# Cubase on Win 7 vs Win 10 - DRASTIC difference



## ChristopherDoucet (Mar 4, 2020)

I've got a large template that works great on a PC, no clicks and pops at a buffer size of 256. 

I've tried upgrading to windows 10 (clean install on new ssd's) several times and no matter what I do, I still get the clicks and pops at 1024. If I go to 2048, they go away. Its like I have 25% the power that I had in Win7. I literally cant even use it. 

I've gone through and done most of the Win10 optimizing lists and nothing helps. Up until this morning, I was just going to stay on 7, even though that would exclude me from Cubase 11 in November, but I just reinstalled everything on Win7 and now I'm missing the EXPORT VIDEO function. 

So, I feel stuck between 2 OS's. anyone have any idea off the top of their head as to what could cause such a drastic difference? My specs are below. 

THANKS!!!

***

Cubase Pro 10.5.12 
Dual Xeon E5 2660 2.6 v3
As Rock EP2C602-4L/D16
32Gbs Ram
(was originally a VisionDaw build)

Rednet 1 Interface
2 Rednet PCIe cards. One in the Main PC DAW described above and one in a print rig Mac Pro. 

7 Slaves (64 to 128gbs each)
Vienna Ensemble Pro 6

Nothing really crazy installed...
N I
Soundtoys
Eponential Audio
Izotope


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Mar 4, 2020)

Have you ruled out all plugins? 

In my experience, the settings in Windows 10 don't really have any significant effect on performance. I've found that if a particular computer has issues, no matter how much you try to fix it, you can't once you rule out the basics. Just need to get a new system (particularly mobo). 

I've had 2 computers now where I spent over 3 years troubleshooting specific issues and was never able to solve them. Trust me when I say that I tried everything. At the end of the day it was out of my control in Windows (7 or 10). New computer on the otherhand, no issues whatsover without changing any settings in Windows 10. Also had a Windows 8 computer that worked flawlessly out of the box. In my case changing operating systems never helped so maybe you're having something that is solvable if it worked with 7.


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## rhizomusicosmos (Mar 4, 2020)

It may be a driver that isn't related to audio but still causing DPC latency issues, such as a Win10 driver for network or video hardware. Have you tried trouble shooting with LatencyMon? https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

In my Win7 system, I changed out a Geforce graphics card for a Radeon card and improved performance markedly.


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## ChristopherDoucet (Mar 6, 2020)

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> Have you ruled out all plugins?
> 
> In my experience, the settings in Windows 10 don't really have any significant effect on performance. I've found that if a particular computer has issues, no matter how much you try to fix it, you can't once you rule out the basics. Just need to get a new system (particularly mobo).
> 
> I've had 2 computers now where I spent over 3 years troubleshooting specific issues and was never able to solve them. Trust me when I say that I tried everything. At the end of the day it was out of my control in Windows (7 or 10). New computer on the otherhand, no issues whatsover without changing any settings in Windows 10. Also had a Windows 8 computer that worked flawlessly out of the box. In my case changing operating systems never helped so maybe you're having something that is solvable if it worked with 7.



Hi Gerhard! Thanks for the info. Ya, I was afraid of that. The motherboard I have in my main system I actually just bought a couple of months ago. But I'm still getting similar issues. 

When you say "have I ruled out plugins" what exactly do you mean? Like tested to see if just having a particular plug in installed could be causing clicks and pops? I haven't I suppose I could uninstall everything but VEPRO and Exponential Audio reverbs, just so I could at least test my heavy template. 

It's just so strange that I can run a 4000 track surround template at 256 with ease. Next chance I get, I will totally try that! I have the WIN 10 SSD cloned so I would be happy to start uninstalling everything but the base template. 

THANKS!


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## ChristopherDoucet (Mar 6, 2020)

rhizomusicosmos said:


> It may be a driver that isn't related to audio but still causing DPC latency issues, such as a Win10 driver for network or video hardware. Have you tried trouble shooting with LatencyMon? https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon
> 
> In my Win7 system, I changed out a Geforce graphics card for a Radeon card and improved performance markedly.



Oh right! I used LatencyMon a while ago and had forgotten about it! I will definitely try it! Unfortunately, all my tech time to try it was used up and I'll have to wait a week to test. I went back to Win 7 to bust out a gig. 

The graphics card is interesting. Did you research a particular Raedeon? or was it just anything different to test the difference and it worked?

Thank you!


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## tharos (Mar 6, 2020)

Disable Windows Defender or add a new rule to exclude folder(s) or drive(s) where are your Kontakt librairies


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Mar 8, 2020)

ChristopherDoucet said:


> Hi Gerhard! Thanks for the info. Ya, I was afraid of that. The motherboard I have in my main system I actually just bought a couple of months ago. But I'm still getting similar issues.
> 
> When you say "have I ruled out plugins" what exactly do you mean? Like tested to see if just having a particular plug in installed could be causing clicks and pops? I haven't I suppose I could uninstall everything but VEPRO and Exponential Audio reverbs, just so I could at least test my heavy template.
> 
> ...


No need to uninstall, just don't have them in your session. In other words, remove all plugins from your template and see if it still happens. I guess that could include synths so you might want to remove that as well. If you have any other instruments that aren't running in VEP then I'd remove those too.


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## mscp (Mar 8, 2020)

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> Have you ruled out all plugins?
> 
> In my experience, the settings in Windows 10 don't really have any significant effect on performance. I've found that if a particular computer has issues, no matter how much you try to fix it, you can't once you rule out the basics. Just need to get a new system (particularly mobo).
> 
> I've had 2 computers now where I spent over 3 years troubleshooting specific issues and was never able to solve them. Trust me when I say that I tried everything. At the end of the day it was out of my control in Windows (7 or 10). New computer on the otherhand, no issues whatsover without changing any settings in Windows 10. Also had a Windows 8 computer that worked flawlessly out of the box. In my case changing operating systems never helped so maybe you're having something that is solvable if it worked with 7.



What motherboard are you using atm? I need to change mine.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Mar 8, 2020)

Phil81 said:


> What motherboard are you using atm? I need to change mine.


I'm using an Asus TUF Z390M-PRO. Don't remember exactly why I picked this one but I remember not really having any other options. I think what I wanted was Asus, Z390, 2 M.2 slots, 4 ram slots, and a compact for factor (although my case ended up being a lot bigger than I wanted with a lot of empty space in it).

Haven't had any issues since setting it up. Overclocking was a bit of a mess (largely cause I didn't know what I was doing) but once I let it do it's own suggested settings it was all ended up working fine and as fast as I wanted.


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## Will Blackburn (Mar 8, 2020)

W10 only is why i refuse to upgrade to 10.5, which is so annoying as i'd love that video export. Steinberg had no real reason to abandon Win7 as yet.


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## José Herring (Mar 8, 2020)

I have two machines with similar specs. One machine uses windows 7 the other 10. My 7 machine kills my 10 machine. Imo 7 is just leaner and I put it up with windows XP as the best Windows operating system in the history of Windows. I'm dreading having to upgrade my 7 machine to 10, but that's life when dealing with Tech. The only answer is to turn the main machine to a slave and build a better machine. I'm sure I can do it just in time for Windows 11


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## Shad0wLandsUK (Mar 8, 2020)

Will Blackburn said:


> W10 only is why i refuse to upgrade to 10.5, which is so annoying as i'd love that video export. Steinberg had no real reason to abandon Win7 as yet.


Do you work in IT or have anyone who does around you? Because you would completely understand why they have abandoned a system that is no longer getting any security patches or support. The only way a person can run Windows 7 safely now is through the ESU program, which involves purchasing an extended support package from Microsoft for further patching and support.

It would most likely be commercial suicide to support a platorm MS said they would cut support on. As someone who does those monthly patches for work, I completely understand the decision.


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## Quasar (Mar 8, 2020)

Shad0wLandsUK said:


> Do you work in IT or have anyone who does around you? Because you would completely understand why they have abandoned a system that is no longer getting any security patches or support. The only way a person can run Windows 7 safely now is through the ESU program, which involves purchasing an extended support package from Microsoft for further patching and support.
> 
> It would most likely be commercial suicide to support a platorm MS said they would cut support on. As someone who does those monthly patches for work, I completely understand the decision.


No. Windows 7 can also be run safely by keeping your workstation offline. Reaper still supports both XP and OS X Leopard. Abandoning platforms meant for serious productive work at the lightning-fast pace of digital-age consumerist trends and their attendant predatory obsolescence is straight-up bullshit.


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## rhizomusicosmos (Mar 10, 2020)

ChristopherDoucet said:


> The graphics card is interesting. Did you research a particular Raedeon? or was it just anything different to test the difference and it worked?



I bought a cheap Radeon R9 270 second-hand just to test it and noticed it reduced DPC latency spikes, so I left it in the machine. I was running a GTX 950 before. 

I also swapped out a GTX for a Radeon card in a DSP slave machine at work and this improved reliability of realtime audio processing by eliminating occasional AES3 dropouts. This was with Win7, though.


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## ChristopherDoucet (Mar 17, 2020)

Quasar said:


> No. Windows 7 can also be run safely by keeping your workstation offline. Reaper still supports both XP and OS X Leopard. Abandoning platforms meant for serious productive work at the lightning-fast pace of digital-age consumerist trends and their attendant predatory obsolescence is straight-up bullshit.


I may completely be misunderstanding you but the ONLY reason I feel forced to move to windwos 10 is a feature (Video Export) does NOT work in Win 7 but does in Win 10. Other than that, I would be happy to stay on Win 7 forever.


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## ChristopherDoucet (Mar 17, 2020)

rhizomusicosmos said:


> I bought a cheap Radeon R9 270 second-hand just to test it and noticed it reduced DPC latency spikes, so I left it in the machine. I was running a GTX 950 before.
> 
> I also swapped out a GTX for a Radeon card in a DSP slave machine at work and this improved reliability of realtime audio processing by eliminating occasional AES3 dropouts. This was with Win7, though.


Interesting. I have a GTX in there now. I'll test a radeon immediately!


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## JazzDude (Mar 17, 2020)

u can DEACTIVATE the LANCARD (onboard Realtek or Intel) for the latency tests. 
It made a big difference in all my PCs with either WIN7 and WIN 10. 
I have 3 WIN7 and 1 WIN 10 for special purposes (Ryzen 64GB Ram and NVIDIA 650TI) . 
The WIN7 are always better in performance than WIN10 (tested with latency mon)
Always run the test for at least 10 minutes!


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## JamieLang (Mar 17, 2020)

You're not allowing Steinberg Power Scheme are you? 

One of the only changes I had to make was to disable that: I forget which version of Win10(pro) I installed with--maybe 1803? Anyway--the way the Steinberg Power Scheme works is to make a copy of your existing power scheme, make their changes, and activate--then deactivate it and set it back when you exit. But, what I found was that there was a bug with Win10 power management where something was corrupt when you would (even manually yourself) make a copy of a power scheme. I dodn't know what it was--but it seems like a I went through all the UI available settings. The "fix" was to "reset this power scheme to default settings"--all was good. But, if you can see where I"m going with this--Steinberg's scheme has no system default--so, even if you fix the, say High Performance, by resetting ot default, Steiny copies it and THAT scheme would cause all kinds of issues. 

So, the fix was to simply disable that in Cubase so it leaves it alone...and set the power scheme to High Performance or Ultimate Perfrormance (I don't see a tangible difference in the two fwiw)...reset THAT to it's "default settings"...make any changes to it you want...and it was good. It was a bit of a bitch to track down, which is why I pass this along. I don't know how specific it was to my then new 370 chipset...I DO know an update mucked it up some resetting something and I disabled updates since. But, it was always power scheme management related. So--it would effect Reaper or Mixbus too--but, the difference was I could fix them by using High Performance--Cubase's default resets that to their "copied" power scheme so it would keep not working. 

I never had any issues with the Steinberg Power scheme in WinXP or 7x64. It's actually an elegant solution if you're like me and would rather run on super power saver UNTIL you run music software...alas...


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