Instruction/ maintenance manual of the product Computer Hardware Tascam
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Optimizing W indows 2000 a nd Win dows XP for Aud io Introduction ................................................................................................................... .............. 2 Deciding on an OS ..................................
2 Introduction Many of our users have asked us for an update on Dave Casey’ s excellent article on PC optimization for audio. They’ve o bserved that, while the hardw are info in the article is useful for all P C users, the article is heavily focus ed on Windows 98 and Windows ME, the dominant operating sy stems when the article was w ritten.
3 Deciding on an OS Should you opt for Windows 2000 or a version of XP? Windows 2000 has been around longer and many pros consider it more stable. It’s true that XP’s still working out some o f the kinks, but by and large it’s pro ving to be pretty robus t.
4 Update or fresh install? Generally speaking, a fresh install on a wiped hard drive is the best insurance against potential problems; lef tover registry items and other orphaned legacy f iles can lurk in you r system for months, only to cau se unanticipated conflicts with a newly-installed program or driver at a later date.
5 Preparing for installation Even after confirming that the computer you want to install X P or 2000 on meets Microsoft’s recommended minimum specifications , yo u still may wish to do a little more investigating before you attempt an install or an upgrade, to make sure that all of y our hardware is compatible w ith Windows XP or 2000.
6 Before you begin the install, it’s a goo d idea to download all necessary drivers for you r PC hardware from the I nternet. Pay particular attention to drivers for yo ur graphics adapter, and any au dio and MIDI interfaces. A s well, make su re your printer, CD burner and any other peripherals are covered.
7 Booting from CD You will need to tell your computer to boot fro m the Windows CD-RO M instead of yo ur (presu mably blank and format ted) hard drive.
8 One other interesting point: NTFS can read the "resou rce fork" of SDII files from MacOS, and can t herefore recognize t he timecode stamps used in these files; FAT( 32) can’t do this. If you do a lot of work wit h Pro Tools or other MacOS-bas ed DA W applicat ions , yo u should consider at least one NTF S partition in your system.
9 Dual Boot The compatibility w ith legacy (older) software in Windows 2000 and XP is considerably more restricted compared with Windows 9x; this is intentionally designed to insu re stability against any kind of application failure. I f an inco mpatible program is run, Windo ws 2000 or XP will stop it as so on as it tries to access that program.
10 Multiple Users While Win9x also off ers the option of setting up multiple users o n a single compu t er, the implementation under W2k and XP offers far more independence between these multiple user accou n ts.
11 System Performance Tweaks – Stuff to Do After Installing Windows Messenge r One of the ‘features’ of XP is the deeper integrat ion of Windows Messenger. While Messenger may be u seful for on-line communication, it’s a real res ource hog; w e recommend disabling it for audio use.
12 Display properties While pretty photos and animated graphics are fun, t hey als o contribute to bo gging down your lean mean audio machine. A nd in keeping with Microso ft’s tradition o f making looks a high priority , those fancy visuals are programmed t o t ake pro cessing priority away from what w e co nsider important, process ing audio.
13 Now disable visual effects. Select the “Appearance” tab, click t he Effects bu tton and disable "Use transition effects…". It's also a good idea to disable "Show window contents while dragging". Now select the “Settings” tab.
14 Next select t he ‘Screen Saver’ tab. Screen savers generally tend to kick in when you least wa nt them to; we recommend choosing None. On the same page, select you r monitor power saving options. Windows usually defaults t o relatively short times of inactivity before shutting off your mo nitor and hard disk and activating hibernate mode.
15 System Restor e Windows is set up to write periodic “restore check points” so that, in the event of a crash or a corrupted file, your system can restore to its mos t recent functional settings. Some users recommend disabling sy st em restore to improve performance.
16 performance of backgro und services” to ens ure lowest latency with A SIO-based drivers (A SIO drivers run as backgrou nd services in Windows). W2K: Right click on My Computer and choose Properties. Select the Advanced Tab, then click the Performance Button.
17 NOTE: Some users advise disabling virtual memory fo r increased performance. We do not recommend this unless you have at least 512 MB of RAM. Even then, note that this is not practical for all systems, as it can t end to make s ome machines less stable.
18 machine. A ll those applications running in the background require s ome degree of CPU usage, as well as RA M. To disable this featur e, go to C ontrol Panel, and u nder “User Acco unt s” click on “Change the way users log on and of f” and uncheck “fast us er switching.
19 particular service is running pres ently, as well as whether it loads automatically on boo t up, manu ally ( called up by either the user or a program) , or is disabled.
20 Disk I/O Performance Logging Windows defaults to continual lo gging of Input and Output data to your hard drive. Disabling this will free up some reso urces. To dis able performance logging, go t o the Start menu and select Run. Type in “diskperf –n” ( minus the quotes) and hit Okay.
21 Windows 2000 and XP can recognize a DMA capable device, and will detect and activate DMA mode by default whenever one is connected. Most drives manufactured in the last few years support DMA, and most modern motherboards’ chipsets detect this.
22 drives, and while SC SI still has clear advantages in using mu lt iple drives , UDMA drives are now rivaling them in throughput and performance; that and a much lower price point have helped find their way into more and more audio setups .
23 PlugIns and other Goodies The Web is fu ll of DS P PlugIns, ranging from freeware to shareware to demos of high-end packages. You’ll also find hu ndreds of virtual instru ments in VSTi and DXi formats. While many of these are of excellent sound and quality, it ’s bes t to carefully consider befo re you install.
An important point after buying a device Tascam Computer Hardware (or even before the purchase) is to read its user manual. We should do this for several simple reasons:
If you have not bought Tascam Computer Hardware yet, this is a good time to familiarize yourself with the basic data on the product. First of all view first pages of the manual, you can find above. You should find there the most important technical data Tascam Computer Hardware - thus you can check whether the hardware meets your expectations. When delving into next pages of the user manual, Tascam Computer Hardware you will learn all the available features of the product, as well as information on its operation. The information that you get Tascam Computer Hardware will certainly help you make a decision on the purchase.
If you already are a holder of Tascam Computer Hardware, but have not read the manual yet, you should do it for the reasons described above. You will learn then if you properly used the available features, and whether you have not made any mistakes, which can shorten the lifetime Tascam Computer Hardware.
However, one of the most important roles played by the user manual is to help in solving problems with Tascam Computer Hardware. Almost always you will find there Troubleshooting, which are the most frequently occurring failures and malfunctions of the device Tascam Computer Hardware along with tips on how to solve them. Even if you fail to solve the problem, the manual will show you a further procedure – contact to the customer service center or the nearest service center
