Posted by: dawful
« on: December 13, 2023, 11:32:05 PM »Best version was nt 3.5. Kind of most stable. But i agree that xp was worse than 2000. Anyway all of them were crappy as they did not have realtime kernel.
Realtime kernels can be problematic. Especially if there are background processes you don't know about. So I have to agree, that NT3.5 (and 4) where pretty good. They had less processes, that you didn't have control over. It is one of the things that makes me appreciate Win9x and Dos. In this view, 2K was mostly better then XP. But there are other trade offs.
I like a lean and well tightened up system. Even with the shortcomings, of every system I've ever used, music was still made. Work with what you've got, until what you've got won't work. Then hack (technical not violent meaning) it to death (ditto).
There is, no doubt, advantages to a realtime kernel. But a lot of people will do okay, with out it. Avoid USB audio devices, if you can. That will reduce your CPU load and inherent USB latency. PCI/PCMCIA/Etc will almost always be lower in latency and Resources (depending on vendor drivers). For midi, serial and parallel interfaced usually do better then USB; but don't compete with internal cards. And for god sake, get rid of those antivirus programs. Disconnect from the Internet and kill all the services you can. If you aren't even on a network, kill those workstation/client services too.
Okay, maybe I'm being too extreme (unless you are a masochist, like me).