Topic: Poduim with Intel Dual-Core

Podium is not yet fully Vista-compatible, and this may be a cause of fast CPU overload. I also have a lot of CPU spikes using Podium under Vista.

Having used Vista and Podium for some months now I can say that Podium is starting to show some inconsistent behaviour. Graphically and and when scanning plugins. With the existing automapping issues already there on XP as well, I have decided it is probably best to only use Podium on XP.

I was l always taking a chance using software that is not officially supported on Vista anyway but Podium had performed very well until recently-ish. It would not surprise me if something as simple as Vista updates are a possible cause for Podium becoming unpredictable / unreliable.

At the end of the day Podium is not officially supported so it is a risk.

I think it is certainly very close to XP’s performance levels (Podium) but really there are one too many issues in Podium for serious work on Vista IMO. YMMV.

I guess one cannot be expected to get proper support if the OS is not fully supported.

@pulsar_bird
If Frits does not officially support it (simply does not have a copy yet) there is only so far he can troubleshoot (to be fair) if he cannot run Podium on Vista to see for himself.

Having said that I guess it is worth providing any info he requested. It may help you in some way or the other.

I also have a lot of CPU spikes using Podium under Vista.

Podium was certainly better when I adjusted my graphics settings but never as good or consistent CPU wise as when used on XP.

The Vista issue will steadily become more frequent..I guess you (Frits) will have to make a judgement call at some point as to when it is time to officially support it. My Podium Vista testing /usage is however officially over on Vista.

@Zynewave wrote:

I think it is certainly very close to XP’s performance levels (Podium) but really there are one too many issues in Podium for serious work on Vista IMO. YMMV.

Can you please describe these issues. Are they all related to CPU spikes?

Hi Frits,

I would not say they are all related to CPU spikes but off the top my head here are the issues I have had…

1. Scanning plugs:
Sometimes Podium will just not pick up certain folders. I have done this soooo many times on XP but on Vista it is very unreliable. I have folders that are set up as Compressors, EQ, Modulation e.t.c about 10+ different types of folders like this but Podium will only successfully find 3 or 4 folders.

2. CPU spikes:
On XP Podium without any tweaking to the OS can run up to 70% – 80% without that CPU reading changing by more 2 or 3 percent, if that even. On Vista however I have found Podium to utilise 4 CPU’s very well but still on playback the CPU meter can be more “twitchy” on similar settings compared to XP.

While there have been reports of Vista performing worse below 5.8 ms compared to XP even on higher settings it is IMO more CPU “active” with 10 – 20 % or more, spikes during playback. Podium on XP is far more predictable and steady.

3. Some plugins that worked in Podium (Sonitus VST) are now not loading properly. At that point I just switched back to XP.

4. When Podium is accessing my hardrive to load a project sometimes the whole project start page will move diagonally about a cm upwards then fall back into place. Nothing like that in my experience on XP.

I also ran Podium in compatibility mode and still had problems.

I think you know this already but…the way Vista handles Audio is quite different compared to XP, frankly there are many aspects (Superfetch, MMCSS, the new Audio stack, e.t.c) that are just handled very differently to XP.

Even memory is handled differently (Ready boost for instance).

Thankfully I have XP to fall back on.

First things first… 🙂

I am now using XP on the computer that had Vista Ultimate installed. I had Vista removed earlier today (might re install it elsewhere at some point) and have been rebuilding an XP installation all day. 🙂

Now you ask for all this info?!?!?!? Talk about timing 😛

I cannot go back and install Vista now (on the system Podium had problems on) but I have another Vista installation that I can check tomorrow on another PC.

Is it random which 3 or 4 folders Podium finds on each scan?

IIRC it was pretty random. There did not appear to be any pattern to it.

This could be related to the soundcard driver. Is it the same soundcard you are using on your XP/Vista machines? Both running ASIO drivers?

Yes the same card for XP and Vista.

An Echo Audio Fire 4. I had been using Echo Audio’s ASIO drivers which are for XP and Vista.

If you try with another host program, does this run equally stable on your XP/Vista machines?

Sonar6 runs fine on Vista in comparison with Asio drivers…but…

…it would be strange to compare Podium’s perfomance with Sonar as it is of course fully compatible with Vista with very specific optimisations for Vista as well. Podium would not match that surely. Not without optmisations of some sort.

This could be an issue with the plugins.

Maybe yes.

Strange. This may be a problem with the way I’ve implemented full screen mode. If you restore the Podium window so that it has a frame, does the window still jump when loading projects?

Bear in mind I had this problem on Vista not XP. As I mentioned earlier I do have a second Vista installation on another PC, I can have a look at that tomorrow for you.

I hope that helps.

Strange. This may be a problem with the way I’ve implemented full screen mode. If you restore the Podium window so that it has a frame, does the window still jump when loading projects?

Just fired up Podium on another Vista installation..same thing, it can be erratic or intermittent.

@Zynewave wrote:

Here’s a couple of interesting articles about how to get rid of Vista bottlenecks:

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2007/04/05/how-to-kill-windows-vista-bottlenecks-pt-i-aero-and-display-issues

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2007/04/05/how-to-kill-windows-vista-bottlenecks-pt-ii-stop-the-disk-churning

Good find.

Lack of soundcard driver support was the underlying reason I moved to Mac. Neither of the two soundcards I use have Vista drivers yet.

It had been really slow going for Vista driver suppport but this Cakewalk Vista page illustrates just how different things are now…

http://www.cakewalk.com/Vista/default.asp