back in the days Win XP needed a full set of tweaks (eg. setting performance focus to background processes, disabling graphic FXs such as shadows when dragging and dropping etc.) to make it perform well for music production, so i am wondering if that is the case for Win 10/11 too and if yes if someone could paste a link to a tutorial/site where all needed/recommanded tweaks are listed?
i am not talking making a slim version of the Win 10/11 OS by getting rid off bloatware etc. but i am talking tweaks only that might enhance Win 10/11 for music production (eg. to get better latencies or making the DAW (cubase 12 in my case) perform better).

 

https://audiosex.pro/threads/free-ebook-dont-let-audio-glitches-ruin-your-performances.63623/

this is great. It also includes tweaks for best overall performance

 

Don't let audio glitches ruin your performances!
www.cantabilesoftware.com/glitchfree/

LatencyMon 7.00
The LatencyMon software analyzes and identifies which device, which driver or which service is causing audio dropouts or malfunctions.
Real-time audio suitability checker for Windows 10/8.1/8/7/2016/2012/2008 (x86 and x64)
Scroll Down to: System Monitoring Tools www.resplendence.com/downloads

Native Instruments - Windows Tuning Tips for Audio Processing
https://support.native-instruments....1729-Windows-Tuning-Tips-for-Audio-Processing

PreSonus - Optimizing Your Computer for Audio - Windows 10
https://support.presonus.com/hc/en-...Optimizing-Your-Computer-for-Audio-Windows-10

Ableton - Optimizing Windows for Audio
https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/articles/209071469-Optimizing-Windows-for-Audio

FL Studio - Optimizing FL Studio performance
www.image-line.com/fl-studio-learning/fl-studio-online-manual/html/app_opt.htm

Windows: How to set-up and optimize a Digital Audio Workstation
https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/...t-up-and-optimize-a-Digital-Audio-Workstation

Steinberg - Windows für die Arbeit mit DAWs optimieren
https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/...d-Optimierung-einer-Digital-Audio-Workstation

Focusrite - Windows für die Arbeit mit DAWs optimieren
https://support.focusrite.com/hc/en-gb/articles/207355205-Optimising-your-PC-for-Audio-on-Windows-10

 

thx a lot! very good resources there! if u have more pls keep em coming

 

Windows will always need some type of tweaking as long as the Bill Gates, mind set exists, Bloatware in Windows10/11 are most likely using resources in some way (update/telemetry, etc...).

Starting points:
BIOS settings
Proper hardware connections (ports/slots/cables)

From Steinberg - Windows: How to setup and optimize a Digital Audio Workstation
https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/...t-up-and-optimize-a-Digital-Audio-Workstation

 

Petes tweaks from safespace

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/wind...dio-workstation-build-and-tweak-guide-part-1/



Ultimate Performance Plan for windows

powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61

^^ Paste into CMD

 

Use FULL Windows 10 Latency Reduction Pack https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1csdZP0122SxC9g94ARAXoBza6PKN8Gze
Use Fidelizer 8.8 https://www.fidelizer-audio.com/download-fidelizer/
Use PS2 mouse instead of USB mouse
Remove all unnecessary USB devices
Disable optical drive driver
Turn off Ethernet card
Turn off all unnecessary background processes
Exclude all unnecessary startup programs
Turn off antivirus
Use MinorityClean (from BugHead Emperor package) /improves sound reproduction quality/
Set audio programs priority to 'realtime' (if it works for you), or 'high'
Use QuickCPU for power and core management https://coderbag.com/product/quickcpu
---------------------
For audio players use also 5ms buffer, turn off 'replay gain', turn off any DSP (including dithering and oversampling), turn off visualizations, seekbar and timer (where available).
If you are listening to a playlist, minimize the player to tray (improves the sound by releasing the CPU from communicating with GPU).
---------------------
For improving the sound when listening to your audio collection, rewrite your files first (and exclude them from defragmentation - use UltimateDefrag) with Rewrite Data 3.78 (from BugHead Emperor package).

 

Last edited by a moderator: Apr 7, 2022

No, because nobody actually proved that so called "optimizations" make any difference.

 

What does all those services do? Here: https://www.blackviper.com/

 

If they don't know what they are doing, they better keep their hands off the services. They sometimes cause more damage.
The performance gain is very small.

Reduce the autostarts with the free CCleaner --> Tools --> Autostart.

The Ultimate Guide to Optimize your Windows PC for the Stage
https://gigperformer.com/docs/ultimate-guide-to-optimize-windows-for-stage/index.html
Don't let audio glitches ruin your performances!
www.cantabilesoftware.com/glitchfree/

 

Last edited: May 26, 2022

Not really, there's not too much to tweak.

That said, running O&O shutup and then using Autoruns from Sysinternals (now part of Microsoft) to get rid of excess services on startup and you'll be good.

 

general optimization if fine and recommender, like disabling useless services and various bloatware,it should be done on every computer, the rest is nonsense, because unless your computer is exclusively used for music production and nothing else,every tweak will impact on other aspects of the experience.
I remember when on specialized press they recommended to disable graphic features so save some resources.if you want a system that looks awful and reminds of windows 98 just to save 100 mb o f ram, do it. The truth is that apart the aforementioned services to disable because they are actualy useless, the only thing you have to do is disabling sleep mode to avoid your pc from going idle while you are recording

 

There are no "useless" services. Services which are not required are in sleeping mode using only a tiny amount of RAM.
Open the Task Manager, in the view menu select "Group by type" and check the "Windows processes" group.

 

i think they mean useless on a pc which sole purpose is music production/recording

 

What does it do ?

 

No. I used to be really into tweaking in XP times but on Win10, I don't do anything except turn off the antivirus realtime scanning and automatic updates.

 

Question: Do you have any performance problems at all that justify intervening in the system? If not, why do anything at all? If there are no problems, leave the system alone. Make sure the autostart is cleaned up and the system is running in performance mode. That is all.

 

I agree with sinus. unless you know what youre doing, be very careful. a new pc should work fine without making any changes, but of course you can eliminate useless programs and processes to speed things up a bit. when I setup a new pc I immediately go through and delete the garbage programs installed like spotify, I do it because its annoying and I dont support them. windows has decent program removal utilities but ccleaner is a good one but I only use custom clean, registry and uninstall functions because the others can cause serious issues if you dont know what youre doing, and even still it can sometimes cause unexpected results. the same goes for other such utilities, always set a restore backup point before mucking around. even very basic hacks can wreak havoc. I learned that the hard way.

 

or just use atlas os...