1) Things to look for when buying a new computer:
CPU: Ok firstly its 2011 and computing power has come a long way in the past few years. I see a lot of questions about what processor to buy, how much ram, etc. The thing is, almost any new pc you buy will have more power than you're used to. Entry level systems are dual core, and they're going to be quad core next year. And don't be fooled by clock speeds, a 2ghz i7 is way way faster than a 2ghz pentium 4 or core2duo as it gets more work done per clock cycle, and dynamically overclocks itself based on the workload. Anyhow, i'd recommend getting the fastest processor you can afford within reason. By within reason i mean that its probably not a good idea to get the absolute top of the range gaming cpu, as the price can jump up significantly for only a small increase in performance. Look at the price/performance and decide which is the best deal. At the moment, the intel i7's are king of performance and amd is playing catch up. But the i5 is also a good processor, its almost an i7 but doesn't have hyperthreading, and is a bit cheaper. If you're on a budget, the amd chips are usually the cheapest option. Anyhow, as i said any of these cpu's will be a good buy but the more you spend now, the more future proof it will be.
One thing to note, stay away from the ultra mobile chips such as the intel atom, as these are not comparable to normal laptop and desktop cpus. They are a lot slower, and you will probably be disappointed!
GRAPHICS: After using the onboard i7 graphics, i had a few problems with sluggish vst interfaces on some plugins. This was with cubase, i assume it was to do with the cpu sharing the memory with the gpu. Anyhow, i'd recommend getting at least a cheap graphics card, so it doesn't share the main memory with the cpu. You can get by with onboard graphics if you have to, i just find that a dedicated card makes the system run a lot smoother. It doesn't have to be anything special unless you want to be playing games.
RAM: If you're running a 32 bit os, then 4gb is the maximum you can have. A 32bit app can only address 2gb ram anyhow. I'd recommend using a 64 bit os these days for that reason. And the least amount of ram i'd like to run would be 4gb, i'd probably go for about 8gb now. You can always add more later but be sure to check how much the motherboard supports. Check the ram speed too, and again get the fastest you can afford within reason. Some chips support dual/triple/quad channel ram, be sure to check this when you buy, as you need to buy this ram in pairs/threes/fours.
MOTHERBOARD: Basically get one that pairs up with the cpu you decide to buy. Look at what features you need - will you be overclocking, do you need lots of different connections etc. Avoid buying one with lots of stuff you'd never use as its a waste of money.
STORAGE: Hard drives are cheap now, it might be a good idea to run your operating system and programs off one drive, and have another for all of your samples. I also have an external drive for backup purposes, should one of the drives fail. SSD drives are a lot faster than conventional hard drives, if you can afford it and want the performance increase, then its a good idea to have your operating system and programs installed on one of these. It'll load way faster and feel quicker all round. Also a good drive imaging program can be very useful. For anyone who's had to reinstall windows, then all of their programs one by one, you'll know this can take hours. If you image the whole drive every now and then, when your hard drive fails, you can just load the image onto a new drive. It'll be reinstalled exactly as it was.
SOUND: There will be a lot of people on here who can give you advice on what audio interface to buy. One thing i can say is that its pretty much essential to get a good audio interface for producing. Don't go buying a beast of a pc and use the crappy onboard audio!
CASE/FANS: If you're building your own pc, get a decent case, sound deadening and remember that larger slower fans are quieter than smaller faster fans. The quieter your system the better. The last thing you want is to buy a cheap case and have it rattling away in the background while you're trying to make music.
One last thing to note about hardware in general, the only hardware i've had a lot of problems with in the past has been ultra cheap unbranded hardware. Its probably best to stick to well known manufacturers as you'll come across less reliability and compatibility problems.
2) How to tweak your system: Here's a list of things i like to do to make sure my system is running at peak efficiency.
Decide what you will be using your system for. Will it be connected to the net? A lot of people don't like having their main DAW connected to the web. Will it be used for gaming? If so then the hardware recommendations above will be different than for an audio pc.
Disable any unnecessary services and startup programs:
MSCONFIG: if you type this into the start menu it brings up a program that you can use to configure your startup items. You might see a long list of programs in there that you don't really want to be running in the background. Look at each item and try to work out what program it relates to. Some of them will be relating to hardware(such as touchpad drivers on laptops). Best to leave the hardware ones alone unless you know what you're doing. Disable the software ones and reboot, if it causes problems you can always enable them again. Disabling these programs will free up memory and sometimes a small amount of cpu.
SERVICES: Ok if you type services into the start menu(services.msc on windows xp), it'll bring up the windows services app. Here you can disable any unnecessary services. Theres loads, and i don't want to list each of them as theres plenty of guides on the net. Just google 'windows services guide', and decide what you need and don't need. Theres an element of common sense here, i.e is your computer connected to the net or a network? If not, you can literally ditch a load of network services. Is it connected to a printer? If not, disable print spool. Do you have your own antivirus or firewall(most routers do) - you can disable windows firewall and security centre.
Remember that any changes you make can be easily reversed. Just read the guides and don't try to disable any of the essential windows services that it says not to touch!
UNDERVOLTING: Ok this is not to be confused with overclocking/underclocking. Basically when a cpu manufacturer releases a cpu, they set it to a voltage that will work for all cpu's of that range. The thing is, each cpu is different and requires a slightly different voltage to run reliably. Theres a program called rightmark cpu clock utility(rmclock) that can reduce the voltage in your cpu. Its available free here: http://cpu.rightmark.org/products/rmclock.shtml ***Update - a better program that supports more modern processors is throttlestop - RMClock hasn't been updated for a few years, so this is probably the better tool. I've been using it for a few months now and its been 100% reliable.***
The benefits of undervolting are having a cooler quieter cpu, longer battery life on laptops and increased reliability, with NO performance loss. I have not found any disadvantages and have been using this program for a few years. On my cpu, it gave a 10-15 degrees C decrease in temperature, very useful on a laptop.
ANTIVIRUS: Some people may be surprised by this, but i do not use an antivirus program. I find they take up cpu, and are annoying and intrusive. This is not to say i don't run a virus scan every now and then, i just don't have anything running in the background. If you're computer isn't connected to the web or a network, and you're not using cracked software, then you have almost no chance of catching a virus. If you are connected to the web then its always possible to get a virus or spyware/adware on your system. Theres a few good free tools available which you can use to run a scan every now and then. If i download something i'm not sure about, i just give it a scan before i open it, never have any problems.
Some good free spyware scanners are spybot and malwarebytes.
Lavasoft ad-aware rates very highly on tests and was found to remove more problems than any other antivirus in a recent test. You can get a free version from their website, it removes spyware and viruses, highly recommended!
PROCESSOR SCHEDULING: This is a well known tweak. Go to control panel, system, advanced system settings. Click the settings button under performance. Click the advanced tab and choose background services under processor scheduling. This optimizes windows for audio.
SUPERFETCH, WINDOWS SEARCH, INDEXING, SYSTEM RESTORE: Have you ever left your computer alone, and heard it churning away in the background? If it annoys the hell out of you, then I'd recommend disabling all of these.
Superfetch is a program that is supposed to make windows faster by filling up your memory with stuff that windows thinks you will need. I.e if you always run cubase, it'll be preloaded into system memory at boot. The thing i don't like is that superfetch itself takes up cpu and resources, its running a program to make windows work, when if you just run cubase on its own it'd have more cpu to itself! Plus when you boot, superfetch will try to fill your ram, which can make booting up painful, as your hard drive will be churning away loading all these programs! You can disable superfetch through the services program i mentioned earier.
Windows search and indexing. This basically scans your hard drive and indexes all the contents into a database. So you can type the name of a document and instantly bring it up. If you're like me and organise your files well, then this is totally unnecessary. And again, it takes up resources and makes the hard drive thrash away all of the time. Remember the hard drive is probably the first thing that will fail on your computer, i like to use it as little as possible. So i recommend disabling windows search on the services program, and to stop the indexing you go to my computer, right click on the drive, choose properties, and untick where it says 'allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties'. Again this tweak is up to you, if you like the search features by all means leave it on.
System restore can be a useful tool for people who mess up their computers regularly. However, its another resource hog and if you know how to run your computer well you can safely disable it. And if you image your hard drive, then theres no need for system restore at all. This can be disabled under control panel > system > system protection on windows 7. Its similar on vista and xp but i don't have it in front of me so can't remember the exact menus. Pretty easy to find. If you prefer to have this safety net then by all means leave it on!
DEFRAG: This is set to auto on windows 7, but if you have an older os then its worth defragging every few days. Theres plenty of programs available, but i find windows does an ok job. Defragging basically puts all of your files together, instead of being spread out over the hard drive in pieces. The obvious benefit of this is that your hard drive has to do less work and finding files will be faster. ***If you have an SSD drive, you need to disable this on that drive. There is no point in defragging an SSD, and it will just shorten the lifespan***
One final thing to note, is that some people think that disabling the aero interface in windows vista or 7 will make it run faster. This is actually wrong, as aero is accelerated by your graphics card. So if you disable it and just use windows classic, its using the cpu to draw the windows again, and actually runs slower. So its probably best to leave this on!
UNINSTALL OLD DRIVERS: If you've used lots of different hardware over the years then sometimes windows can have several copies of old drivers. This can sometimes cause problems and it'd do no harm to remove them.
To do this on vista and 7, type CMD in the start menu, and then right click on cmd.exe and choose run as administrator.
Then write the following line: SET DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1
Then write devmgmt.msc, which will start device manager.
In device manager click View, and choose Show Hidden Devices.
A lot of old drivers will now show, you can uninstall anything that you don't use. Be sure to know what you're uninstalling tho, if not sure then google it!
3) Some useful tools i have found:
DPC LATENCY CHECKER: This program is useful if you are having problems with clicks and pops in the audio. From the website: Thesycon’s DPC Latency Checker is a Windows tool that analyses the capabilities of a computer system to handle real-time data streams properly. It may help to find the cause for interruptions in real-time audio and video streams, also known as drop-outs. Available here for free: http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml
REGISTRY CLEANERS: I personally use easycleaner, but theres plenty of good registry cleaners on the web. Clearing out your registry basically removes invalid entries, such as ones relating to previously uninstalled programs. The registry is a database, and cleaning it out just removes clutter and keeps things running nicely.
PROCESS EXPLORER: This is a free program from microsoft, a bit like task manager but has a lot more detail. It allows you to see exactly whats running on your system. Useful for more advanced users, available here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysi ... s/bb896653
AUTORUNS: Another free microsoft program. This one shows you whats running at startup on your system. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysi ... s/bb963902
Right, i think thats about it! I've probably forgotten a few tweaks, as i've really hacked the hell out of my windows over the years. You may notice i recommend disabling a lot of stuff. The way i see it, the less i have running, the more cpu and memory i have to do the tasks i actually want to be doing! Its entirely up to you how you configure your system, i just wanted to give a few suggestions. I hope this is helpful to some of you!
