xp sp3 rc

[Mark Leonard]

has the xp sp3 rc been tested with cineform/cs3 yet?

reading around and people are getting 20% performance improvements on their machines with minimal issues. microsoft saying that the rc is very close to what final release will be.

[David Taylor]

No Mark - not yet.

[Mark Leonard]

well time to report the news!!!! even though I couldn't find anyone else that has tested sp3 on a cs3 production machine, I decided to try it for myself. worse case scenario, I'm reinstalling windows and I just started editing a new project that wouldnt be any big deal to start over. so...

WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW!

I have been screaming this all day long after installing sp3. I'm not joking when I say my rendering times are 40-50% faster. this particular machine is a intel 2.93 quad on a p5k with 4gig corsair. Immediately I noticed that the system "felt" faster just playing around in some progs and media files. then decided to play a bit in pp & ae cs3 to see how they run. also noticed that the sometimes "lagginess" that occurs every so often when clicking on clips or buttons, etc... is completely gone. then decided to run some tests.

before installing sp3, i had exported out a full hd clip (i use prospect) to a cineform avi. didnt really pay attention to how long it took but I'll guess it was 2-3 minutes to do. Imported that clip into ae, did a 200% time stretch, pixel motion and rendered out to full res hd cineform avi. took 16 minutes to render. had the task manager up and all 4 cores fluctuating between 50-90% usage as it rendered out.

after sp3 install, in ae this same exact clip render took only 7 minutes and all 4 cores stayed at 99-100% usage throughout the entire process. then went into pp and exported the original clip again and it only took about 45 sec to export.

been working/playing/testing throughout the day and no crashes yet. even the stupid dumb errors that occur in pp for no good reason havent even happened yet. though I really havent pushed too hard it by opening any of my big projects (thats for tomorrow)

but I do have to say that what I've played with today that it seems that sp3 has possibly doubled the speed of this machine from a video production standpoint. thats all this pc is for, not even connected to the internet. but obviously I'm sure mileage will vary from system to system.

and no I'm not a microsoft fanboy, I think vista is a turd (Windows ME II) and I can't stand how slow office 2007 is (especially outlook) but I do have to say that xp sp3 could be the greatest thing microsoft has ever done.

now this is the latest rc, which means it's not the final build. so dont install this on a machine that you cant afford to be without just in case something crazy happens. however I've read that microsoft is saying that it's very close to what the final build will be (so chances of a major meltdown due not being final code should be really low). btw it's build 3264, released dec 18 I think. I got it directly from microsoft's site. weighs in at 336mb, so it's not small. so guys that can afford to give it a try, by all means have fun and report back. so far so good here.

Mark

[David Taylor]

After that I guess all I can say is WOW! too. Mark, thanks for TOFTT (taking one for the team).

[Stephen Armour]

Originally Posted by Mark Leonard

so...WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW! Mark

THat's certainly good news for most of us! We could use some good news...

But just to be sure anyone reading this post knows (who might not have read all of your post below):..... if they try this, it will BLOW their current installation out of the water, since this is a RC1 and they'll have to COMPLETELY reinstall XP when SP3 is finally released to the public. Mark, you said it clearly, but some people don't read everything...

[Alan Mills]

Apologies for my ignorance but could someone please translate this for me. Maybe I'm just having a dense moment.

XP - got that.
SP3 - Presumably service pack 3
RC/RC1 - ??? What's this?

And we are going to have a service pack that needs a full reinstallation of Windows?????

[Bill Ravens]

RC= release candidate....pretty much a beta version, but close to the final release to production

because it's a "beta", normal update procedure don't apply. nevertheless, the installer comes with an app to remove the RC if you need to. I've applied the update to a non critical machine and all works quite well, including the uninstall. ;o)

Regardless, one should never engage in these things without an adequate full system backup. I always use acronis or Ghost for full OS backups.

[Mark Leonard]

actually no, sp3 rc uninstalls fine (and reinstalls - just did it to test). so it can be uninstalled and the final reinstalled when it's released w/o having to hose xp :). all rc's have been like this for many years (it's the beta's that you want to reinstall windows for).

but.......... I guess reality would have to set in today. and well sp3 is still great but not quite as great as I saw yesterday. Working in some of my big projects has brought me back down to life. while the system no doubt handles much more smoothly and runs much better than before, rendering is not quite as improved on big projects and exports as my little tests yesterday led me to believe. I'm still guessing a 20-30% improvement as opposed to the 50% that occured on the small clips. and yeah after getting into a big project 2 weird pp errors have occured today that made me close and reopen. but thats much better than before. I would have had at least 10 errors by now on sp2. still not a single error in ae. it has to be some sort of multi-core optimization in the sp3 code thats making this system run so much better. ms really gonna have a hard time selling 32bit vista after sp3 goes mainstream.


so far prospect/cs3 is performing great with sp3.

Mark

[Stephen Armour]

Originally Posted by Alan Mills

Apologies for my ignorance but could someone please translate this for me. Maybe I'm just having a dense moment.

XP - got that.
SP3 - Presumably service pack 3
RC/RC1 - ??? What's this?

And we are going to have a service pack that needs a full reinstallation of Windows?????

Basically what he's saying is, if you're thinking of putting it on your main editing computer (or ONLY editing computer!), you probably shouldn't do it! Especially given that you don't even really know what it is. You'll be exposing your current projects and computer to unnecessary risks.

That's why it's a "BETA"...which is NOT a full, normal, fully tested public release. Not to mention that it's a "RC1 beta", which means it's still pretty early to try, unless you have that "extra" machine laying around to use it on.

[Bill Ravens]

WOOHOOOO...

It appears that M$ finally fixed Firewire 800, aka 1394b

[Robert Young]

My brief experience with SP3 RC is the same as Mark's. The install on my Intel Quad core was quick and flawless. Everything seems to be working as it should, although I have not yet carefully checked out every application on this system.
SP3 definitely seems to handle PPro CS3 much more effectively than SP2, at least for HDV and CFHD. Rendering will now push all four cores up to 90%, which I was not seeing previously, and the renders are certainly faster. Also the system just seems generally faster and more quickly responsive.
Anyone considering giving SP3 a try should browse the MS SP3 user forum first. There have been some reported glitches with installation, compatibility issues with earlier versions of IE 7, and other problems. But, I must say that the SP3 download contains a very effective uninstall/rollback feature that seems to restore the system to its prexisting state if the install fails. (I had this occur on an older back up system).
Anyway, so far, so good.
I'm pleased with XP SP3, but feel like Adobe still has some kinks to work out of PPro CS3.

[Richard Leadbetter]

It really does sound too good to be true! Any word from CineForm HQ about what could possibly be causing these gargantuan gains in performance?

[David Taylor]

We think "devine intervention" is the only chance at understanding this. Miracles do happen, right?

Actually you guys are a step ahead of us. We haven't installed the Beta of SP3 yet, and we probably won't until it is golden. We'll confirm the devine intervention later....

[Bill Ravens]

In the meantime, word on the street is that M$ optimized their multi-thread processing. Improvements seem to be better on multi core machines than single core machines.

[Robert Young]

That is exactly my impression.
There is hardly any noticable difference on my old Pentium single core system, it's the Quad Core that is really humming now.