Windows 2000 for Audio? Is it good?

edna6284 wrote on 7/22/2004, 5:13 PM

Hello, I had heard a while back that Win2000 wasn't able to process or play properly any audio of greater than 16 bit resolution. does anyone know this to be the case? Are you using 2000 without any problems? I was thinking of moving to 2000 from 98SE. Thanks, DE

Comments

zemlin wrote on 7/22/2004, 6:07 PM

I used W2K for a while with good results recording 24 bit audio. The limitation that bugged me was a max of 8 or 10 (I don't recall) stereo devices, so I couldn't use all 24 tracks of my interface. I never needed to record that many, but when I good deal on a copy of XP came my way, I upgraded.

If you do install W2K, make sure you bypass the automatic config on install and setup your PC as a STANDARD PC - you don't want W2K on ACPI. It doesn't handle the interrupts as well as XP.

bgc wrote on 7/23/2004, 8:34 AM

Win2K handles greater than 16bit just fine. Some of the pre SP3 devices were limited to 16bits. MS made a fix at SP3. Some cards got around it in their own drivers.

Geoff_Wood wrote on 7/23/2004, 6:45 PM

Prior to SP3 any software that used the internal Kmixer module truncated all 16-bit-plus audio to 16 bits. Not as great start.

Apart from driver issues, there should be no reason to opt for W2K over XP, and several against, being a 'dead' OS one of them. If you already have W2k SP3, give it a try....

geoff

zemlin wrote on 7/24/2004, 7:06 AM

OOooohhhh yeah - That's right. I forgot about the 16 bit thing. VEGAS would not read 24 bits from my 24i until SP3. Then it started working.

datman wrote on 7/24/2004, 2:16 PM

I have had no problem with win2k. I have it on both my desktops. I have xp on my laptop and I hate some of the things about xp, mainly how the mouse works.

I have recorded up to 4 channels in 24/96 for over 6 hours ( 2-13g stereo files) not one problem. In w98 there is a 2g file size limitation that is not a problem in w2k.

There may be reasons to use xp , for me w2k is fine