Good news for USB3 and S4 users - Windows 8 doesn't bluescreen.

Without going on about bad drivers etc. it's time to offer some solutions for those unfortunate to use laptops with USB3 and windows.

I am currently running through a series of tests with Windows 8 professional (retail build 9200) and USB3 and the VIA800 USB3 chipset works.

I'll be doing the same with the NEC/renasys chipsets later in the weekend.

Whereas before as soon as you connected traktor an S4 and USB3 it would bluescreen, but not now .... something has been improved in the W8 build.

I've used the latest TSP 2.5.1 with S4, F1, X1, DVS Mk2 and my own midifighter "pro-plus", they all work without a hitch.

I haven't tested for more than an hour, but that's something i'll also be doing this weekend.

There are less versions of windows 8 this time

Core
Core N
Professional
Professional N
Enterprise
Enterprise N

There are also unlock codes for media centre edition, but i've not assessed that one yet, I'm hoping that hasn't been cut down too much.

a little more information ......

Irritatingly the traktor.exe remains open after closing, in the same way as the pirated version did a few years back. This happens with Pro and Scratch Pro.

tested 2.1.3 -> 2.51 and all the incremental updates in drivers etc.

This is not a show stopper obviously as you can still go to the task manager and kill the process, but it is irritating and on a 3.2Ghz Core 2 with 8Gb DDR2 1066 it's taking roughly 49% CPU time, even when closed.

Now fully tested - last night i did a freebie gig locally to test the new OS. only 22% loading with everything turned on and DVS connected.

All I have is good news!

traktor 2.5.1, the latest drivers for the S4, Audio8 (and A4), nothing turned off, nothing optimised, DPC under 188 all night.

no glitches with the latency set at 128samples, 1ms/1ms.

The USB3 drivers are now all native to the OS, they just work straight from the box.

To compare, I switched over to my other drive to test W7 (my uber-performance version) and as soon as any of the NI hardware was connected to USB3, BLUESCREEN OF DEATH ... Restarted, and connected to USB2 ..back to normal.


So is this a viable fix?

(1) It's not officially out yet, as a Dev, i got it early, everyone else has to wait till October 25th.
(2) It's new, so we don't know what works and what doesn't.
(3) You have to pay for it (although it's rumoured to be only $15-$70)

(4) But it works now !
(5) NI have had over 18 months to find a solution - with non in sight and their OSX solution was to cripple the port !


make up your own mind, working USB3 now for $15-$70 (depending on package)

or Wait until NI have a fix ....

if you want to test it yourself and have a spare drive, DL the preview version (8400) from Microsoft, it works until next January, plenty of time to see it working and make up your own mind.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/download


now i can get back to having fun:thumbup:

Great news for Windows peeps.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by photojojo

Great news for Windows peeps.

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NI were certainly caught with their pants down on this one, but yes, this is a move forward for Windows users, now if the OSX 10.8 &USB3 problem could be solved in the same way .....

Still, let's not dwell on it, there's noise to be made !

Last night I demonstrated W8 & USB3, by connecting every controller I own and every soundcard to the same machine, and with brutal changes of equipment mid-set I tried to crash trakor ...and it stayed running and not a glitch in sight.

however there's a touch of bad news.

Window resizing sometimes is slow, looks like it's hung, but it hasn't. The more powerful the GFX card, the less time it takes to resize.

The trakor.exe doesn't close properly and remains resident.

After testing Cubase 5.1, i tried the popular cracked version for comparison, that fails to start the famous dongle emulator, so pirates won't be using W8. Cubase 6 works fine (as long as you have a real dongle).

Can you help me, im having a bit older laptop
an Asus Su36 something something.. It has a single USB3 port and 2 USB2 ports..

Since my laptop is natively a Win7 machine. I wonder if the USB3 port in my machine would automatically be "natively supported by windows 8 if I went and bought an upgrade from 7 to 8.. ?
Or would this fix only work if I went out and bought a new laptop with win8 out of the box?

Another question regarding Traktor and windows (since you sir seem to know what you are talking about).
Is there any gain to go windows 8 PRO when I use my laptop only for Traktor and s4, f1, and external harddrives?

Yours faithfully
And thanks for a great forum.
ps sorry for bad english(I'm Danish)

1st Answer: Yes it will be upgraded to a natively supported port.

2nd Answer: No or partially yes. If you have no problems now, then don't upgrade yet. NI are not supporting this OS and from conversations with their tech developers, it's unlikely for a while (they don't know why it's not closing down properly).

In your setup I'd connect the F1 and S4 to the USB2 ports, and your external HD to the USB3 ports, remembering to turn off all the power saving on the ports. You do this under custom power plan, drop down to the USB section and turn off everything under power saving (this causes interrupts to the system).

hope that helps a bit

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JSM

1st Answer: Yes it will be upgraded to a natively supported port.

2nd Answer: No or partially yes. If you have no problems now, then don't upgrade yet. NI are not supporting this OS and from conversations with their tech developers, it's unlikely for a while (they don't know why it's not closing down properly).

In your setup I'd connect the F1 and S4 to the USB2 ports, and your external HD to the USB3 ports, remembering to turn off all the power saving on the ports. You do this under custom power plan, drop down to the USB section and turn off everything under power saving (this causes interrupts to the system).

hope that helps a bit

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I am a mediocre user So everytime I do a fresh install I do stuff like turn off power savings and such. I even have my installation of traktor on the external drive since I Dont DJ alone I have a partner in crime :P - and we then dont have to reanalyze and fix beatgrids and whatnot twice since we also share music collection.

This does stress the importance of USB being stable.
And I have had a long period where I fell uncertain If I can take on any jobs since it seems to work like Awesome on my pc.. but then chrases for no apparant reason. and only sometimes - I can play for hours and hours without any trouble and suddenly my computer will close traktor with a message that traktor stopped working, or a song will not load fully and will become "noize" if I dont see it in time and loop. and reconnect my external drive "quick"

And it started with my computer not being able to go into sleepmode.. since it would always wake up and then say it woke up from a BSOD without me ever turning it off. It got me confused.. but my only lead is that the USB3 drivers/devices might be the cause - so even several reinstalls of my old win7 wont change this..

So this was really interesting news that the win8 fixed my "perhaps" only problem with traktor.

Do you get the problems when not using the USB3 port ?

And do I understand you correctly ? You have Traktor INSTALLED on the external HD ?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JSM

Do you get the problems when not using the USB3 port ?

And do I understand you correctly ? You have Traktor INSTALLED on the external HD ?

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Yes I have that problem nomather if something is plugged into usb port or not while sleeping the pc or turning it off even.

And I have traktor installed on my internal rive but then change the folder where it gets its settings and so on to an installation on the external drive.