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Posted By: Bernier Power Tracks and Windows 11 - 10/12/21 11:30 AM
Will PT 2020 and 2021 work with Windows 11?
Thanks!
Posted By: Chantelle - PG Music Re: Power Tracks and Windows 11 - 10/12/21 01:20 PM
Hi Bernier, we are still working on testing PowerTracks 2021 on Windows 11. We have tested Band-in-a-Box and RealBand on Windows 11 and so far both have been working. We speculate that PowerTracks 2021 will likely have similar results.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUDCMnYpHdU
Posted By: Garth Bird Re: Power Tracks and Windows 11 - 11/21/21 05:33 AM
Hi Bernier
I am testing PGmusic products on a Raspberry Pi400 with Windows 11 for ARM64 installed.

All 3 products open and run normally in the 2.9mB ram available.
Midi in and out plus midi to softsynth (Forte) runs efficiently and quickly.

RealTracks load as do styles but here I ran into available RAM limitations. Playing brings the machine to a very slow crawl. Swap file used needs an additional 4 gB memory and the swapping from disk creates a huge demand on resources.

I have ordered a Raspberry Pi4B 8gB model to at least alleviate the memory situation.

The switch to Linux saga continues!

Garth from Perth Aus.
Posted By: Simon - PG Music Re: Power Tracks and Windows 11 - 11/23/21 10:56 PM
I've been tempted to get myself a Pi 4 to try some of this out myself. Please keep us updated! You may want to start your own thread though, it would probably get more attention that way.
Posted By: justanoldmuso Re: Power Tracks and Windows 11 - 11/24/21 09:51 AM
my xmas dream...sigh.
a 80 buk PI 6 cpu running at 5ghz..running biab/realband/and reaper with 2 usb c ports and other normal ports.
to stop me dreaming bout a 2k m1 mac i cant afford..lol.
om
Posted By: Simon - PG Music Re: Power Tracks and Windows 11 - 11/24/21 02:59 PM
Muso, a few numbers for you - you like numbers don'tcha?


The Pi 4 at 1.5ghz has a Geekbench score of 596, roughly the same as the Core2Duo from a 2009 Mac Mini (592 for the 2.53ghz one).

If the Pi 4's CPU was overclocked to 5ghz with no other architectural changes (and assuming it wouldn't catch fire immediately), it would theoretically benchmark around 1987, or about 20% faster than a 4th gen "mobile" i7 (from the 2014 Mac Mini, Geekbench 1631). The M1 is still nearly 4x as fast as that theoretical overclocked Pi 4 or 12.5x as fast not overclocked (M1 Geekbench 7401).

The M1 also has more memory available (up to 16gb instead of up to 8gb) and faster memory (68gb/sec vs 4.5gb/sec), and the storage speed is 60x as fast as the Pi 4's micro SD card (2700-ish mb/sec vs 45-ish mb/sec), or about 8x as fast as booting the Pi4 from a USB3 SSD (350-ish mb/sec).

Then we get the top end M1 Max Macbooks - Geekbench 12330, 64gb of 400gb/sec memory, 7.4gb/sec storage - or in other words completely dwarfs my monster i9 machine...


So, my thoughts - it was 7 years between the first Pi 1 and the current Pi 4, and in that time the CPU power increased about 30x. As things tend to happen exponentially, I figure it'll be another 5-7 years before the Pi can match the power of the M1.
Posted By: justanoldmuso Re: Power Tracks and Windows 11 - 11/24/21 09:30 PM
Simon.
dont get me wrong. the m1 is superb. but when one is reading bout possibility of an m2 coming along, and given that tech gets rapidly obsolete <<< thats my concern.

i would happily plop down the big buks for an m1 mac if i knew it was upgradeable with an m2 later on.
its not exactly a trivial spend. thus i feel at these prices , at least apple could offer an upgrade path to users spending at this high level....particularly as musicians struggle often to make a decent living for their families.

lets see how it pans out with PI.
cos from reading bout it, it seems the PI organisation isnt sitting still either...they MUST KNOW there is a huge potential user base worldwide lusting after a PI
that knocks the doors down at a cheap price.

imho apple need to follow the wallet friendly approach of your own pg org.
eg usb pen drive with biab and free rb costing 90 buks.
OR powertraks that i started on yonks ago that costs 49 buks.
both great deals/steals imho.

best.
om
Posted By: Simon - PG Music Re: Power Tracks and Windows 11 - 11/25/21 10:05 PM
There's always new tech coming - if you always wait for what's around the corner you'll be stuck with only your existing tech!


They won't make M1's upgradable to M2 - last Mac that could have it's CPU upgraded was 2012, and that was a "refreshed" 2009 model! All CPU's since then have been soldered, and even I'm not good enough to tackle that upgrade.

The Pi will definitely advance, no worries there, but they'll always be quite a few rungs down the ladder. Our current Pi 4 is as fast as a 15 year old computer, meaning likely 15 years from now the Pi will be about as fast as today's computers. That's how they keep the prices down.

I agree that Apple should have a more budget option, like the Mac Mini used to be. Those are now "bread and butter" so to speak, so the prices have risen.
Posted By: justanoldmuso Re: Power Tracks and Windows 11 - 11/25/21 11:45 PM
Simon.
well i'm not too bothered.

i still think one of the best cheap deals around is your 11400 processor idea in a desktop stuffed with ram and ssd's. or my other fav.. off lease refurb hp z or lenovo workstation monster desktop stuffed with ram and ssd's.
a friend of mine actually bought one of the latter ..
after i mentioned it to him...
a Z...he is as happy as anything. loves the thing.
over the moon with it.

either the 11400 or a Z would easily handle anything
i would throw at it for song production cos i dont go nuts on crazy high trak and plug in counts.
i adhere to .."sometimes less is more".

keeping the discussion powertraks related , i used to crank out tunes yonks ago useing ptraks on an amd athlon
desktop. so 11400 or a Z refurb is a major step up...lol.

actually lets see how intel responds to apple doing its own silicon..maybe we will see some big price drops on the higher end intel processors to keep people from getting a m1 or a possibly coming m2 mac.
interesting times.

best.
pm
Posted By: Simon - PG Music Re: Power Tracks and Windows 11 - 11/26/21 09:39 PM
I'd still aim for the 11400 approach, since the old workstations likely won't support NVMe drives, and those make a HUGE difference in perceived speed vs SATA SSD's. The 11400 will use less electricity as well, so lower cost of ownership and less heat produced.

The only real advantage to the old workstations is for video editing, since most Xeon-based systems have more PCIe lanes available. My old LGA2011/X79 system has 40 PCIe lanes vs only 16 in my i9, meaning more bandwidth available for multiple GPU's. That said, in some older systems if they only have PCIe 2.0 each lane will be slower than PCIe 3.0 or 4.0 in a newer system, so a single new GPU would be faster for most people.

None of that makes a difference for PowerTracks or BB, so I'd go with the newer system smile
Posted By: justanoldmuso Re: Power Tracks and Windows 11 - 11/27/21 12:44 PM
Simon.
i gotta agree with you.
i'm currently looking at 11400 with couple of nvme ssd,
and 32 gigs ram...desktop.

ive kinda gone off laptops, cos desktops more expandeable.
problem with one drive laptops is win plus recording daw
etc on same drive. i like to put win on its own seperate drive,
and daw //recording on its own drive also.

om
Posted By: Simon - PG Music Re: Power Tracks and Windows 11 - 11/29/21 11:22 PM
For serious production I absolutely agree, desktops are better than laptops. Less power management headaches, to start.

I personally don't feel the need for multiple SSD's, but I do have an SSD and a HDD in my main desktop, mostly for more storage though.
Posted By: jford Re: Power Tracks and Windows 11 - 11/30/21 12:48 PM
I bought an HP Omen laptop earlier this year. I've got two 1TB M.2 SSD drives and a 2TB SATA HDD in it, as well as 32GB of RAM and an i7 Intel processor. It runs very quickly and quietly and am well pleased. It's a 17 inch screen, so lots of real estate to do audio work on it. I hook up my Behringer Uphoria UMC404HD (or my UMC204HD if I go camping). In my home office I have it hooked to another monitor via the HDMI connector, so I have dual monitors. Love it.

That being said, I've also got a home-built desktop (well it's a beast of a tower that is almost as tall as the desk) that I've upgraded multiple times over the years (I think this is the 4th motherboard I've had in it). It has four 2TB 7200RPM HDD's (I'll eventually get SSD on it), 32GB of RAM, and an i7 processor. I love it too.
Posted By: justanoldmuso Re: Power Tracks and Windows 11 - 11/30/21 01:28 PM
jford.
re...hp omen.
didnt realise you could put several drives in those.
would you mind posting some stats plz..?
1. whats boot up time into win main screen from cold start ?...seconds
2. in realband action >> test audio performancks e how many traks ?
3. typical mix to stereo in biab how long all RT's...?

what i'm finding googling is laptop manufacturers make it difficult to assess which ones allow multiple internal
ssd's...gotta do deep dives.
any info appreciated. my wife wants new laptop.
eg ive been looking at acer aspire 5 ryzen, and still
cant figure out if supports couple of internal nvme/m.2 ssd.

best
om
Posted By: jford Re: Power Tracks and Windows 11 - 11/30/21 03:18 PM
Muso -

A cold start to the initial Windows 10 login screen (where I can enter my pin #) takes 1:03, but I also have a 5 second delay set to allow me time to get to the BIOS screen at bootup time.

From the login screen, it takes another 1:20 to bring up the desktop and load all the background processes (including anti-virus, Stardock Fences to group my desktop icons, DVDFab Passkey, Techsmith Snagit, and more).

My Geekbench 5 scores for the i7-10750H processor which has 6 cores and 12 threads are as follows:
* CPU Score: 1138 (single core) 6142 (multicore)
* Computer Score: 66958

Quote:
Geekbench reports my specs as follows:
System Information
  • Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro (64-bit)
  • Operating System: 2009
  • Model: HP OMEN by HP Laptop 17-cb1xxx
  • Motherboard: HP 8748
  • Northbridge: Intel Comet Lake 02
  • Southbridge: Intel HM470 00
  • BIOS: AMI F.20

Processor Information
  • Name: Intel Core i7-10750H
  • Topology: 1 Processor, 6 Cores, 12 Threads
  • Identifier: Genuine Intel Family 6 Model 165 Stepping 2
  • Base Frequency: 2.59 GHz
  • Maximum Frequency: 4986 MHz
  • Processor Package: Socket 1440 FCBGA
  • Processor Codename: Comet Lake
  • L1 Instruction Cache: 32.0 KB x 6
  • L1 Data Cache: 32.0 KB x 6
  • L2 Cache: 256 KB x 6
  • L3 Cache: 12.0 MB

Memory Information
  • Size: 32.0 GB
  • Type: DDR4 SDRAM
  • Speed: 1463 MHz
  • Number of Channels: 2
  • Latency: 21-21-21-47 2T


In RealBand, running "Action, Test Audio Performance", it tells me I can run 87 concurrent tracks in RealBand (so given that RealBand only has 48, I shouldn't have a problem).

I created a song in RealBand with all RealTracks (5 tracks, 128 bars, 120bpm resulting in a 4:52 song). It took 40 seconds to completely create all the audio tracks and and 10 seconds to render to WAV. The RealTracks/RealDrums content is on my spinning hard disk drive, however. I imagine it would be a little faster if they were on an SSD, but that's how my computer is set up.

RealBand is currently configured to use my Behringer U-Phoria Audio/MIDI interface, which also has a small Behringer mixer connected through it, using WAS drivers (which didn't work well on my previous laptop, but does work on this one, so I switched from the Behringer ASIO - which does work also - to WAS, so I could run both BIAB and RealBand concurrently with low latency).

Hope this helps.
Posted By: justanoldmuso Re: Power Tracks and Windows 11 - 11/30/21 04:43 PM
jford.
thanks for that. much appreciated.
its interesting how various net processes like avirus etc
use resources.
my refurb i5 ssd highly optimised daw (bb/rb/reaps) pc , never sees the net,....stats are today.
1. boots in a few secs.
2. rb test reports 83 traks.
3. reaps project boots after cliking reaps icon in win...
bout 2 secs.
4. mixdown to stereo in reaps 30 traks takes bout 30 secs
depending on how heavy fx used.
5. in rb eg gen// and rd waveform draw maybe up to 8 secs on a trak.
6. loading a song from biab into rb and genning traks in rb//waveforms takes quite a time. varies..maybe up to 30 secs.

i use a seperate i5 refurb for the net with avirus etc etc. takes awhile to boot by comparison.
whereas new 90 buk chromebook and amazon fire tablet blow it away...practically instantaneous by comparison i'm on the net.
ps how are you liking mixbus ?
best to you.
om
Posted By: jford Re: Power Tracks and Windows 11 - 11/30/21 07:49 PM
I've got MixBus, but don't really use it. It was a good price during the Cakewalk debacle, as were many other competing DAW's that offered cross-grade pricing. I generally either use Cakewalk by Bandlab or Presonus Studio One, but mostly it's RealBand (and that's more of a familiarity thing, since it was my first DAW and I've been using it for over 20 years - well PowerTracks prior to when RealBand came out around 2008).

But yes, I've also got MixCraft 9 Pro Studio, Cubase 11 (the full version), MultiTrack Studio, n-Track Studio 9, Waveform 11, and Reaper. But generally, they're just taking up disk space. But, if someone wants to send me a project in one of those formats, I'm ready.

I just also upgraded to Final v27 (normally $149 upgrade from v26, but got it for $99). I have a bunch more notation programs as well, including Dorico, Notion, Forte 12 Premium, and MusScore. But mostly I come back to Noteworthy Composer, as it works best for my workflow, and again, it was my first notation program.
Posted By: Simon - PG Music Re: Power Tracks and Windows 11 - 12/03/21 02:39 AM
Originally Posted By: jford
87 concurrent tracks in RealBand
Originally Posted By: justanoldmuso
2. rb test reports 83 traks.

It's interesting to see that. My highly unoptimized and ancient 2012 i5 machine reports 356 tracks from the RB performance test. My Geekbench is around 2400, so I'm certain your computers both can perform better than mine, I just wonder if the performance test in RB/PT doesn't work as well as it should on newer CPU's.
Posted By: justanoldmuso Re: Power Tracks and Windows 11 - 12/03/21 10:41 AM
Simon.
re trak count test.
wow thats a funky idea.
i have way more traks than i need anyway.

might be time for pg to revisit the test routine.

merry xmas.
om
Posted By: jford Re: Power Tracks and Windows 11 - 12/06/21 10:30 AM
Could be related to processor versus cores versus threads. My single processor has six cores and 12 threads.
Posted By: rharv Re: Power Tracks and Windows 11 - 12/06/21 07:57 PM
Originally Posted By: jford
Could be related to processor versus cores versus threads. My single processor has six cores and 12 threads.

Same here and I get 256 for what it's worth.
Posted By: Simon - PG Music Re: Power Tracks and Windows 11 - 12/07/21 12:48 AM
Originally Posted By: jford
Could be related to processor versus cores versus threads. My single processor has six cores and 12 threads.

I'm not sure. My single processor has 4 cores and 4 threads - it's an i5-3550, and should be much slower than what you guys have.

My suggestion - don't worry about it. It's only intended to be a rough estimate.
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