Playing Music Slows Vista Network Performance?

An anonymous reader writes "Over the months since Vista's release, there has been no doubt about the reduced level of network performance experienced compared to Windows XP. However, some users over at the 2CPU forums have discovered an unexplained connection with audio playback resulting in a cap at approximately 5%-10% of total network throughput. Whenever any audio is being sent to a sound card (even, several users report, while paused), network performance is instantly reduced. As soon as the audio is stopped, the throughput begins to climb to its expected speed. It's a tough one for users — what do you pick, sound or speed? So much for multi-tasking."

Comments

Re:What do I pick?

[ashground]

If I used Vista [...] Funny how so many people with gripes against Vista are yelling from the sidelines without any first-hand experience.

I've never noticed a drop in network speed when playing audio. Nor does Vista crash on me. Nor have I had any driver issues. My Vista experience has been wonderful and painless, and from talking to other people, it seems like that's the case nine times out of ten. Of course there are bugs -- when you write an operating system taking several billion possible computer configurations into account, at some point something's not going to line up. That doesn't make the operating system worthless. And trust me, in all my years of running Windows, 3.0 to Vista, I've never come as close to throwing my computer out the window as I have trying to maintain any Linux distribution.

Vista's not perfect, but I'd still gladly choose it over any OS that forces me to compile things myself to get things working properly or buy an entirely new set of hardware just to run it.

minimize windows, silent in a sandbox

[kuma]

this doesn't bother me really...

when i run windows at home, it is in a virtual machine, and the network cable gets yanked out the back of the box.

windows is someone else's problem at work, and the hassles of sql and applescript are enough for me. i refuse to let windows waste any more of my time.

you might think this is off-topic, but is it really? if you have a critical server, and it must not be hacked, you partition and make the core os disk read-only.

if your time is valuable and you are not paid to know windows, put a shroud on the beast, keep it off network whenever possible. buy mac os x or linux, buy an xbox, get on with life.

Re:Audio drivers in userspace ?

[amokk]

The individual words in your post make some sort of sense. However, it's pretty damn clear that you have no fucking clue what you're talking about.

Precisely why Vista is an Easy NO-BUY Decision

[HermMunster]

This is why you don't purchase software predicated on a closed OS that can be doing any number of things wrong (not moral and not ethical, and possibly not legal).

How does this affect other computers on the network? If, say, you work for a large business and you are playing back music does this affect the performance of other users on the net?

With Open Source software you'd know precisely what the cause is in an extremely short period of time. There'd be no excuse for someone not pinpointing it in a matter of hours. Because this is closed source we can't ever know except in very high level terms meant to reduce backlash from something like this.

If this is Microsoft using DRM against your own music library then shame on them. It is none of their business what you do on your computer, period. If some crime is being committed it is up to the law enforcement agencies to investigate and turn it over for prosecution once they collect enough info. If it is Microsoft or the RIAA involved in such a thing we need to ensure that the average person knows what's happening so we can get this monkey business stopped. I'm sure there'll be some class action against the likes of the RIAA and Microsoft it this turns out to be an issue of them stealing peeks at what you are doing within the confines of your own home.

GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEADS--THE COMPUTER YOU ARE USING IS AN EXTENSION OF YOUR OWN HOME AND TO SPY ON YOU IS AGAINST THE LAW AND ARE IMMORAL AND UNETHICAL.

I don't know why you guys can't seem to get your minds around that. You would no more allow Microsoft to enter your home (or the police for that matter) without a warrant searching for specific things. This computer is an extension of what you are day in and day out. These *companies* have no rights to enter your domain. A man is the king of his castle. For the sake of your family, friends, loved ones do not allow these companies to take one step closer. Force them to back off. Bring this stuff down to real world terms. Entering your computer is the same thing as entering your home.

Bottom line, free and open software is the only thing that will, in the end, protect you and your privacy as well as your legal rights. The good thing is that Open Source Software is high quality and very effective at doing the same things that closed source software does. There are enough product in Open Source to do those same tasks in the same way even creating the same document types that the closed source software does. Now with Open Document Format being an ISO standard we have much better chance at real interchangeability between different products.

So, why stay with closed source software designed to spy on you and violate your privacy and the sanctity of your homes?

Incompetence! Opportunity!

[twitter]

Digital restrictions suck performance but still don't work. M$ knows this but plunges on anyway. The result is that Vista is a failure by every measure and 2007 may be the Year of Linux that we have all been waiting for. Vista is a great example of everything that's wrong with non free software.

Re:Incompetence! Opportunity!

[twitter]

Windows ME sucked hard, too, and it didn't seem to really push many users off of Windows -- they just skipped that version and Microsoft had to flog their developers a little harder to get something better

M$'s advantages are all due to false perceptions. When those perceptions end, the market will shift suddenly because there is a tremendous free software cost and performance advantage. Vista, Zune and Xbox go a long way to burying the M$ invincibility myth. The vendor revolt is on and that really is the end of M$'s dominance.

Free software superiority is now clear. In 1998, most gnu/linux distributions could claim performance and feature advantages over both 95 and 98, but there was a significant installation and file format lock advantage to M$. With Vista and Office 2007, these advantages have all reversed in favor of gnu/linux. Each new distribution of Windoze has offered less and run into more user resistance. XP took three years to make itself look like the majority M$ share. Vista is a significant performance downgrade that took six years to develop. M$ will release a SP1 but this won't fix things. They might release a chain of OS releases like they did before XP, but they don't have the resources to get them ready. In the mean time, gnu/linux distributions have been through three or four release cycles that each offered real improvements in performance and features.