Microsoft Surface BOOK 4

BobTheDog · Post by **BobTheDog** » Fri Oct 09, 2015 8:26 am

OSX is not based on Linux!

Also the OS would not have to be changed in any way to make OS X multi touch, only the presentation layer (cocoa) would been to be changed. And I bet you it will be...

Kevin Nolan · Post by **Kevin Nolan** » Fri Oct 09, 2015 11:32 am

OSX is based on BSD 4.2 UNIX (Linux is based on that too).

I'm completing my PhD currently on it - and software I wrote on Sun Solaris ten years ago ports with ease. The current phase of my project involved two UNIX shell scripting pipelines, and OSX is a dream - ksh and bash programming a treat, X11 running no prolem, using NASA FITSTOOLS ported from UNIX to OSX too and working a treat also .

Terminal access to OSX may as well be a mid '90s Sun Solaris machine ( love it!!)

@skinmechanic: I don't accept your argument for lack of 32 GB in slightly thinner devices:

- my early 2011 17" MBP is not THAT thin - and - copes with 16 GB without batting an eye lid. I am confident that if extra slots were available, it would cope with 32 GB, no problem. There is no "bandwidth" issue with that amount of RAM any more.
- they've had 5 years to make this happen - you're saying it wasn't possible - that that's some sort of fundamental issue they can't sort, yet putting 16BG on board was done without blinking? It doesn't add up.

these companies are clamping artificiality so force sales of desktops. that's my opinion on it. There simply cannot be a technical issue with this that has been unsolvable in 5 years - that would be preposterous.

Bachus · Post by **Bachus** » Fri Oct 09, 2015 12:27 pm

Kevin Nolan wrote:OSX is based on BSD 4.2 UNIX (Linux is based on that too).

I'm completing my PhD currently on it - and software I wrote on Sun Solaris ten years ago ports with ease. The current phase of my project involved two UNIX shell scripting pipelines, and OSX is a dream - ksh and bash programming a treat, X11 running no prolem, using NASA FITSTOOLS ported from UNIX to OSX too and working a treat also .

Terminal access to OSX may as well be a mid '90s Sun Solaris machine ( love it!!)

@skinmechanic: I don't accept your argument for lack of 32 GB in slightly thinner devices:

- my early 2011 17" MBP is not THAT thin - and - copes with 16 GB without batting an eye lid. I am confident that if extra slots were available, it would cope with 32 GB, no problem. There is no "bandwidth" issue with that amount of RAM any more.
- they've had 5 years to make this happen - you're saying it wasn't possible - that that's some sort of fundamental issue they can't sort, yet putting 16BG on board was done without blinking? It doesn't add up.

these companies are clamping artificiality so force sales of desktops. that's my opinion on it. There simply cannot be a technical issue with this that has been unsolvable in 5 years - that would be preposterous.

Comming from a Solaris background, Mac OSX was so easy to addapt to.. Its one of the things i love about my Mac..

And there is no technical reason the max amount of memmory in a macbook is set to 16GB, its indeed a marketing reason, want more memmory, spend a fracking huge amount of apple dollars on the coolest garbage bin in the world...

Thats why my main machine is a hackintosh, i7, 64GB, 2Tb SSD +3TB HD, build into a 27" touchscreen all in one.( and yes, with the right drivers Mac OSX supports touchscreens ) just visit the Tonymac webside if you want to know how...(and no, i dont use the touchscreen a lot)

Ksynth · Post by **Ksynth** » Fri Oct 09, 2015 1:55 pm

In the Microsoft demo they showed how fast the machine was at copying a large file. That was impressive. And they are using some newer ram type. So perhaps the cpu + gpu + ram makes for a really fast system.

If it was about $1500 for the top version I would have ordered one by now.

Kevin Nolan · Post by **Kevin Nolan** » Fri Oct 09, 2015 2:01 pm

Have to agree all round. 'Warts' aside - Windows 10 looks good, and the new surface looks magnificent.

I just want these manufacturers to get to 32GB (Orchestral Sample library needs it)

DodgingRain · Post by **DodgingRain** » Fri Oct 09, 2015 5:26 pm

The real question is have they dealt with the heat issue that the surface pro 3 has. When using the surface pro 3 as a DAW for instance it will quickly throttle down the CPU from 2.1g to .9g because of heat. Half-assed solution that does work is a simple USB fan pointed at the back. Would hate to have to do that with a surface book just so you can run a DAW, its already a pain to do on a surface 3.

I find it funny people need more than 16gb of ram. If you have an SSD there isn't that much of a hit going to the swap file. If you don't have an SSD then upgrade and join this decade.

Bachus · Post by **Bachus** » Fri Oct 09, 2015 10:01 pm

Kevin Nolan wrote:Have to agree all round. 'Warts' aside - Windows 10 looks good, and the new surface looks magnificent.

I just want these manufacturers to get to 32GB (Orchestral Sample library needs it)

I think having 32GB is beyound the scope of these tablets...

chilly7 · Post by **chilly7** » Sat Oct 10, 2015 10:13 am

Kevin Nolan wrote:Max of 16GB - I'm afraid that won't cut it form 2015 onwards in audio / music circles.

My MBP, bought in 2011, has 16GB RAM! I have never maxed out the quad iCore 7 computing power - even with over 100 tracks and plugins / effects on most - it's RAM is the bottle neck, every time.

So it doesn't matter if this has a fast CPU wise - RAM is the issue. It should be starting with 32GB, minimum.

It depends what plugins you use and at what resolution. I can max out CPU with a singel plugin on my Mac Pro. ( But afcause the main issue is that they work single core) Also i am opposite. It looks like i have a bad RAM memory stick so i removed one of 3. And now i have 8 GB of Ram instead of 12 it came originaly and in my music production i have no problems. ( But i think it is because i convert a done track to audio which kills plugin use of system resources but i can go back to the original state if need in Studio One) . But ofcause with plugins which use super huge sample laibiries 8 Gb might not be anought even for one instance of plugin.

Kevin Nolan · Post by **Kevin Nolan** » Sun Oct 11, 2015 2:52 pm

I accept that for essentially all plugins, 16GB is fantastic. I use NI Complete Ultimate, Arturia V-Collection, all of Spectrasonics stuff and 16GB does the trick.

But - an area I'm just getting heavily into - orchestral sample libraries - in this arena 16GB Ram is nothing. Typical orchestral templates used for media work can stretch to hundreds of tracks, and in this 16GB just does not suffice.

I know composers using 64 and 128 GB, over two or more machines linked with VE Pro. A MacProVideo Course I just completed indicated the same - suggesting 64GB is about OK!

I accept the MBP and Surface are portable devices, but 32GB would help significantly and surely is possible to instigate these days.

Bald Eagle · Post by **Bald Eagle** » Sun Oct 11, 2015 3:36 pm

To go beyond 16GB of memory you're out of the range of what can be called any form of a tablet. Especially in that price range. The Surface is pretty impressive for the target audience. A full high end laptop is the way to go if you need that kind of mobile power.

A top of the line Surface would be fine for all but the most demanding specialized applications. And once you hit that price range you may as well just look at an Alienware or similar machine. And beyond 32GB you just need a desktop or server class machine.

Give it a few years. You'll have 128GB in your pocket.

Kevin Nolan · Post by **Kevin Nolan** » Sun Oct 11, 2015 4:18 pm

As said already - I 've had 16GB in a MBP for 4.5 years.

The argument that you can't get 32GB into a portable device is preposterous.

You're saying - we could double the RAM and halve it's size every year, since the invention of computers until 2011 - but in 2011 they hit a fundamental brick wall and can no longer do it. That's what you're saying. It's ridiculous.

To boot - the 16GB in my MBP hardly takes up any space. 8GB DIMMS are tiny - there'd be space for 8 of them in a MBP with a little bit of organisation (for example remove the Superdrive).

There's only one reason portable devices do not offer more RAM - to sell servers and desktops too.

So it's being artificially clamped. There is no problem with this. the energy, bandwidth and address-space issues are all sorted - over half a decade!

It's an artificial restriction for sales purposes - in the same way that the iPad is clamped at 128GB storage - just to sell Cloud Storage if you need more.

There's no technical argument.

SanderXpander · Post by **SanderXpander** » Sun Oct 11, 2015 8:48 pm

They're just financial reasons. Not just that they want you to buy a desktop but also that the market for tablets or even notebooks with that much RAM isn't that big. I agree with you that it's useful with large orchestral libraries but for most prosumer and even professional needs, ssd streaming takes care of the bulk of that. I don't use VSE but I do use Kontakt extensively as well as Addictive Drums and a bunch of other RAM hogs. So far I haven't run into any limits even on my 8GB machines. I'm sure I could, but it's just not an issue for me in any practical sense, and I do this for a living.

In the end you'll get your RAM increase. When they feel they can sell enough volume of those machines to make it worthwhile.

Bald Eagle · Post by **Bald Eagle** » Sun Oct 11, 2015 8:56 pm

Sorry Kevin,

Could they make one with that much power? Sure. How many would be purchased? Few. No profit margin dues to manufacturing costs without volume sales.

Not going to happen anytime soon despite all of your theories on the advances in technology. Get a laptop.

Ksynth · Post by **Ksynth** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 1:14 pm

Interesting article re the graphics chip on the Surface Book Pro.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2989906/ ... atter.html

Bachus · Post by **Bachus** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 3:29 pm

Ksynth wrote:Interesting article re the graphics chip on the Surface Book Pro.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2989906/ ... atter.html

No quad cores, to bad, as daws are one of the few applications really utiliziing multi core/threading ... Combined with the 16GB of memmory limit, this disquallifies these surface products for serious music computing..

I will stick to my selfbuild 27" touchscreen all in one hackintosh...