# All computers w/ Intel chips in past 10 years to slow down 30%?!



## Nick Batzdorf (Jan 3, 2018)

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/02/intel_cpu_design_flaw/

Whoa. I hope this isn't going to render every one of our machines useless.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Jan 3, 2018)

Not a joke, by the way! This flaw affects Windows, Linux, and macOS.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/18...at-could-impact-macos-performance-report-says

https://9to5mac.com/2018/01/02/intel-cpu-bug-fix-slowdown-for-macs/


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## FinGael (Jan 3, 2018)

Sigh. Have not even got past of "the death" of Sonar yet. 

I would now like to be taken back to the alternative universe, where Sonar is having good monthly updates and my Intels still run like good horses in their prime years.


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## TGV (Jan 3, 2018)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/02/intel_cpu_design_flaw/
> 
> Whoa. I hope this isn't going to render every one of our machines useless.


Fortunately, a large part of music making does not require switching to kernel mode: e.g. generating a wave or filtering is all "user space". However, file reads are affected, and that could mean worse sample streaming performance. Pretty shitty.

Perhaps we can get Intel to replace our batteries for only $29 as well?


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## Pier (Jan 3, 2018)

Apparently the security patch is not affecting performance of gaming in Linux.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=x86-PTI-Initial-Gaming-Tests

:fingerscrossed:


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## Pier (Jan 3, 2018)

IO performance is being hit pretty hard (on Linux at least) with SSDs. This sounds very bad for audio.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux-415-x86pti&num=2


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## Matt Riley (Jan 3, 2018)

I'm not smart enough to understand all of this. So my 2013 iMac 3.5ghz core i7 will slow down 30%?? Will there be a fix?


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## EvilDragon (Jan 3, 2018)

5-30%, initial numbers say. But I'd rather wait for this all to pan out... initial headline news can often be blown out of proportion.


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## Pier (Jan 3, 2018)

Matt Riley said:


> I'm not smart enough to understand all of this. So my 2013 iMac 3.5ghz core i7 will slow down 30%?? Will there be a fix?



30% is the worst case scenario in some very particular processes. So no, generally speaking your CPU will not immediately slow down 30%. Most likely the average user won't notice any difference.

As for the fix it's unclear at this point.


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## Quasar (Jan 3, 2018)

And yet so many people scoff at those of us who wish to keep our DAW rigs offline, bypassing the need for all of this ongoing cops-&-robbers security patch melodrama. I'm going to keep my 2012 Sandy Bridge i7 running as it does now by not doing the update and by never going online with it again.

Fuck Native Access and every other piece-of-shit fascist CP scheme that demands that we put our workstations online.


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## chimuelo (Jan 3, 2018)

It’s likely to give AMD another chunk of market share.
But if Intel can prove that new wafers fixed the problem, could be a big boost for 2018 CPU sales.

I never noticed 27% loss. 
But I’d sure as hell notice such a large gain.

Also means AMD would be eating dust of same clocked x86 CPUs.

Good time to be a consumer again.


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## Pier (Jan 3, 2018)

chimuelo said:


> But if Intel can prove that new wafers fixed the problem, could be a big boost for 2018 CPU sales.



That's where it gets ugly IMO.

If it's fixed in the upcoming Coffe Lake chips it means Intel knew about this years ago but lowered security validation on purpose to keep market share vs AMD.


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## kurtvanzo (Jan 3, 2018)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/02/intel_cpu_design_flaw/
> 
> Whoa. I hope this isn't going to render every one of our machines useless.



I learned a new term from this article.... FUCKWIT... sounds like how I feel toward the masterminds that developed this flaw, then took 10 years to let the rest of us know.  .... perhaps the head developer is named Wit?


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## heisenberg (Jan 3, 2018)

A bunch of well known server environments with Amazon and Microsoft are going to be updates with patches for this in the next week or so. We will start to get a sense of how this impacts computing environments pretty soon. DAWs probably don't shift back and forth from user to kernel mode as frequently as server apps but I bet they do so way more than most conventional productivity apps.

A more complete explanation of user vs kernel mode. Substitute the word Linux with the OS you use to get a clearer sense of what is going on. The "Overview" section in the article is where I would focus...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_space

Not liking this one bit.


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## Pier (Jan 3, 2018)

heisenberg said:


> DAWs probably don't shift back and forth from user to kernel mode as frequently as server apps but I bet they do so way more than most conventional productivity apps.



As I wrote in a previous post the impact in IO when using SSDs is quite significant (at least in Linux).

Check the first benchmarks in this link: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux-415-x86pti&num=2


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## jules (Jan 3, 2018)

Gosh... just when i was about updating my good ol' core2quad Q6600 ! Does somebody have an idea if the last cpus are concerned (i7 8700k and the like ) ?


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## EvilDragon (Jan 3, 2018)

Yay, Quasar again forgot to take his meds :D


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## whinecellar (Jan 3, 2018)

So wait... this performance slowdown will happen:

1. automatically over time
2. as a result of a security breach that exploits this flaw
3. only if you run the forthcoming updates that are supposed to patch a *potential* security issue

???


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## EvilDragon (Jan 3, 2018)

3.


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## EvilDragon (Jan 3, 2018)

Read the bold part. DAWs might not be affected _as much_.


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## Desire Inspires (Jan 3, 2018)

Just buy a new PC every year.


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## jules (Jan 3, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> 3.


Surely not as w10 applies security updates automaticaly. 
1.


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## EvilDragon (Jan 3, 2018)

...unless you pause and defer the updates in W10 Pro. Or set your network connection to metered.


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## Mornats (Jan 3, 2018)

Pier Bover said:


> That's where it gets ugly IMO.
> 
> If it's fixed in the upcoming Coffe Lake chips it means Intel knew about this years ago but lowered security validation on purpose to keep market share vs AMD.



I think this suggests that Intel knew about this, at least back in November: https://www.americanbankingnews.com...ceo-brian-m-krzanich-sells-889878-shares.html

I read on a tweet (and therefore can't really say whether it's accurate) that he's now down to the minimum legal number of shares he can own as a CEO.


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## jules (Jan 3, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> ...unless you pause and defer the updates in W10 Pro. Or set your network connection to metered.


But defer doesn't mean they won't be applied, am i wrong ? You're just allowed to postpone for 30 days or something, if i'm not mistaken. I'm very reluctant to update to w10 for this very same reason.


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## EvilDragon (Jan 3, 2018)

Yes, 30 days is enough to see how will the patch affect performance for various workloads. Then you can decide if you'll go offline or keep a metered connection (so that updates don't download).


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## ptram (Jan 3, 2018)

I still own a beautiful G5 Mac. The Motorolas inside it should be unaffected. Maybe I can switch to that one.


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## Tacet (Jan 3, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> Yes, 30 days is enough to see how will the patch affect performance for various workloads. Then you can decide if you'll go offline or keep a metered connection (so that updates don't download).


Are you sure that keeping a metered connection is enough to stop automatic updates in W10 Home edition?

With version 1709 you can designate both your WIFI and ethernet connections as metered, by the way, contrary to what old articles I read on the web were saying.


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## EvilDragon (Jan 3, 2018)

If metered connection is enabled, only critical updates are served. Now, will this be a critical update? It's a matter of security, so it might be...


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## Tacet (Jan 3, 2018)

You can disable automatic updates in W10 Home Edition. Check this out.
https://www.drivethelife.com/windows-10/how-to-disable-automatic-windows-10-update.html


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## Pier (Jan 3, 2018)

Apple released the "fix" with 10.13.2 about a month ago:


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## wayne_rowley (Jan 3, 2018)

That’s High Sierra. What about other versions of Mac OS?


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## TGV (Jan 3, 2018)

wayne_rowley said:


> That’s High Sierra. What about other versions of Mac OS?


It's apparently tied to a feature that most modern CPUs have: PCID. If that is used, the performance hit is considerably less. So if older version of macOS get patched, they hopefully use the same feature.


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## EvilDragon (Jan 3, 2018)

It's kinda sad that my (not that old) i7-6700K doesn't have that PCID. It was released in Q3 2015. Bummer :/


Trying to google around for a list of Intel CPUs that have the PCID instruction seems downright impossible - all results are about the bug instead! :D


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## jules (Jan 3, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> Yes, 30 days is enough to see how will the patch affect performance for various workloads. Then you can decide if you'll go offline or keep a metered connection (so that updates don't download).


Thanks for pointing this metered thing out, i never heard about it. I'm really puzzled to see what one has to do just to deal with the o.s, today !


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## Nick Batzdorf (Jan 3, 2018)

Pier Bover said:


> Most likely the average user won't notice any difference.



We're not the average user.

I'm not going off the deep end without knowing more, but this doesn't sound good.


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## wayne_rowley (Jan 3, 2018)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> We're not the average user.
> 
> I'm not going off the deep end without knowing more, but this doesn't sound good.



Agreed. Until someone can try the patch on a DAW PC and compare performance and latency we're not going to know.


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## Raphioli (Jan 3, 2018)

When I read the news about this, I came here immediately to see if there were any threads about it, and this is actually my first time coming to this section...

This is very bad news. And I bet Intel won't be doing a replacement program, since they'll probably go bankrupt if they try to do such a thing.
But at the same time, many enthusiast users bought their CPU by reading benchmark articles and such.
If theres a huge performance hit, theres definitely going to be a class action law suit.


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## husker (Jan 3, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> It's kinda sad that my (not that old) i7-6700K doesn't have that PCID. It was released in Q3 2015. Bummer :/
> 
> 
> Trying to google around for a list of Intel CPUs that have the PCID instruction seems downright impossible - all results are about the bug instead! :D



I have that same chip in two of my computers. I've been equally unable to find out anything as well.


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## J-M (Jan 3, 2018)

So as far as I understand...I worked my ass off to buy a cpu (i7-6850k) that's going to take a performance hit, because for me going offline isn't possible? Great, just great, what a way to start off 2018.


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## Raphioli (Jan 3, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> It's kinda sad that my (not that old) i7-6700K doesn't have that PCID. It was released in Q3 2015. Bummer :/
> 
> 
> Trying to google around for a list of Intel CPUs that have the PCID instruction seems downright impossible - all results are about the bug instead! :D



In the following article,
https://www.pcworld.com/article/324...cpu-kernel-bug-faq-how-it-affects-pc-mac.html
theres a section which says,


> More recent Intel processors from the Haswell (4th-gen) era onward have a technology called PCID (Process-Context Identifiers) enabled and are said to suffer less of a performance hit.


Doesn't this mean your CPU also has PCID?




MrLinssi said:


> So as far as I understand...I worked my ass off to buy a cpu (i7-6850k) that's going to take a performance hit, because for me going offline isn't possible? Great, just great, what a way to start off 2018.


Feeling exactly the same, but with a "mad emote" instead at the end....


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## EvilDragon (Jan 3, 2018)

Raphioli said:


> Doesn't this mean your CPU also has PCID?



I'd love to believe so, but this tool listed PCID as not available on my CPU. Not sure why.


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## Raphioli (Jan 3, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> I'd love to believe so, but this tool listed PCID as not available on my CPU. Not sure why.



When I do a "6700k pcid" search on Google, there gtihub result shown at the top which says "true" for "pcid".
Some other results displayed also lists "pcid", so I'm not sure why your getting that kind of result from that tool...
I'm no tech wizard, but I'm wondering if PCID is something you need to enable in bios.


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## Symfoniq (Jan 3, 2018)

ptram said:


> I still own a beautiful G5 Mac. The Motorolas inside it should be unaffected. Maybe I can switch to that one.



Motorola's G5 never came to fruition. It's a topic of debate today whether a working Motorola prototype ever existed. The G5 processors in Macs came from IBM.


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## chillbot (Jan 3, 2018)

Tacet said:


> You can disable automatic updates in W10 Home Edition. Check this out.
> https://www.drivethelife.com/windows-10/how-to-disable-automatic-windows-10-update.html



Does this actually work?

And if yes, how come everyone isn't doing it?


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## EvilDragon (Jan 3, 2018)

Raphioli said:


> I'm no tech wizard, but I'm wondering if PCID is something you need to enable in bios.



No, it's a CPU feature, not BIOS/UEFI related.


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## alanb (Jan 3, 2018)

Not to worry, gang . . . according to this article, it's only machines "doing a lot of accesses to small files" that "might have slow downs of 50 percent or more" . . . . . :-/


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## Raphioli (Jan 3, 2018)

alanb said:


> Not to worry, gang . . . according to this article, it's only machines "doing a lot of accesses to small files" that "might have slow downs of 50 percent or more" . . . . . :-/



Which I guess applies to majority of us using orchestral samples... (reading ALOT of small files)
This is a nightmare...


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## Puzzlefactory (Jan 3, 2018)

Nothing lasts forever. I wouldn’t expect my 10 year old car to just carry on as if it were new...


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## chillbot (Jan 3, 2018)

Puzzlefactory said:


> Nothing lasts forever. I wouldn’t expect my 10 year old car to just carry on as if it were new...


That's silly to say... what would you expect from the crazy-expensive top-of-the-line sports car that you just bought last year though...?


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## Puzzlefactory (Jan 3, 2018)

chillbot said:


> That's silly to say... what would you expect from the crazy-expensive top-of-the-line sports car that you just bought last year though...?


 
Title of thread says 10 years. 

Haven’t read the article, but is it talking about one year old top of the line “deposit for a house money” machines?


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## chillbot (Jan 3, 2018)

I'm pretty sure no one would be complaining about a 10-year-old computer slowing down a bit.

Title of the thread also says "ALL computers w/Intel chips...."

I'm waiting to see what VisionDAW has to say on the matter regarding my sports car.


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## Quasar (Jan 3, 2018)

Puzzlefactory said:


> Nothing lasts forever. I wouldn’t expect my 10 year old car to just carry on as if it were new...


It's within the last 10 years. (And perhaps as far back as 1995.) Not 10 years ago or older.


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## Thomas A Booker (Jan 3, 2018)

Puzzlefactory said:


> Nothing lasts forever. I wouldn’t expect my 10 year old car to just carry on as if it were new...



False analogy. A more valid one would be that your car is suddenly required to have an engine modification that slows it down 5-30%. Nothing to do with whether it's still running as fast as when it was new.


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## Tacet (Jan 3, 2018)

chillbot said:


> Does this actually work?
> 
> And if yes, how come everyone isn't doing it?


I tried method 2 and it seems to work.

It's also very easy to retrace your steps and re-enable automatic updates, which I did too.

Since the next W10 update is due tuesday, we have until then to decide whether to pull the trigger or not.


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## Kony (Jan 3, 2018)

Early reports on performance issues are not good:

https://www.extremetech.com/computi...fix-intel-security-flaw-hits-performance-hard


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## LFO (Jan 3, 2018)

Pier Bover said:


> That's where it gets ugly IMO.
> 
> If it's fixed in the upcoming Coffe Lake chips it means Intel knew about this years ago but lowered security validation on purpose to keep market share vs AMD.


It's not. Coffee Lake chips are being tested along with other generations as they are affected also. :\


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## Josh Richman (Jan 3, 2018)

chillbot said:


> That's silly to say... what would you expect from the crazy-expensive top-of-the-line sports car that you just bought last year though...?





Thomas A Booker said:


> False analogy. A more valid one would be that your car is suddenly required to have an engine modification that slows it down 5-30%. Nothing to do with whether it's still running as fast as when it was new.



Oh I seem to remember a German auto manufacturer with a bit of a diesel scandal.... then all the cars lost value and were detuned.


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## Josh Richman (Jan 3, 2018)

So are the new iMac pros coming out with this issue out of the box?! Ouch. I feel bad for all the folks who just ordered new computers and dropped serious coin on upgrading.


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## Kardon (Jan 3, 2018)

Well, it appears there may be a little bad news for AMD users as well. Google's Project Zero (bug hunters) have found exploits which can be used against at least two AMD processors they tested with (as well as ARM). It's a different (but related) type of flaw from the Intel problem. I think it's still too early to tell what the real impact of all of this will be, but it's a real shake-up/wake-up to the world, since it appears nearly everyone may be impacted. It may be days or weeks before we really know the extent of the performance hits we'll face in musicland, but interestingly the Google post says they reported their initial research to Intel/AMD/ARM on June 1, 2017. Of the 3 exploits discovered, AMD claims only one is valid on their processors, and an OS patch should have "Negligible performance impact.". The arstechnica link below is a good high-level read, the Google Project Zero post leads deep into the weeds after a bit. The last is the AMD response to all of this.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/201...odern-processor-has-unfixable-security-flaws/

https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/reading-privileged-memory-with-side.html?t=1&cn=ZmxleGlibGVfcmVjcw==&refsrc=email&iid=add1094fa18f4882b00b7946e0846855&uid=702052826495586304&nid=244+272699400

https://www.amd.com/en/corporate/speculative-execution


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## Pier (Jan 3, 2018)

Here is a Twitter thread which explains the whole thing.



(go read it on Twitter since there are many tweets after this one)

There are 2 problems.

The first one called _Meltdown_ is the one that has been making the news lately and it only affects Intel chips. Meltdown has been "fixed" at the kernel level and the fix can cause up to 30% of performance reduction. It's important everyone updates their computers and browsers *ASAP* since even scripts in your browser could exploit this.

The second one is called _Spectre _and it affects all CPUs in existence today. There is no quick fix, but the good news is that it is very difficult to exploit by malicious hackers. To fix Spectre will require a redesign of all chips in existence (Intel, AMD, ARM) and it will take years until the solution reaches consumers.


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## thesteelydane (Jan 4, 2018)

Well, I don't know much about computers, but I applied the latest Apple Security update for 10.11.6 on December 31, which was released together with 10.13.2 that supposedly contains the fix for that operating system. I would assume it would also fix it for 10.11.6? I'm on a 2014 top of the line MacBook Pro, and it has certainly affected Logic. As soon as I hit about 30 instances of Kontakt - which was never a problem in the past - Logic grinds to a halt, and eventually freezes up the whole computer. I'm furious - I would much rather take this machine off line forever than deal with this.

Could one imagine a fix that allows the user to boot up in a "performance" mode without the fix applied where the computer runs as before, but without being able to access the internet, and a "safe" mode with the fix applied so one can connect to the internet, but at the cost of performance. Or is that not how this works?


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## rrichard63 (Jan 4, 2018)

thesteelydane said:


> Could one imagine a fix that allows the used to boot up in a "performance" mode without the fix applied where the computer runs as before, but without being able to access the internet, and a "safe" mode with the fix applied so one can connect to the internet, but at the cost of performance.


This is an option on Windows, but I don't know about Macs. I've never tried to set it up though, and don't know how tricky it is to do. Most uses involve switching between two different operating systems. There might (or might not) be problems doing it with two copies of the same operating system.


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## Mornats (Jan 4, 2018)

This is rather unscientific but I had today's Windows 10 patch waiting for me to install - the one mentioned here: https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-pushing-out-emergency-fix-newly-disclosed-processor-exploit

Beforehand I played a loop of a CPU heavy track of mine played at 128 samples. Using Reaper's performance monitoring tool I eyeballed the CPU load at being between 83-90%. After installing the update I did the same and CPU load was pretty much the same, if not a little lower. Totally unscientific of course but this pre-patch Tuesday update hasn't killed my performance.

Running a Devil's Canyon (a rehashed Haswell) Intel 4790K running at 4.5ghz across all cores.


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## thesteelydane (Jan 4, 2018)

rrichard63 said:


> This is an option on Windows, but I don't know about Macs. I've never tried to set it up though, and don't know how tricky it is to do. Most uses involve switching between two different operating systems. There might (or might not) be problems doing it with two copies of the same operating system.


I was thinking more along the lines that Apple should offer it as a built in option to the users who need it, if technically possible.


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## Pier (Jan 4, 2018)

@thesteelydane it really doesn't matter if you are online or not. Any piece of software could collect private data in the background while you are offline. Unless you never ever connect that machine to the internet you would be at risk.


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## Pier (Jan 4, 2018)

rrichard63 said:


> This is an option on Windows



Safe mode in Windows still uses the same kernel. It's only called "safe" because it allows you to boot into Windows with everything but the most essential pieces disabled. It's not related to security features.


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## thesteelydane (Jan 4, 2018)

Pier Bover said:


> @thesteelydane it really doesn't matter if you are online or not. Any piece of software could collect private data in the background while you are offline. Unless you never ever connect that machine to the internet you would be at risk.



That's what I feared. And I guess that even if I never used email, or any sort of online banking on said machine I wouldn't be safe from identity theft or other online nastiness?


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## Pier (Jan 4, 2018)

thesteelydane said:


> That's what I feared. And I guess that even if I never used email, or any sort of online banking on said machine I wouldn't be safe from identity theft or other online nastiness?



If you don't have any sensitive information in that machine well then there is really nothing to steal, but that is an extreme edge case. Objectively it doesn't make sense for Apple to invest in a feature for 0.00000001% of its users.

Are you sure your performance problem is CPU related though? You can check with Activity Monitor what's going on in your machine. Also today NI released an update for Kontakt that could help you.


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## heisenberg (Jan 4, 2018)

Mornats said:


> This is rather unscientific but I had today's Windows 10 patch waiting for me to install - the one mentioned here: https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-pushing-out-emergency-fix-newly-disclosed-processor-exploit... Totally unscientific of course but this pre-patch Tuesday update hasn't killed my performance.
> 
> *Running a Devil's Canyon (a rehashed Haswell) Intel 4790K* running at 4.5ghz across all cores.



Thanks for doing this. I believe your processor has a PCID, the first generation of Intel CPU's that did. This may have helped preserve some of your performance in Reaper. There are posts here referencing the PCID the threads on this topic.


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## rrichard63 (Jan 4, 2018)

Pier Bover said:


> Safe mode in Windows still uses the same kernel. It's only called "safe" because it allows you to boot into Windows with everything but the most essential pieces disabled. It's not related to security features.


I wasn't referring to safe mode. I was referring to the ability to install two different operating systems and choose at boot time which one to run. Years ago, this required third party software with names like "System Commander", etc. Today I think it might be built in to the BIOS and/or Windows itself. But I'm not sure.

Relevant to this discussion, the purpose would be to have one OS set up with full network access, automatic security updates, anti-malware software, and so on. The other OS set up with no network access, no need for protection and (presumably) good performance.


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## Pier (Jan 4, 2018)

rrichard63 said:


> I wasn't referring to safe mode. I was referring to the ability to install two different operating systems and choose at boot time which one to run. Years ago, this required third party software with names like "System Commander", etc. Today I think it might be built in to the BIOS and/or Windows itself. But I'm not sure.
> 
> Relevant to this discussion, the purpose would be to have one OS set up with full network access, automatic security updates, anti-malware software, and so on. The other OS set up with no network access, no need for protection and (presumably) good performance.



Gotcha.

Yes that has been always possible in macOS too and it's actually very simple. If anyone is interested I can outline the steps for installing and running macOS from a different drive.


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## EvilDragon (Jan 4, 2018)

Mornats said:


> This is rather unscientific but I had today's Windows 10 patch waiting for me to install - the one mentioned here: https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-pushing-out-emergency-fix-newly-disclosed-processor-exploit
> 
> Beforehand I played a loop of a CPU heavy track of mine played at 128 samples. Using Reaper's performance monitoring tool I eyeballed the CPU load at being between 83-90%. After installing the update I did the same and CPU load was pretty much the same, if not a little lower. Totally unscientific of course but this pre-patch Tuesday update hasn't killed my performance.
> 
> Running a Devil's Canyon (a rehashed Haswell) Intel 4790K running at 4.5ghz across all cores.



That project of yours, how much does it rely on Kontakt?


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## Mornats (Jan 4, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> That project of yours, how much does it rely on Kontakt?



Lots for me but that's subjective  It's my most Kontakt heavy one but not up to the large templates of most on here. 26 instances of Kontakt, 1 instance of Massive, numerous instances of Neutron and Ozone 7 on the master bus. Reverb is RC 48 with sends sent to it so only one instance of it.


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## EvilDragon (Jan 4, 2018)

Well that sounds reassuring! Libraries on SSDs?


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## wayne_rowley (Jan 4, 2018)

thesteelydane said:


> I'm on a 2014 top of the line MacBook Pro, and it has certainly affected Logic. As soon as I hit about 30 instances of Kontakt - which was never a problem in the past - Logic grinds to a halt, and eventually freezes up the whole computer.



Worrying as I recently went to 10.12.6 and my MacBook Pro is 2011. Not sure if that has the fix or no. Just tried Logic though with some of my larger tracks. 44 tracks of Kontakt playing back okay so far, CPU averaging 40%-60%.

Wayne


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## Nick Batzdorf (Jan 4, 2018)

Puzzlefactory said:


> Title of thread says 10 years



Right, and that includes machines you bought 10 seconds ago.


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## C.R. Rivera (Jan 4, 2018)

OK, Late 20212 I-7. I did a backup with Acronis, set a restore point, installed the new Windows update.....brickwalled a bit, broke links, restore point did not quickly come into play. ended up restoring from my backup, and then set the update action pushback to 35 days. Anyone else have a plan to block this update? 

Cheers

Carlos


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## Mornats (Jan 4, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> Well that sounds reassuring! Libraries on SSDs?



Yep. Windows and Reaper on one SSD, all Kontakt libraries on another. Crucial M4 and Sandisk SSD Plus respectively.


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## kitekrazy (Jan 4, 2018)

Puzzlefactory said:


> Nothing lasts forever. I wouldn’t expect my 10 year old car to just carry on as if it were new...



The headlights in my 99 GMC Sonoma haven't went out yet plus a whole lot of other parts.


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## chimuelo (Jan 4, 2018)

I have a Supermicro P4SCT+II/P4 3.4GHz and Gigastudio with a 2001 Scope DSP PCI Card that sounds great.
Running Windows 98 still.


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## Pier (Jan 4, 2018)

I'm on El Capitan and I installed the new patch from Apple.

I was worried about SSD performance so I made a benchmark before and after the update. No difference at all.

@thesteelydane maybe your problem is not related to the update...


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## thesteelydane (Jan 4, 2018)

Pier Bover said:


> I'm on El Capitan and I installed the new patch from Apple.
> 
> I was worried about SSD performance so I made a benchmark before and after the update. No difference at all.
> 
> @thesteelydane maybe your problem is not related to the update...



Yeah I’m beginning to suspect so, but I installed the new security update AND the new Kontakt version on the same day, and then everything went haywire. Maybe it’s time for a clean install of everything. I’m also wondering if there is any point in upgrading to high sierra, or stick to El Capitan, but that’s a topic for a different thread.


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## Quanah (Jan 4, 2018)

All is well here with Windows 10 pro, Asus x79 board, Sandy Bridge i7 3930k six-core. I downloaded the update from the Microsoft Update Catalog page and installed it without issue. System performance is fine. Before and after readings on the performance meter in Reaper are the same. I've opened all my large projects, and everything is still running completely smooth and efficient. I hope it remains that way... and I hope everyone has the same uneventful outcome!!


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## MarcusD (Jan 5, 2018)

Some bech tests have appeared for coffee lake CPUs and the performance loss is with the margin of error between 1 & 2%. In some cases theres a slight improvment. However, working at 4k with NVME has had a noticable performance inpact. Thats about all ive read so far.

Thing is, even when they do a software patch to fix this. Hackers can look at the patch and work out exactly what the original problem was. So in essence, eventually they could crack the security patch and then theres nothing left to take advantage of the problem with it being phyical hardware flaw. It could be pretty messy.


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## thereus (Jan 5, 2018)

MarcusD said:


> Some bech tests have appeared for coffee lake CPUs and the performance loss is with the margin of error between 1 & 2%. In some cases theres a slight improvment. However, working at 4k with NVME has had a noticable performance inpact. Thats about all ive read so far.
> 
> Thing is, even when they do a software patch to fix this. Hackers can look at the patch and work out exactly what the original problem was. So in essence, eventually they could crack the security patch and then theres nothing left to take advantage of the problem with it being phyical hardware flaw. It could be pretty messy.



Well, it’s not going to protect you from a rootkit but if an attacker can get a rootkit onto your machine then there are much easier ways of discovering your passwords than by exploiting this particular issue.


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## NoamL (Jan 5, 2018)

Quoting @Rctec

*Is your DAW connected to the Internet? 

"Absolutely Not! We have a very strong firewall, but still have all our DAWs and servers with picture access isolated from the Internet."
*
Everyone here is talking about updates auto-downloading, I assume that means your DAWs are online? WHY?!

All it takes is some genius 22 year old in China hacking the picture off your DAW and you'll NEVER work in movies again. You guys are taking crazy risks. Any real studio needs a dedicated Internet-facing computer (for answering emails etc) that is completely air gapped from your DAW.


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## EvilDragon (Jan 5, 2018)

Why? Because some of us can't be arsed to have an offline DAW.  Also, not all studios work in movie industry.


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## RCsound (Jan 5, 2018)

What is the risk of someone hacking a machine that is only used for music and connecting it for software activations briefly or one that only uses VEP?

Software that need an active connection (like new korg plugins) get out of my system definitly. DAW always online? no. Rely on a secondary machine to go online.

You can get a copy of windows 1703 and save it on a pendrive, the day you have to format windows you use that copy, immediately after installing, block Windows updated until this disaster is solved... 2, 3 years ?, taking into account that the future processors that will be released to the market is sure to have this defect because they are currently in development with this vulnerability?. And the worst is that you can not set up a system today without this vulnerability.


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## GdT (Jan 5, 2018)

Desire Inspires said:


> Just buy a new PC every year.


A cynic might say this is away to sell new hardware.


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## GdT (Jan 5, 2018)

Raphioli said:


> And I bet Intel won't be doing a replacement program


Um. If this was an auto or a domestic appliance they would be obliged to do a re-call and re-fit!


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## Sami (Jan 5, 2018)

I bet you that they will have this patched and the now-rabid consumers will have forgotten about it within 3 weeks. Don‘t fall prey to the media boys and girls, either actually understand  what this vulnerability is and the discuss it or don’t partake in uninformed speculation and media-fueled frenzy.


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## Synetos (Jan 5, 2018)

Sami said:


> I bet you that they will have this patched and the now-rabid consumers will have forgotten about it within 3 weeks. Don‘t fall prey to the media boys and girls, either actually understand  what this vulnerability is and the discuss it or don’t partake in uninformed speculation and media-fueled frenzy.



Totally agree! I proactively patched both of my Win10 Systems (3930k, 6950x), after creating a system restore point. Absolutely no issues that I noticed.

Also, some folks here may not know that you can keep your Windows 10 box from automatically downloading updates by making your network adapter "Metered". Then you will get prompted for updates, rather than automatically having them installed. It is not practical for me to have my computers isolated from the Internet. 

Network and Internet Settings>Ethernet>"your adapter">Set Metered Connection=ON


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## LFO (Jan 5, 2018)

GdT said:


> Um. If this was an auto or a domestic appliance they would be obliged to do a re-call and re-fit!


But it's not. And they won't. :/


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## heisenberg (Jan 5, 2018)

Did a restore point and went for it. Update went smoothly. Subjectively, apps that involve a lot of I/O so far appear to be about the same. My system is Windows Pro 7.1 x64 on an i7 3930K CPU, DAW is Nuendo 8.1.0. It ran smoothly with a medium sized project.


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## Rohann (Jan 7, 2018)

I'm actually now considering taking my machine completely off the Internet. That said, the idea that software can collect information even between audio software updates is concerning. I assume this is only malicious software though right? Is there a way to safely do this, I.e leave the update off and disconnect from internet? I have no real reason to be consistently connected on this machine.

By the way, I do think respectfully angry letters are in order to intel, if the update indeed bricks machines. They need to be willing to keep their customers happy in some way or another. As mentioned, if this happened with any car manufacturer there would be recalls.

Please keep posting test runs, I will do so myself as well.


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## EvilDragon (Jan 7, 2018)

The update bricking machines is not Intel's fault - it's on MS side of things if some antivirus programs aren't up to date before running the update.


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## Rohann (Jan 7, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> The update bricking machines is not Intel's fault - it's on MS side of things if some antivirus programs aren't up to date before running the update.


Good to know! What I actually meant is that if there are significant performance hits to machines bought for performance.


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## EvilDragon (Jan 8, 2018)

That's not "bricking a machine".

And no, as of yet it doesn't seem there are any significant performance hits for our usage (apart from slight reduction in SSD 4k read times, which might very slightly affect the number of voices you can stream from Kontakt... but I ran DAWbench VI and noticed no such changes after the update).


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## Raphioli (Jan 8, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> apart from slight reduction in SSD 4k read times, which might very slightly affect the number of voices you can stream from Kontakt



This is what I'm actually worried about as well because I use various Spitfire, Cinesamples orchestral libraries. And occasionally Eastwests HW series.


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## EvilDragon (Jan 8, 2018)

You shouldn't be, at least not for now. My system works as it used to...


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## Raphioli (Jan 8, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> You shouldn't be, at least not for now. My system works as it used to...



Yeah, I'm having my fingers crossed and waiting if Microsoft will release followup updates and hoping the impact will stay minimal.

I also appreciate you and everyone elses feedback on how its running. Its giving me hope!


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## Rohann (Jan 8, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> That's not "bricking a machine".


Indeed, but someone mentioned previously that their Macbook would completely freeze up when running a moderate amount of Kontakt instances. Again, "bricking" isn't really the term I was intending. Crippling is probably more appropriate, or hamstringing, etc. Insert colourful metaphor.



> And no, as of yet it doesn't seem there are any significant performance hits for our usage (apart from slight reduction in SSD 4k read times, which might very slightly affect the number of voices you can stream from Kontakt... but I ran DAWbench VI and noticed no such changes after the update).


Good to know. I'll probably hold off for a bit, but if people are using massive templates with no noticeable change I probably won't be affected on a 4790k.


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## mc_deli (Jan 8, 2018)

Am I the only one thinking not to touch the "fixes" until it becomes clearer what the risk/reward is?

(i.e. no plans to download the Sierra security update here until I know it is not going to nause my buzz)


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## Kony (Jan 8, 2018)




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## wcreed51 (Jan 9, 2018)

Here's Scientific American's article on the issue:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/...Feed:+ScientificAmerican-News+(Content:+News)


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## Pier (Jan 9, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> The update bricking machines is not Intel's fault - it's on MS side of things if some antivirus programs aren't up to date before running the update.



What I've read is that Windows 10 isn't booting for some old AMD CPUs. MS is blaming AMD's documentation.


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## EvilDragon (Jan 9, 2018)

That's also a possibility.


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## jmauz (Jan 9, 2018)

Ah screw it...I'm dusting off my SE/30. Do you think it'll run Cubase 9?


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## chillbot (Jan 9, 2018)

Surely Facebook wouldn't lie to me?? (Since that's where I get all my news from.)


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## Pier (Jan 9, 2018)

chillbot said:


> Surely Facebook wouldn't lie to me?? (Since that's where I get all my news from.)



This is what I was mentioning earlier. It's only happening for older Athlon AMD models though. No need to panic.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/08/microsofts_spectre_fixer_bricks_some_amd_powered_pcs/


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## Iostream (Jan 9, 2018)

As a kernel developer by day job, who is focused particularly on these issues at the moment:
a) Yes, it sucks, and there is some performance decline across the board.
b) don't believe everything you read. Media coverage is pretty bad here. They all want to yell that the sky is falling when they don't actually understand the details. 
c) Microbenchmarks in particular can show absolutely horrible results that you would never see in the real world. I can show you a benchmark with a 400% performance decline, it is completely irrelevant.

The work-arounds actually take a varying performance hit based on workload, and how old your CPU is, etc. Newer CPUs have features that take some of the sting out of work arounds. For a typical DAW work load, you shouldn't be anywhere near 30%. I would be surprised to see 10% on a very saturated system. While the meltdown fixes can be (and should be) turned off for AMD, Spectre fixes are in a different boat. Also, keep updates on, I expect there will be a number of future updates related to these issues. Some to offer additional protections, and some to improve performance. Given the time frames involved, and the complexity of fixes, initial updates focus on security and don't care as much about the performance hit. Future updates will hopefully optimize that initial round to improve performance without sacrificing security.


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## Graham Keitch (Jan 9, 2018)

Hardware is so cheap these days so why not dedicate your music machine to just music making? That way you avoid the need for updates and even anti-virus software. Use your laptop or mobile for surfing the web, e-mails and games. I built my music PC just after Win10 was launched. It has had no updates or anti-virus software loaded since the day I got it work smoothly, after which I totally disabled the Internet. It has given me no trouble since and is the only Win PC in the house (four others in total) that boots up and closes down instantly and has been trouble free ever since. I use the Internet all day in one way or another - but NOT via my music PC. It's very simple really


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## MarcusMaximus (Jan 9, 2018)

Yes but what about the 'good' updates like sample libraries, plugins like Play, DAW updates etc.? You'd have to stick with old versions of everything if you kept your machine 100% off-line. Doesn't seem feasible to me.


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## Iostream (Jan 9, 2018)

MarcusMaximus said:


> Yes but what about the 'good' updates like sample libraries, plugins like Play, DAW updates etc.? You'd have to stick with old versions of everything if you kept your machine 100% off-line. Doesn't seem feasible to me.


You can download to another machine and move them over via USB disk if you wish. It is a good bit of extra work. Honestly, the computer can be connected to the internet behind a firewall/router and still be fairly safe. Don't browse the web, don't check email, don't install things non music related. You won't have much risk.


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## gsilbers (Jan 9, 2018)

im guessing more hackers now know about this "in" but we can all just not update for while, correct? its not like we ARE going to get hacked? although seems we aint got a choice in the future OSupgrade, it will have some slowdowns.


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## MarcusMaximus (Jan 9, 2018)

Iostream said:


> You can download to another machine and move them over via USB disk if you wish. It is a good bit of extra work. Honestly, the computer can be connected to the internet behind a firewall/router and still be fairly safe. Don't browse the web, don't check email, don't install things non music related. You won't have much risk.



I suppose you could but that would take a fair amount of know-how as well as work. So many updates these days need the app or whatever to be present on the downloading machine where they integrate themselves. I for one certainly wouldn't know how to update everything independently and then transfer across. Some things maybe but certainly not all. I'll continue to take the risk for now, especially since my main music machine is a Mac (though I know that's no guarantee anymore, especially with this latest scare.)


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## Graham Keitch (Jan 9, 2018)

MarcusMaximus said:


> Yes but what about the 'good' updates like sample libraries, plugins like Play, DAW updates etc.? You'd have to stick with old versions of everything if you kept your machine 100% off-line. Doesn't seem feasible to me.[/
> 
> 
> MarcusMaximus said:
> ...


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## Shad0wLandsUK (Jan 10, 2018)

Iostream said:


> As a kernel developer by day job, who is focused particularly on these issues at the moment:
> a) Yes, it sucks, and there is some performance decline across the board.
> b) don't believe everything you read. Media coverage is pretty bad here. They all want to yell that the sky is falling when they don't actually understand the details.
> c) Microbenchmarks in particular can show absolutely horrible results that you would never see in the real world. I can show you a benchmark with a 400% performance decline, it is completely irrelevant.
> ...


Ahh, relief someone in the know 
I have waited for this day...
I am glad you mentioned being selective about believing what you read...especially when the reporters don't even know what the sky looks like, which they claim is falling


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## jacobthestupendous (Jan 10, 2018)

Iostream said:


> c) Microbenchmarks in particular can show absolutely horrible results that you would never see in the real world. I can show you a benchmark with a 400% performance decline, it is completely irrelevant.


Would that mean it works backwards times as fast as it used to work forwards?


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## Rohann (Jan 10, 2018)

MarcusMaximus said:


> I suppose you could but that would take a fair amount of know-how as well as work. So many updates these days need the app or whatever to be present on the downloading machine where they integrate themselves. I for one certainly wouldn't know how to update everything independently and then transfer across. Some things maybe but certainly not all. I'll continue to take the risk for now, especially since my main music machine is a Mac (though I know that's no guarantee anymore, especially with this latest scare.)


A reasonable compromise would be simply connecting every so often (once a month) for updates and to backup data, for instance. You're not surfing or downloading anything potentially sketchy.


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## Quasar (Jan 10, 2018)

MarcusMaximus said:


> Yes but what about the 'good' updates like sample libraries, plugins like Play, DAW updates etc.? You'd have to stick with old versions of everything if you kept your machine 100% off-line. Doesn't seem feasible to me.


Nonsense. Until Native Instruments' horrific betrayal, I had my DAW PC offline and not updated for well over two _years_, running Windows 7, and never once had a problem installing products from companies who _allow_ offline installation and activation.

It's only anti-people, pro-profit capitalistic policies makes it inevitable for workstations to be online. On the rare occasion you might really need a WU or utility for legitimate technical reasons, those can be manually ported from an online computer too.


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## DavidY (Jan 11, 2018)

Rohann said:


> A reasonable compromise would be simply connecting every so often (once a month) for updates and to backup data, for instance. You're not surfing or downloading anything potentially sketchy.


I seem to remember the 'Wannacry' malware didn't need anyone to click on any dodgy links or download anything. Just being switched on, and on the same network as an infected machine was enough to get hit by it, if your Windows machine wasn't patched. So safe surfing habits aren't a 100% cure for malware.


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## MarcusMaximus (Jan 11, 2018)

Quasar said:


> Nonsense. Until Native Instruments' horrific betrayal, I had my DAW PC offline and not updated for well over two _years_, running Windows 7, and never once had a problem installing products from companies who _allow_ offline installation and activation.
> 
> It's only anti-people, pro-profit capitalistic policies makes it inevitable for workstations to be online. On the rare occasion you might really need a WU or utility for legitimate technical reasons, those can be manually ported from an online computer too.



With respect, I'd prefer if you didn't refer to my or anyone else's post as "nonsense". I'd like to think we all have a right to express our different views here.

Are software companies who 'insist' on their customers being online in order to benefit from updates necessarily inhuman capitalistic profit-mongers who are out to betray their user-base? Could it be possible that most companies are in fact benign and are just looking for ways to manage such things as efficiently as they can?

Look I'm not some naive dumbo. I'm perfectly aware of the dangers of computers being online but I also think it's possible to over-state that and to get overly anxious and paranoid in the absence of hard facts. There have been some seemingly informed contributions to this thread that have mitigated against that and have attempted to put things in perspective for those of us who may not understand the full picture. So for now I'm going to reserve judgement and keep doing what I've always done (without issue) unless it becomes objectively clear that it's no longer safe.


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## Rohann (Jan 11, 2018)

DavidY said:


> I seem to remember the 'Wannacry' malware didn't need anyone to click on any dodgy links or download anything. Just being switched on, and on the same network as an infected machine was enough to get hit by it, if your Windows machine wasn't patched. So safe surfing habits aren't a 100% cure for malware.


Sure, that's fair. But in my 25+ years of using Windows PCs, the _only _time they've been infected was with some cheap laptop on which I surfed sketchy online streaming sites or downloaded torrents (I haven't for a decade or more), or naively clicked a sketchy link via email in my youth, when email scams and the like were less common knowledge.
I would bet that the absolute vast majority of people, especially those being cautious and only doing very occasional updates via services like Native Access, the East West Installation app, Spitfire Library Manager, etc, won't ever experience anything like that, especially on a private network. I think it's more likely my work will be affected by an earthquake (living on the west coast of Canada) than by malware of this nature. I do remember that occurring and it was quite alarming, but I would imagine the odd time one might have to download updates, one would be able to catch wind of any problematic security breaches making rounds.
Now if I were running a DAW on a shared network, or networked to computers in a multimedia setup, I may be even more cautious, and would likely only update between projects. And since I'll eventually need to update things on this PC, I will be making sure Windows security updates are installed, as long as there are good reports about them not affecting systems. But hey, that's what weekly/monthly backups are for too.


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## Quasar (Jan 11, 2018)

MarcusMaximus said:


> With respect, I'd prefer if you didn't refer to my or anyone else's post as "nonsense". I'd like to think we all have a right to express our different views here.
> 
> Are software companies who 'insist' on their customers being online in order to benefit from updates necessarily inhuman capitalistic profit-mongers who are out to betray their user-base? Could it be possible that most companies are in fact benign and are just looking for ways to manage such things as efficiently as they can?
> 
> Look I'm not some naive dumbo. I'm perfectly aware of the dangers of computers being online but I also think it's possible to over-state that and to get overly anxious and paranoid in the absence of hard facts. There have been some seemingly informed contributions to this thread that have mitigated against that and have attempted to put things in perspective for those of us who may not understand the full picture. So for now I'm going to reserve judgement and keep doing what I've always done (without issue) unless it becomes objectively clear that it's no longer safe.



With all due respect in return, yes of course we all have a right to express our different points of view, and my POV is exactly as I expressed it. So I stand by what I said.


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## MarcusMaximus (Jan 11, 2018)

Quasar said:


> With all due respect in return, yes of course we all have a right to express our different points of view, and my POV is exactly as I expressed it. So I stand by what I said.


And I have no problem whatsoever with your point of view. It just felt a little like you were dismissing mine. Anyway it's no big deal, all good here.


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## Quasar (Jan 11, 2018)

MarcusMaximus said:


> And I have no problem whatsoever with your point of view. It just felt a little like you were dismissing mine. Anyway it's no big deal, all good here.



I heartily concur that we should be tolerant of expressions of other POVs than our own. And I make a HUGE distinction between criticizing ideas (fair game) and criticizing a people (not fair game). If I came across otherwise it was unintentional and I apologize for that. All good here too.


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## MarcusMaximus (Jan 11, 2018)

Quasar said:


> I heartily concur that we should be tolerant of expressions of other POVs than our own. And I make a HUGE distinction between criticizing ideas (fair game) and criticizing a people (not fair game). If I came across otherwise it was unintentional and I apologize for that. All good here too.


I agree absolutely - we've got to be open to our ideas being challenged. That's how we learn. So I apologise if I over-reacted or misinterpreted your intention. All the best


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## Rohann (Jan 16, 2018)

So -- any negative effects with the install so far?


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## Rohann (Mar 13, 2018)

Hey folks,

Any updates on this so far? Problems with new updates?


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## EvilDragon (Mar 14, 2018)

Nope.


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## rrichard63 (Mar 14, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> Nope.


Which generations of processors are you referring to? Which operating system versions?


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## EvilDragon (Mar 14, 2018)

i7-6700K over here, W10 Pro latest update.


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## WindcryMusic (Mar 14, 2018)

My understanding is that CPUs a generation or two older than the 6700 are having more performance problems. I have a friend (a very technically knowledgeable friend) who has expressed a lot of unhappiness with the overall performance of his older machine in the wake of these updates. He doesn't do music, though, so I can't speak as to the specifics of how it impacts us. (I've not been updating my Macs ever since this problem surfaced, out of concern for performance.)


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## EgM (Mar 15, 2018)

Myself on a 3rd gen i7-3770 with recent updates on Win10 Pro, I haven't seen a difference.


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## Rohann (Mar 16, 2018)

Not that I've run big templates lately, but haven't noticed a big difference with my 4790k. I was tempted to keep it entirely offline but Waves and other programs have stupid licensing requirements, and I needed updates.


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## Quasar (Mar 16, 2018)

Rohann said:


> Not that I've run big templates lately, but haven't noticed a big difference with my 4790k. I was tempted to keep it entirely offline but Waves and other programs have stupid licensing requirements, and I needed updates.


Even older 2600k here, and I am not doing the updates, so I will never know if they have a negative impact on performance or not. I will go online for _25 seconds_ or so once every few months or whatever as necessary, but since these exploits haven't even been found in the wild (yet) I'm not too worried about it, both because I will be online so seldom and for so short of time, and because even if I do have to be online briefly once in a while I won't be opening even a web browser.

For the most part, my preference is to not use programs that have intrusive, stupid licensing requirements. NI and Native Access is the only unfortunate exception, though I will rarely - if ever - buy anything but open full Kontakt libraries again. 

If you are running Windows 7 (as I am) latest word is that MS isn't even _allowing_ security updates unless you have a compatible AV. Even -inexplicably - if you have no AV at all, which is counter to the purpose of not installing them on machines with incompatible AV. There is a reg tweak to get around that, but needless to say I have no interest in doing this. One could always just install MSE anyway if one wants to do the updates.


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## Michel Simons (Mar 16, 2018)

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the biggest hit to performance, if any, would come from updates to the bios/firmware. I don't know if that's actually the case, and if so, whether people have installed these updates as well.


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## LinusW (Mar 16, 2018)

rrichard63 said:


> Which generations of processors are you referring to? Which operating system versions?


I’m on everything between Sandy Bridge and Skylake and on both macOS and Windows.


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## rrichard63 (Mar 16, 2018)

michelsimons said:


> I seem to remember reading somewhere that the biggest hit to performance, if any, would come from updates to the bios/firmware. I don't know if that's actually the case, and if so, whether people have installed these updates as well.


I think this is an important point. And I'm unclear on whether BIOS updates occur during Windows Update or only separately. So I don't know how many of those who have updated their systems (I have not) even know for sure whether their BIOS has been updated.


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## Michel Simons (Mar 16, 2018)

rrichard63 said:


> I think this is an important point. And I'm unclear on whether BIOS updates occur during Windows Update or only separately. So I don't know how many of those who have updated their systems (I have not) even know for sure whether their BIOS has been updated.



I don't think that these updates automatically come with Windows Updates. I believe that you would have to get those from the manufacturer of the hardware.


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## Pietro (Mar 17, 2018)

They don't go automatically, unless you are using prebuilt machines, like Surface. On a side note, I didn't notice any significant performance loss on 3 of my devices (2 of which are about 4 years old) after the updates. There is no BIOS update for those either, apart from Surface Pro 4.

- Piotr


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## Rohann (Mar 18, 2018)

Quasar said:


> Even older 2600k here, and I am not doing the updates, so I will never know if they have a negative impact on performance or not. I will go online for _25 seconds_ or so once every few months or whatever as necessary, but since these exploits haven't even been found in the wild (yet) I'm not too worried about it, both because I will be online so seldom and for so short of time, and because even if I do have to be online briefly once in a while I won't be opening even a web browser.
> 
> For the most part, my preference is to not use programs that have intrusive, stupid licensing requirements. NI and Native Access is the only unfortunate exception, though I will rarely - if ever - buy anything but open full Kontakt libraries again.
> 
> If you are running Windows 7 (as I am) latest word is that MS isn't even _allowing_ security updates unless you have a compatible AV. Even -inexplicably - if you have no AV at all, which is counter to the purpose of not installing them on machines with incompatible AV. There is a reg tweak to get around that, but needless to say I have no interest in doing this. One could always just install MSE anyway if one wants to do the updates.


Weird!
I'm on 8.1 and did the update, though I'm slightly uncertain now because I find myself going online more often than I'd like just because I can. I'm going to keep it off for the most part, and need to convince myself that's it's of paramount importance.
Online licensing procedures are irritating and archaic -- why not download a license to a local machine? I paid $50 for a bloody iLok, why don't companies give one that option?

I actually appreciate the uncertainty re: BIOS updates expressed here. I'll take it offline for the most part (though I do transcription on it now and then which can be a pain offline).


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## greggybud (Mar 21, 2018)

michelsimons said:


> I don't think that these updates automatically come with Windows Updates. I believe that you would have to get those from the manufacturer of the hardware.



I think that is correct, at least with my custom built PC on Windows 7 64bit.

I upgraded a Nvidia graphics card a few months ago and despite all suggestions nothing would work. So I took it to my PC repair guy and he said the issue was that my Bios had not been upgraded. It's a manual upgrade, and nothing to do with Windows updates.


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