Hey guys, I found these tidbits on the RME support website and Gear slutz
For a XP audio install on a MBP here is a good starting point:
1. Clean install of XP SP2
2. If you're going to use a firewire audio interface then install the following 2 KB updates (you will not get them via windows update):
Performance of 1394 devices may decrease after you install Windows XP Service Pack 2
An SBP-2 device does not work when it is connected to a Windows XP SP2-based computer
3. Disable graphics write combining: right click on the Desktop and select Properties->Settings->Advanced->Troubleshooting, and untick "Enable Write Combining".
4. Disable Nvidia PowerMizer - right click on the Desktop and select Properties->Settings->Advanced->GeoForce 8600M GT->Mobile->Change PowerMizer Settings->Not Manage My Power Consumption
5. If you are going to do audio work; after booting XP you need to kill the KbdMgr.exe process. Click start, run, type taskmgr.exe (or hit ctrl-alt-del and select task manager), find the KbdMgr.exe process and end it. This process is the Apple installed process that makes your function keys work for volume, backlight, etc. You will need to do this each time you reboot XP. (You can change it to not autostart but presumably you will want it on when using the laptop for non-audio purposes. And it crashes if you try to run it after the machine boots.)
6. When doing audio work make sure to turn off wireless, or you will get an occasional spike that will kill latency (this piece of advice seems to apply to pretty much any laptop used as a DAW).
Steps 3-6 are needed for latency, if you don't do them you will get dropouts, clicks, pops, etc.
At this point run latency checker:
DPC Latency Checker
Doing the above my latency hovers right around 100us.
On my install I don't have any problems with CPU. Are you seeing CPU usage spikes in task manager? If not are you sure it's not disk access? If you have installed a lot of stuff that loads at startup it can make the initial login very sluggish and give the illusion of bad cpu performance. Other than that I can't offer more opinions without some specific examples.
EDIT: Added disabling wireless, how could I forget!
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-co ... ost1961838Below is the RME thread with similar information.
http://www.rme-audio.de/forum/viewtopic.php?id=591I don't have a macbook so I am unable to try it out, but it seems to have gotten good results from the looks of it.
EDIT: A frustrated Presonus user came to the same conclusion.
http://forums.presonus.com/showthread.php?t=7180