Peter, All,
I have come across some settings that have a really significant and generally posertive impact on sound quality. Might even be a candidate to look into / exploit in 2.11.
It relates to varing the number of active CPUs set in BIOS. Its well documented that the number of CPUs cores set active in BIOS can be used to tune sound, particually the case for 621 chipset montherboards.
The following simple additional step to core setting really supercharges the effect, certainly on a 621 motherboard which is what i'm using here at the moment.
There are two steps:
1) set the BIOS to a desired number of processors cores and tell XX/OS software that this has been done via reboots into XX un-minimised full OS mode. Nothing new at all in this step.
2) now add a futher processor core in BIOS setting but do NOT tell XX/OS sofware that this extra processor has been added by NOT doing the reboots into full OS mode.
To explain the the setting applied by the steps in a little more detail
Step 1)
Go into BIOS and set a number of active processors. The number of cores you select has to be at least 1 processor core less than the maximum for the CPU. So in my case with a 16 core 6130 cpu, for step 1) I can set the number of CPU cores anywhere upto 15 for this first step. After setting the cores in BIOS, reboot XX / OS back to XX unminimised level so that the OS / XX recognizes the new number of cores that have been set by the BIOS. Now go back into XX minimised OS ready to play music as normal. All this is just the normal approach to changing the number of cores used be the PC for XX music playback.
Its a good idea to play some music now just to listen to how this sounds before the next step is applied just so that you can appreciate the change the step 2) brings.
Step 2)
This is the extra step. Now go back into BIOS and add one extra core to the number set in step 1). In my case with my 6130 set in step 1 to 15 cores I now set the core count to 16 in bios, save this and reboot. (The key here is just play immediately dont go through the reboots to tell XX and the OS of the change to add this extra core).
Now listen again.
Having applied this, in my system everything tightens up throughout the spectrum, highs are particually improved with real shimmer and sparkle. Speed and dynamics are excellent and the "realness" level of the music takes a nice step forwards. Its not a subtle change.
So far I have tried the setting with 15 cores in step 1) and 1 additional core added by step 2). I won't go into the detail of why but I suspect other combinations such as 10 cores step 1) and 1 core step 2) etc will also produce a similar effect, but as long as its just 1 additional core added in step 2) I think this should work.
It would be interesting to hear what people make of this way of setting cores.
Best regards,
Nick.
Curious as to what is happening here, after step 2 Windows sees all the cores again so nothing different as far as Windows is concerned (Windows always boots to what is set in bios). Maybe XX 2.10 runs differently I don't know.
Anyway my test will be to Unminimize OS & minimize it again without changing bios and hear if sound quality changes/gets worst.
Regards
Colin