Just an Anecdote re: TP3 and old hardware and the youth of today

daveb124

So.. I just thought I'd post this ..but for info only.

This week I donated an old mixer and laptop to my kids school as they needed an extra setup for an after school dj club they are running.

In passing I heard the teacher that was running it was bringing in her own setup but she was getting nervous that the kids might damage it as its her main play out setup at the weekends.

And I had my old trust Denon MC6000 in the loft gathering dust and a laptop I hadnt used in ages, as I thought was way too old to use with TP3.

To put it in context the Denon came out in 2011 and the laptop was a Surface pro 2 from 2013. Both were always sturdy as made of metal. And both had seen a fair amount of action at home and out at various bars, clubs and weddings.

But times moved on and so did I with my GAS. The denon always suffered from low resolution jogs and the surface was too small a form factor to be useful. I bloody loved the pair of them at the time though. The denon is still built like a tank and everything still works.

So more than 10 years later I though it best to let someone else get some use out of them or donate to some sort of charity. The school was perfect. So I dusted them off cleaned them and reinstalled the surface with latest windows 10. Did all the usual optimization tricks and plugged them together and tested them out with the latest TP3 (not pro). I expected them to play up. Some latency or clips or *something*. But the setup worked without a hitch.

I couldn't believe it!

So I dropped them round tonight, showed the teacher the setup and they were so happy. I was sad to let them go but hopefully they will get more use out of them than I was.

Just goes to show that old hardware aint so bad after all. Maybe its the modern low power chipsets with all their multiple modes and cooling / throttling features that are screwing us now!

(for context the surface pro 2 had a i5 1.9ghz and 8gb ram)

peace

daveb

ps NI - the laptop is still mine, i'm just loaning it, so I haven't broken any licencing limits for devices with my TP3 licence on it. and its 8 to 11 yo kids... so hey ;-)

Kubrak

I use Surface 7 Pro with TP3 Pro (i5, 4C/8T, yours is 2C/4T) and full satisfaction. Yes, the screen could be a bit bigger, but it is satisfactory, as I use S5 controller anyway.

daveb124

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/98813#Comment_98813

that is interesting to me... as I have often wondered .. are Macs only better because of the tight integration between hardware and software.. not the OS itself.... so less variables for developers to work with.. (Im not a mac fan btw)... and M$ surface lineup of hybrids and laptops are exactly that...synergy between hardware and software vendor. When I reinstalled the surface pro 2 with windows 10.. most of the drivers were from 2016, the last time they supported it.. and all came through windows update, no need for 3rd party software, like lenovo, dell and hp have. And I still struggle so often today, trying to get my (slightly) more modern laptops from lenovo to be perfect for audio streaming, i have to wonder, where do I go next? Right now im tending towards another Surface, 10 years since my last one! I thought the XMG audio lineup was the way forward but then even they said its impossible to get pro audio right in a Windows context!

I have also asked NI many times... exactly what windows based laptops do they benchmark against? Ive never had a clear answer... or any answer for that matter. I get that its dangerous to say one vendor and model is better than another... but others do do it...

Kubrak

I do like MS Surface Pro as it is passively cooled (if i5 and till 7+). And anyway I would avoid 12th and 13th gen Intels using big-little CPUs as it requires usage of Win11 and big-little is new concept in x86 and it may bring problems with processing audio if programs are not big-little aware and do not treat it right....

And MS Surface 7+ Pro has the advantage that one may change SSD disc to bigger. Handy, if one has bigger track library and does not want to use external disc.