Click OK and restart Windows
- Control Panel > System > Advanced > Error Reporting. Select Disable Error Reporting (and But notify me when critical errors occur if this is wanted)
- Control Panel > System > Advanced > [Startup & Recovery] Settings. Deselect the System Failure options and set Write debugging information to (none)
- In Regedit, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM CurrentControlSet\Control\PriorityControl, add a new DWORD, "IRQ8Priority" , and set the value to 1.
In that same key, look for "Win32PrioritySeparation" dword and set the value to 28 (hex). Restart a PC.

These are checked and worth applying. I'll proceed very carefully from now on.

Cheers,
Marcin

PS
Peter, Roy - how about your experiments with different Vista installation variants?

[PeterSt]

Did somebody make a direct comparison between Vista/Ramdisk and W7/Ramdisk already?

(I like W7 more then Vista, more stable, less hiccups, hiFace-drivers...(?)).
[...]

Yes, we did (I think I told it earlier in the topic); Vista with RAMDisk is the best. Read : The least chance to run into albums which exhibit "failures".

On this last matter, it may be nice to know that the couple of crazies I'm with here (Telstar and Roy) thought to grab the opportunity and complain about each and every single note that sounds wrong in their eyes (ears). Now, with Vista/RAMDisk this didn't happen for the 6 hours we are continuously playing today. But they better tell that themselves at some stage. So, this is more demanding than I do (or ever did) myself, because it doesn't seem a realistic approach. Or didn't. In other words, I think I would be able to bear W7/RAMDisk quite allright under the same "conditions" I put to myself before. But if I would start looking for anything wrong, then W7/RAMDisk would be the looser within a couple of random tracks the people here are dictating. With Vista/RAMDisk they keep on failing that, so far.

Additionally, and not even OffTopic I think, we spent quite some time on comparing hires albums with their normal versions, and it has become quite easy to hear the differences. In 100% of occasions hires looses by not even a small margin. Moreover, we are able to recognize hires with closed eyes. Not only because of *that* spits out those "wrong notes" our nit pickers detect (so, "that must be hires"), but also the characteristic of what happens to hires is now known. I think I'll open a topic for that later; Some may know that I find this for a longer time from elsewhere, but in here I never made it known so explicitly. There are quite some things to tell about it !

Peter

[Nick]

Guys,

I have remembered the missing ingredient to get recreate the sound of my thin Vista build. The way this tweak works could also be one of the reasons be why Windows 7 dosen’t sound as good as vista (more on this below).

I did some reading about 18 months ago about the Audio system and Multimedia Scheduling Service (MMSS) changes that MS implemented moving from XP to Vista. I found a good MS technical briefing paper and came across these registration keys. I have suggested values below but to be honest I have not tried many permutations as they seem to deliver the musical goods. Again I am trusting my ears but I think this is a big sound quality tweak.

TWEAK PART 1

Use REGEDIT on the following.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Multimedia\SystemProfile
There are sub key tasks for;

Audio
Capture
Distribution
Games
Playback
Pro Audio
Window Manager

These KEYs are how MMSS prioritises music replay processes.
For the “Audio”, “Playback” and “Pro Audio” keys try the following DWORD values
Affinity = 3 (dec)
Background Only = TRUE
BackgroundPriority = 8 (dec)
Clock Rate = 1000000 (dec)
GPU Priority = 4 (dec)
Priority = 8 (dec)
Scheduling Category = High
SFIO Priority = High

A Note on Windows 7 performance;
The “Clock Rate” value sets the granularity of processor scheduling for audio. This was used for Vista but is not used in windows 7 !! “The maximum guaranteed clock rate the system uses if a thread joins this task, in 100-nanosecond intervals. Starting with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, this guarantee was removed to reduce system power consumption.”


TWEAK PART 1

Use REGEDIT to change;
In HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Multimedia\SystemProfile there is a key “SystemResponsiveness” set this to “0”.
Don’t worry this value defaults to give all Low priority processes 10% of CPU time.

Here is a bit more information on what is going off. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms684247.aspx

Again I hope this works well on other peoples systems, I am dreading Peter saying that they have nothing to do with how XX works, if so it’s quite a placebo  !

Enjoy.

Nick.

Ps there are some interesting variables that can only be set in code referenced by the article above and in other I have read that might be useful to Peter in the code for XX.

[Nick]

Marcin, Roy,
If we are only running XXHighEnd and RAMDISK then these are the services that need to run for a relay Vista boot. This is for a none service packed build of vista but should be ok with later packs. Other services may be needed to install different sound cards. This list is fine for the M-Audio Transit and HIFace.

Watch your DPCLAT drop as you stop the other services 

1)   COM+ ENENT SYSTEM
2)   DCOM SERVER PROCESS LAUNCHER
3)   Group Policy Client
4)   Mulimedia Class Scheduler
5)   Plug and Play
6)   Programme Compatability Assistant Service
7)   Remote Procedure Call (RPC)
   Shell Hardware PRotection
9)   Software Licenceing
10)   User Profile Service
11)   Windows Audio
EDIT
12) Windows Audio Endpoint Builder
13) Windows Driver Foundation - User Mode Driver
14) Windows Management Instrumentation (needed for RAMDisk to work)
END EDIT

What I do is set all other services to "manual" then reboot. Look at services again and some of the unwanted ones will have started again. For these restarted services I just set them to "Disabled" which stops them getting in the way.

I’m still working on the Autoruns which I will post soon. Have a go with this services and the registry tweak I just posted. The Services and the regedit tweak deliver a lot.

Nick

[crisnee]

Marcin,

Thanks so much for thinking of trying a Ramdisk (and finding such a simple and good implementation). I'm surprised that no-one, including me has thought of this before; it's really such a no-brainer. What better way to start a process that one wants to be as clean and isolated as possible then starting it from a ramdisk. I've worked in the computer business one way or another since the first floppy disk personal computers (pre IBM--basically Apples) and I've dealt with ramdisks in the past yet it never occurred to me to use one in this obviously ideal circumstance. So, real good thinking Marcin.

So, enough love already. I was actually going to ask or say something useful, but it's completely left my mind. Perhaps later. Maybe a good ramdisk inspired listen will resurrect said thought. 

Chris

[christoffe]

On this last matter, it may be nice to know that the couple of crazies I'm with here (Telstar and Roy) thought to grab the opportunity and complain about each and every single note that sounds wrong in their eyes (ears). Now, with Vista/RAMDisk this didn't happen for the 6 hours we are continuously playing today.

my impression with VISTA / 4GB RAM disc is:
- more speed
- more resolution in the heights, which is phenomenal
- more darkness betweeen the instruments
- clinical SQ


disadvantages
- less soundstage
- missing analogue SQ
-too much darkness betweeen the instruments with "Studio music" replay ; live music sounds good (Rippingtons "Live in L.A.)
-missing reverberant sound at bass drums and bass guitars

I'm quite not shure what I like more.

Best
Joachim

[ivo]

Hey people,

About the harshness of W7 vs not such in Vista.
I am at W7 for 6 month now and I cannot say the sound is harsh here. It is great and soft. It is fantastic and many of you have said so. Therefore I do not get why you mean saying W7 is harsh if compared to Vista?

Ivo

[PeterSt]

Hey Ivo,

I guess it is very well possible that in your system, with all the (OS/BIOS) settings involved, you don't suffer from what starts to be "commonly known" slowly now. But I'd say your chances are small;
I think you can only know when you tried Vista again. But :

If you really think nothing is wrong, I really shouldn't bother ! Then counts : keep on following what happens, but listen to music instead. Don't follow the crowd. Also, I think you have sufficiently enough knowledge on these matters to know what you are doing.

One more thing :
Day before yesterday we (me, Roy, Telstar) decided that the Vista/RAMDisk solution was the best, so we left it like that for yesterday's further sessions. For me it was clear this was the best sounding solution, but for the others this never had been *that* clear. So, this gave us the opportunity to get used to the sound, and all together music was on yesterday for 11 hours - almost only picking tracks which may not work.
At the very end though, we went back to W7/RAMDisk for one other time, and (really) within 5 seconds it was rejected by all. Completely "ugly" so to say. And this was the RAMDisk, which already was ever so much better than the SSD.
It's all a matter of what you're used to, and after the many hours listening to the smooth character (but with details) of Vista/RAMDisk, the W7/RAMDisk became unlistenable.

Things go fast ...

All 'n all, and again, just listen to "reports" like this, and don't follow the crowd. If you are happy, don't change !
Peter


PS:

About the harshness of W7 vs not such in Vista.

Harshness is not the right description I think. It is aggressiveness. So called higher dynamics, but which are fake because of occurring distortion. A sax which goes in the direction of a trumpet. That's not harsh within itself ... it is "too square" (and trumpets sound square). A trumpet is aggressive (unless nicely played with a dampener and by someone who can do it). A flute is the opposite (it's a near pure sine). Put distortion on the sine, and you will go the trumpet direction.

[Marcin_gps]

4)   Mulimedia Class Scheduler
9)   Software Licenceing
11)   Windows Audio
12) Windows Audio Endpoint Builder
13) Windows Driver Foundation - User Mode Driver
14) Windows Management Instrumentation (needed for RAMDisk to work)

I'm pretty sure that you don't need above once you have everything installed (sound card drivers, XXHE, ramdisk).

TWEAK PART 1

Use REGEDIT on the following.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Multimedia\SystemProfile
There are sub key tasks for;

Audio
Capture
Distribution
Games
Playback
Pro Audio
Window Manager

These KEYs are how MMSS prioritises music replay processes.
For the “Audio”, “Playback” and “Pro Audio” keys try the following DWORD values
Affinity = 3 (dec)
Background Only = TRUE
BackgroundPriority = 8 (dec)
Clock Rate = 1000000 (dec)
GPU Priority = 4 (dec)
Priority = 8 (dec)
Scheduling Category = High
SFIO Priority = High

A Note on Windows 7 performance;
The “Clock Rate” value sets the granularity of processor scheduling for audio. This was used for Vista but is not used in windows 7 !! “The maximum guaranteed clock rate the system uses if a thread joins this task, in 100-nanosecond intervals. Starting with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, this guarantee was removed to reduce system power consumption.”


TWEAK PART 1

Use REGEDIT to change;
In HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Multimedia\SystemProfile there is a key “SystemResponsiveness” set this to “0”.
Don’t worry this value defaults to give all Low priority processes 10% of CPU time.

Here is a bit more information on what is going off. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms684247.aspx

Best tweaks ever? This is unbelievable what happened after I applied these tweaks. Thank you very much!

[Nick]

Peter hi,

Indead things are moving fast.

I don't know if you have had time to digest the underlying concept behind the registry tweak I posted above. This could explain at least part of the Vista W7 difference. It seems in Vista Multimedia Scheduling Service DOES guarantee CPU time slots to audio. This feature has been dropped in W7 - so NO guarantee of CPU time slice length in W7 ! The reason MS gives for dropping dedicated CPU time slices for W7 is power management but I read a lot of complaints after Vista was released about network transfer speeds more than halving whilst playing audio in Vista.

The registry keys mentioned allow you to specify the CPU time slice length and associated priorities for Audio replay (quite important  )

I think this might be another fundamental parameter for playback, like use of RAMDisk. It would be good to get your thoughts on this. If your reference system improves like mine when using these setting with RAMDisk as well, I predict a rash of smiles breaking out at your house quite soon.

I am not sure people are working with these registry settings yet but it would be really good to get some feedback on them. I am worried that I have a dose of placeboitus 

Nick.