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XP vs. OS9 -- did soul-searching, need advice [message #104009]

Thu, 27 August 2009 20:25

pbraun

Messages: 63
Registered: June 2009
Location: Northwest Indiana

Member

So, I've come to a crossroads. I'm going to rewire everything in my studio to neaten things up, and will take this opprtunity to also spruce up some of the hardware.

I'm a Mac guy. Always have been (except when I was an Amiga guy).

However, considering that driver development has died at OS9, and it doesn't seem that any of the attempts to create OSX drivers are going to happen, I'm faced with a choice.

My G4 is very long in the tooth. Mike Audet's magical goodies are Windows-flavored. I also have a P4 Dell tower sitting here with nothing to do. The siren song of a much faster (2GHz vs. 450MHZ) processor for native plugins is in my ears.

As long as I build it as an optimized Paris machine, and leave the internet crap to either my G5 or my other Dell tower, will I be happy running Paris under XP? Will I notice a difference? Do Chuck's plugins come in Windows flavor?

I guess I'm also looking at the relative costs of multi-head video cards for windows vs. the same card for a Mac, especially an older Mac. I have fancy-assed video cards for Windows on hand.

I've always liked the "Just plug the card in and it works" aspect of Paris:Mac. I've enjoyed seeing pages and pages of tweaks to make it happy under Windows. But it looks like I may need to go that route.

One more question: If I bought a bundle from ebay, and it included a 3.0 cd with license sticker, will ID still authorize me? I have no freakin' clue who the original owner was to transfer it over to me.

Thanks.

Paul Braun, Certified Music Junkie

"Music washes from the soul the dust of everyday life." -- Harlan Howard

[Updated on: Thu, 27 August 2009 20:27]

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Re: XP vs. OS9 -- did soul-searching, need advice [message #104011 is a reply to message #104009]

Fri, 28 August 2009 09:38

JeffH

Messages: 307
Registered: October 2007
Location: Wamic, OR

Senior Member

Paul,

XP with Mike's current driver should be stable and you'll love the new effects. Chuck's originals that Mike hasn't tweaked work as well, although I think there was a couple I remember on the newgroup that should be avoided (can't remember which one(s)). Is it as plug and play as Mac usually is? No. But if you follow the setup procedure that are documented (I think it is in the wiki), you should be fine. Wouldn't suggest any newer than XP Service Pack2. I'm still running SP1. I have paris 3.0 on a P4 3.0ghz and it works fine (although it's been in a box while the new studio room is being built).

The licensing question is really an ID question. They should be able to identify the license by the hardware S/N's, if 3.0 originally came with it.

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Re: XP vs. OS9 -- did soul-searching, need advice [message #104012 is a reply to message #104011]

Fri, 28 August 2009 10:03

kerryg

Messages: 1529
Registered: February 2009

Senior Member
Administrator

I believe it's the Freebie Pack, they can interfere with the compressors. Drop ID an email and explain the situation, I doubt they'll give you any problems with the licensing.

I'm on SP3 here; wonder if I should be looking at changing that?

I'd reckon that the decision to change platforms is really about "are you happy with it the way it is?". If you are - if it suits your style of music, your style of recording already - I'd hesitate to change what works for you.

If you aren't content - if you want more than what you have with PARIS - more FX, more hardware possibilities, the possibility of some form of integration/cooperation with newer software - the only way you'll see it is to bite that bullet and switch, and resign yourself to a certain amount of tweaking. That can actually be less than it seems, since a certain amount of those tweaking instructions are really about squeezing the last drops of performance out of computers that are now many years obsolete; the IRQ issues that seem to have been amongst the most significant ball-busters are pretty much solved with Mike's new drivers. I've had pretty good luck, although tweaking is still ongoing.

"... being bitter is like swallowing poison and waiting for the other guy to die..." - anon

[Updated on: Fri, 28 August 2009 10:16]

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Re: XP vs. OS9 -- did soul-searching, need advice [message #104032 is a reply to message #104012]

Tue, 01 September 2009 07:14

pbraun

Messages: 63
Registered: June 2009
Location: Northwest Indiana

Member

Kerry,

Basically, I want the ability to run Mike's stuff, and I need more processor power.

The last project I mixed used quite a few native plugs, and I was running out of processor power. There just weren't enough EDS inserts available, so the combo was really taxing the 450MHz G4.

I will try to set it up over the weekend and see how it goes. I'll use all of the "XP for audio" tricks to strip out everything I don't need, and I'll follow the howto on the faq's to the letter.

I don't remember -- where are Chuck's plugins downloaded from now?

Thanks.

Paul Braun, Certified Music Junkie

"Music washes from the soul the dust of everyday life." -- Harlan Howard

[Updated on: Tue, 01 September 2009 07:16]

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Re: XP vs. OS9 -- did soul-searching, need advice [message #104037 is a reply to message #104032]

Tue, 01 September 2009 09:31

kerryg

Messages: 1529
Registered: February 2009

Senior Member
Administrator

Heya Paul - they're at Doug's ParisFAQs site. With his recent hosting changes the links there give 404s, but the files themselves still exist at the moment; you can usually obtain them by copying the link and editing the first part.

1) Go to the ParisFAQs site

2) Right-click any linked file (say the Skunkworks plugs) and choose "copy link"

3) Paste the link into the address bar of your browser

4) The resulting link will be prefixed with:

http://www.parisfaqs.com/

You want to delete just that part of the link, including the slash (don't delete any of the file path info after it, the directory structure there still seems to be intact).

5) Now copy this text and paste it at the beginning of the link where the previous info was:

http://homepage.mac.com/osxlover/ParisFAQs/

Doublecheck the resulting link for typos (extra or omitted slashes etc) and then click to download your file.

[I really have to get those downloaded and relinked - that job's working its way up a somewhat crowded PARIS priority list, but studio stuff has also been keeping me running lately]

OK, sounds like you are definitely a prime candidate for the PC plunge then. Prepare for a period of strong emotions - both serious frustration ("I have to do what manually???") and serious exhilaration ("wait, I can do what now???") Very Happy

Very Happy

"... being bitter is like swallowing poison and waiting for the other guy to die..." - anon

[Updated on: Tue, 01 September 2009 09:50]

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Re: XP vs. OS9 -- did soul-searching, need advice [message #104044 is a reply to message #104009]

Thu, 03 September 2009 19:42

pbraun

Messages: 63
Registered: June 2009
Location: Northwest Indiana

Member

Well, hell.

Found out tonight that not only is the OEM psu completely underpowered (which doesn't surprise me in the least, but I was hoping to at least get Windows installed so I could buy Mike's driver next payday...) but the damn thing is also dead.

So, now I have to wait until I can get a beefy psu before I can do anything. Fortunately, it appears that Dell uses standard ATX boxes on the towers and not some stupid custom size, so I can hit Newegg and get a Thermaltake 700w or so, but again, it's going to have to wait until payday or a bunch of crap sells on ebay.

If it's not one thing, it's another.

Shit.

Paul Braun, Certified Music Junkie

"Music washes from the soul the dust of everyday life." -- Harlan Howard

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Re: XP vs. OS9 -- did soul-searching, need advice [message #104047 is a reply to message #104044]

Mon, 07 September 2009 20:55

John Houston

Messages: 79
Registered: May 2009
Location: Hurricane Utah

Member

Dude I was running a 450, and got tired of it being slow, got on ebay, snagged a 733 g4 digital audio, put in 2 new drives, a new battery for the mother board, and new ram, and at least for the moment, I'm happy. Ive thought of going pc as well, but not yet! Long live the OLD G4.

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Re: XP vs. OS9 -- did soul-searching, need advice [message #104117 is a reply to message #104047]

Wed, 23 September 2009 09:40

pbraun

Messages: 63
Registered: June 2009
Location: Northwest Indiana

Member

OK, I think I may have my answer. My work just retired an HP xw8000 workstation, a nice, beefy, dual 2.8GHz Xeon box with 4gb of ram.

I finally found something on the PCI spec on wikipedia, including a diagram of the keying differences between 5v and 3.3v cards.

I also found a photo of the motherboard and it has 2 5v slots. And a beefy power supply. Whooohooo! Free is more gooder.

Now, am I to understand that the new XP driver has solved the dual-cpu problem, and that I'll be just ducky with the twin Xeons?

I need a little guidance as I make the transition into the Dark Side.

Paul Braun, Certified Music Junkie

"Music washes from the soul the dust of everyday life." -- Harlan Howard

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Re: XP vs. OS9 -- did soul-searching, need advice [message #104118 is a reply to message #104117]

Wed, 23 September 2009 09:52

kerryg

Messages: 1529
Registered: February 2009

Senior Member
Administrator

Yep, Mike's drivers have totally solved the "dual (well, actually multi - two or more) CPU" issues.

This is just my layman's understanding, but I gather the old drivers weren't "threadsafe" - "threads" (sub-activities of the driver under the hood) would get launched on different CPUS and not know about each other, so they'd blunder into each other and crash and burn. Mike's more modern versions are "threadsafe" - they don't (and can't) do that any more.

- K

"... being bitter is like swallowing poison and waiting for the other guy to die..." - anon

[Updated on: Wed, 23 September 2009 09:54]

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Re: XP vs. OS9 -- did soul-searching, need advice [message #104123 is a reply to message #104118]

Fri, 25 September 2009 08:47

pbraun

Messages: 63
Registered: June 2009
Location: Northwest Indiana

Member

The saga continues -- the HP workstation is beefy -- has 500w psu, dual Xeons...

But also has extra cooling fans. That will be good for keeping the EDS cards cool, but it's noisy as hell. So, I'll need to build some sort of isolation thingy until I can get the walls for my studio built. At that point, all of the pcs will be mounted on a shelf outside the room.

It shipped with a really nice Radeon dual-dvi video card. Sadly, it's one of those with a 4HP cooling fan on board, and it eats up 2 slots, including one of the 2 5v pci slots I need for EDS cards.

Bummer.

Fortunately, I dug through the goodie box and found a Radeon 9600SE that I had gotten for another pc build that never happened, and it's only 1 slot wide.

What's also nice is that this box came with two 250gb sata drives, and it will also boot from IDE. So, I'm going to set up a 40gb IDE drive as boot/OS, use the two 250's as audio work drives.

I also plan on ghosting the boot drive the instant I get everything installed and Paris lights up correctly.

Progress is being made.

Paul Braun, Certified Music Junkie

"Music washes from the soul the dust of everyday life." -- Harlan Howard

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Re: XP vs. OS9 -- did soul-searching, need advice [message #104124 is a reply to message #104123]

Fri, 25 September 2009 09:42

kerryg

Messages: 1529
Registered: February 2009

Senior Member
Administrator

Great - now you can sell the bulkier Radeon and throw the profits back into the machine Very Happy

Very Happy

Maybe one of the PC gurus here can confirm this, but my PC guru argues against really brawny video cards for a DAW anyway; he says "get what you need for reliable smooth operation and no more". Sounds counterintuitive (isn't one buying a more powerful card to get more power??) but something to do with larger cards also requiring more resources allocated to service them. Sorry to be vague, I'm sure someone more knowledgeable than myself will chime in if that's wrong.

"... being bitter is like swallowing poison and waiting for the other guy to die..." - anon

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Re: XP vs. OS9 -- did soul-searching, need advice [message #104125 is a reply to message #104124]

Fri, 25 September 2009 09:54

pbraun

Messages: 63
Registered: June 2009
Location: Northwest Indiana

Member

I remember that discussion on the old NG several years back. Paris doesn't really require much, so a simpler card will work.

I may see if the other Radeon will work in the Dell I just set up to experiment with Reaper. I have that one set up to dual-boot -- audioXP and normalXP. I will be migrating my regular stuff off of my 6-year-old Athlon box that's getting tired.

My home network is multi-platform. The Macs are our main boxes, but I have an XP box for windows-specific crap and for vpn access to work when I need to remote in at 3AM and unlock someone's network account...

That box was also retired from work. So far, both of my new XP boxes were freebies. Free is more gooder. There are perks to being the lead PC tech.

Paul Braun, Certified Music Junkie

"Music washes from the soul the dust of everyday life." -- Harlan Howard

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Re: XP vs. OS9 -- did soul-searching, need advice [message #104129 is a reply to message #104125]

Sat, 26 September 2009 22:42

pbraun

Messages: 63
Registered: June 2009
Location: Northwest Indiana

Member

I've actually still got a matrox G450 dual-head card. I seem to remember back a couple of years when that was one of the most popular cards because it was extremely Paris-friendly.

If it will work in my AGP slot, that should be good, right? Will take up less resources and generate less heat than the Radeon, I would think.

Paul Braun, Certified Music Junkie

"Music washes from the soul the dust of everyday life." -- Harlan Howard

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Re: XP vs. OS9 -- did soul-searching, need advice [message #104131 is a reply to message #104129]

Sun, 27 September 2009 20:58

pbraun

Messages: 63
Registered: June 2009
Location: Northwest Indiana

Member

Progress is being made. At first, I thought the error beep codes I was getting meant, "You're really going to try that G450 in me? Seriously?"

But then it turned out that possibly 2 of the 6 ram sticks are bad. So right now, I've verified that the 2 1GB sticks are good. Tomorrow I will try pairs of the 512's to find the good pair, and I'll have 3gb of ram. And the G450 works just fine. I'll hook it to the widescreen monitor tomorrow and see if it understands widescreen.

Got it to ignore the sata raid controller and boot from cd-rom so I could install XP on the 40gb IDE drive. Next is to finish hardware drivers, then buy Mike's EDS driver and get Paris installed. Once that's done, I'll break the raid and split the two SATA drives and make 'em audio drives. Then I'll ghost the boot drive to an image in case....

Also found out that the Pratt & Whitney cooling fans throttle back after a few minutes to a dull roar that I can block with judicious placement of stuff.

Next trick is tweaking XP to be audio-friendly.

ID hasn't responded to my email about transferring 3.0 license after at least three weeks... think it may be time to do some Googling.

Paul Braun, Certified Music Junkie

"Music washes from the soul the dust of everyday life." -- Harlan Howard

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Re: XP vs. OS9 -- did soul-searching, need advice [message #104132 is a reply to message #104131]

Mon, 28 September 2009 05:19

dnafe

Messages: 390
Registered: February 2009

Senior Member

pbraun wrote on Sun, 27 September 2009 23:58

ID hasn't responded to my email about transferring 3.0 license after at least three weeks... think it may be time to do some Googling.

PM me before you google

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Re: XP vs. OS9 -- did soul-searching, need advice [message #104133 is a reply to message #104009]

Mon, 28 September 2009 09:18

mikeaudet

Messages: 477
Registered: February 2009
Location: Canada

Senior Member

Hi Paul,

Welcome to the dark side. Smile

Smile

The water is actually really nice over here. I'm using 4 UAD cards on a quad core machine with no problems whatsoever. I honestly couldn't manage without either PARIS or the UAD cards. It's a match made in heaven.

When you get your system up and running, I'm always available to help with set up over the phone for those who have bought my drivers or effects. If you run in to any trouble, just send me your phone number and a good time to call, and we'll get things working smoothly.

Good luck!

Mike

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Re: XP vs. OS9 -- did soul-searching, need advice [message #104135 is a reply to message #104133]

Mon, 28 September 2009 10:30

pbraun

Messages: 63
Registered: June 2009
Location: Northwest Indiana

Member

Thanks, Mike.

I'm a couple of weeks away from having a little in the toy budget again. First shekels head your way.

As a loyal Mac guy, it hurts to leave, but the simple fact is that development is being done on the Xp side and, aside from Chuck's plugins, Mac development is at an end. Unless someone comes up with OSX drivers and ID releases that mysterious version of Paris that supposedly runs under OSX.

Don't see that happening.

So, my house continues to be cross-platform. My wife and I use Macs for our daily computers, we have an Intel Mini tucked in next to the Big-Assed TV in the living room for streaming stuff and for playing music (the Mini has a TB drive hung on it with a totally uncompressed library. I also ripped all my cds into compressed AAC on the G5 downstairs for feeding the iPod, but upstairs it has to be uncompressed.) But I do have 2 XP boxes, one now just for Paris, and one with dual-boot for playing with Reaper or for normal internet crap.

Paul Braun, Certified Music Junkie

"Music washes from the soul the dust of everyday life." -- Harlan Howard

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