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If you can access your computer BIOS, it is recommended to disable all power management features of your CPU, as this implies changes in the CPU speed and that is far from optimal for any audio application.Same applies to overclocking.Please have a look at your motherboard manual to locate those settings, may vary depending of the manufacturer.
Intel Turbo Boost Technology: Disabled
CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E): Disabled
C-State Support (C3, C6, C7, C8 State): all Disabled
CPU EIST Function: Disabled (also called Intel Enhanced SpeedStep, that should always be disabled)
CPU power saving mode: Disabled
2.WINDOWS CONFIGURATION
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A note on drag & drop and Run as Administrator in Windows 10.
In Windows 10, when you run a program by forcing it in “administrator mode” / “Run as administrator”, drag & drop to and from this application will be disabled.
DEVICE DRIVERS
Merging recommends to install WHQL (Driver certified by Microsoft) or if not available, the latest drivers from the manufacturer website.
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WINDOWS CONTROL PANEL
To access Windows 10 Anniversary (1607) Control Panel, right click on Windows Start and select Control Panel.
To access Windows 10 Creator Update (since 1703) Control Panel, type "control panel" in Windows Search box.
You can right click on the control panel icon from the search result and pin it to the Start menu or Taskbar.
For ease of use, it is recommended to set the Control Panel to Small Icons.
Disable Windows User Account Control (UAC)
User Accounts > Change User Account Control settings > set it to Never notify. > OK.
View hidden files, folders and drives and show file extensions in Windows Explorer
File Explorer Options > View tab :
Hidden files and folders : set it to Show hidden files, folders or drives
Hide empty drives : disable
Hide extensions for known file types : disable
Leave Hide protected operating system files (recommended) active
Power Options
MassCore users have to first disable the "Fast Boot feature", which indeed put the computer to sleep when you select shut down.
Click on "Choose what the power buttons do” on the left hand side of Power options page.Then click on "Change Settings that are currently unavailable" and uncheck the "Turn on fast startup" option. Click on Save Changes. Note also that hibernate / sleep is not supported by MassCore engine.
This is also not supported by the Ovation / Pyramix ADR keyboard.
In the main Power options page :
Native users : Set the power scheme to High Performance or Ultimate Performance (Spring Creator)
MassCore users : Set the power scheme RTX – recommended.
Native & MassCore : then Change plan settings
Screen Saver (Turn off the display) is usually set to Never. If you are recording, you surely don’t want the display to turn off after several minutes!
Put the computer to sleep must be set to Never
Access Change advanced power settings and make sure that:
Hard Disk > Turn off Hard disk after: Never
Desktop background settings > Slide show: Paused
Sleep > Sleep after: Never / Allow hybrid sleep: off / Hibernate after: Never / Allow wake timers: Disable.
USB Settings > USB selective suspend setting: Disabled
Intel(R) Graphics Settings : Maximum Performance
PCI Express > Link State Power Management: Off
Processor power management > System Cooling policy : Active
Minimum and Maximum processor state: 100%
ADDITONAL CONFIGURATION FOR LAPTOPS & NATIVE USERS
Laptops usually have very few BIOS options to prevent CPU power management issues.
But several settings are accessible in Windows, but are hidden.
Download this zip file and double click on the extracted reg file.
Two new options will be displayed in Processor power management.
Set Allow Throttle States to Off and Processor performance boost mode to Disabled.
Sound
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System >
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Advanced System Settings
Advanced tab > Performance
Click on the Settings button in the Performance section.
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Those settings have to be disabled to prevent system peaks:
Animate Windows when minimizing and maximizing : disable
Animations in the taskbar and Start Menu : disable
Enable Peek : disable
Fade or slide menus / ToolTips into view : disable
Save taskbar thumbnail previews : disable
Show translucent selection rectangle: disable
Show window content while dragging: disable
Slide open Combo boxes: disable
A dedicated graphic card is highly recommended for advanced display configuration, including video or Mixer window in Pyramix, Ovation or VCube.
Advanced tab
Processor Scheduling should be set to Background Services for Native ASIO users.
Optional : you may configure the virtual memory size, by clicking on the Change button.
Disable the "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives" option. Set the Custom size to Initial size : 4096, and Maximum size to 8192.and click on Set to confirm.
Data Execution Prevention tab
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System Protection tab
Back in the main System windows, switch to System Protection tab:
Make sure protection is turned on for your system drive.
Select the system drive and click on Configure.
Select Turn on system protection, and set a value for Disk Space Usage (usually 10% max).
Disable the system protection on the Media drive(s), as this feature only works on system files and programs.
Hardware tab
Back in the main System windows, switch to Hardware tab:
Click on Device Installation Settings and select the “No, let me choose what to do" option.
This will prevent Windows update service to automatically change the system drivers.
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By default, Merging applications are authorized to communicate through the Windows Firewall.
In case of issue, RAVENNA Users can disable the Windows Firewall (for Public Networks).
If you use another firewall, authorize the required applications or disable it on your RAVENNA network.
WINDOWS SETTINGS
Settings page can be accessed through Windows Start > Settings icon (and 
+ i)
System
- (Spring Creator) Display > Graphic settings : graphic performances can be configured per application.
Select "Classic App" and browse to C:/Program Files/Merging Technologies.
Add Pyramix.exe - Ovation.exe - VCube.exe depending on your configuration.
Then select the application(s) and click on Options, set the graphics preference to High Performance. - In Notifications & actions, you can configure which quick action tile and notification will be displayed.
Merging recommends to only have “All settings” & “Network” tiles active.
In the Notifications section, you can configure how and which application can send Notifications.
Merging recommends to disable the “Get tips, tricks, and suggestions as you use Windows” for better performance. - Focus assist can be configured to remove several Windows notifications. (Windows 10 Spring Creator)
- Multitasking : Merging recommends to set all Snap options to off, especially for computers not using dedicated graphic cards.
Switching between Virtual desktops is not recommended during real time operation.
In the Timeline section, Merging recommends you disable the "show suggestions occasionally in the timeline". (Spring Creator) - Remote desktop : since Spring Creator update, remote desktop is disabled by default.
Personalization
Windows transparency can cause issues, especially on systems with low graphic resources.
Go in Settings > Personalization > Colors.
Turn "Make Start, taskbar, and action center transparent" or "Transparency effects" to Off.
Start menu, Taskbar and notification area can be configured in Settings > Personalization > Start and Taskbar.
Merging recommends to disable the “Occasionally show suggestions in start” option for the Start menu (to prevent Windows downloading apps without notifications).
In the Taskbar section, disable the "Use Peek to preview the desktop ...."
(Since Fall Creator) You may disable the People icon 
in the taskbar through Windows Settings > Personnalization > Taskbar > Show contacts on the taskbar : Off.
Apps & Features
In Apps and features, uninstall all unnecessary applications.
(In Windows 10 Anniversary 1607, Apps are only accessible through Settings > System)
Some applications cannot be uninstalled (Mail and Calendar for example), uninstall button will be disabled.
Bonjour is required for Merging products, do not uninstall it.
Merging recommends you uninstall Xbox Live (Fall Creator and following).
You may also remove Feedback Hub, Get Office, Microsoft Solitaire Collection, Paid Wifi&Mobile, Print3D (Fall Creator), Skype and Tips.
In Default apps, Merging recommends you set Google Chrome as your default web browser (RAVENNA users).
Click on Web Browser to select Google Chrome (it must be installed before changing this setting).
Startup : Please do not disable RTX64Bootcheck (RTX3.4 RTX64 System Tray can be disabled).
Privacy
In Account info, it is recommended to set "Let apps use my advertising ID ...." to off, to reduce the OS internet traffic.
In Background Apps, Merging recommends you only enable the required apps for better performance.
(Since Fall Creator) Merging recommends you disable the "Show me suggested content in the Settings app" in the General Tab.
(Spring Creator) In Activity history, Merging recommends you disable both "Let Windows collect my activities from this PC" and "Let Windows sync my activities from this PC to the cloud"
(Spring Creator) In File System, "Allow Apps to access your file system" has to be turned on (default).
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(In Windows 10 Anniversary, Windows Defender is only accessible through Windows Control Panel > Windows Defender.)
Full Virus Scanning should not run at the same time as Merging software.
If you plan to install an Antivirus software, Windows Defender will be disabled.
You should also disable scanning of the Pyramix files (pmx, pmf, pml, pad, pmw) but also media files (wav, aif, flac, mp3,...), because each time the DAW have to access such file, your antivirus may scan it.
AVAST has already caused a lot of problems with several Merging programs, it is therefore not recommended.
See this page for help on configuring your antivirus exceptions.
Windows Defender users can download and run a script to include the required rules in Windows Defender.
MTWin10Optims.zip
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Gaming (Since Creator Update)
In Game Bar, set "Record game clips, screenshots..." to off, and disable "Open Game bar ..." and "Show Game bar when I play ..."
In Game DVR, set both "Background recording" and "Recorded Audio" to off.
In Game Mode, set "Use Game Mode" to off.
(Fall Creator) In TruePlay, set "True Play" to off.
ADDITIONAL CONFIGURATIONS
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Cortana configuration
Merging recommends you disable Cortana, for better performance.
Anniversary and Creator:
Download this zip file MTWin10Optims.zip
Double click on the Disable Cortana.reg file.
Restart your computer for this change to take effect.
You can re-enable Cortana with the Enable Cortana.reg file.
Fall / Spring Creator :
In Fall Creator, Cortana can be configured through Windows Settings > Cortana.
In Spring Creator, Cortana can be configured through Windows Settings > Search
In the Talk to Cortana page, set "Use Cortana even when my device is locked" to off.
In Permissions & History, set "Windows Cloud Search" to off. Turning off "My device history" is optional.
In Notifications, set "Send notification between devices" to off (optional).
(Fall Creator) You can now enable or disable Windows Cloud Search rather than completely disabling Cortana (=Cloud Search disabled), through Windows Settings > Search / Cortana.
Apps auto-update
Merging recommends you disable the auto updates on Windows Apps, for better performance.
Open Windows Store, and click on the profile icon on the top right corner and select settings (On Spring Creator, click on the ... icon)
Set “Update apps automatically” and show products on tile to off.
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OneDrive configuration / uninstall
If you use OneDrive, you should configure it to not interfere in the network traffic.
Right click on the OneDrive icon 
in the notification area and select Settings.
Remove "Start OneDrive Automatically when I sign to Windows" and "Display notifications when people share with me or edit my shared files".
In the Network tab, set both Upload and Download rates to Limit to : 125 KB/s (or lower).
If you don't use OneDrive, you may uninstall it in Windows Settings > System > Apps and features.
System Recovery
To be able to use the Windows System Restore feature, you first need to configure it, in Windows Control Panel > Recovery : Configure System Restore.
You should only enable the protection on the system drive : select the system drive then click on Configure.
Set "Turn on system protection", then configure the Disk Space usage (usually around 10% is sufficient).
WinSAT
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Laptop – Battery saver
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WINDOWS DEVICE MANAGER
Ports (COM & LPT)
If you use 9pin-RS422 connection:
Communication Port (COM x) > Properties
Ports Settings tab > Advanced > set both Receive and Transmit buffer to Low (4)
Universal Serial Bus controllers
Check each USB Root Hub / Host controller and disable power management if any, by right clicking on it and accessing its properties.(Power Management tab)
Network Adapters
Right click on your network adapter and access its properties to disable the power management features:
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and
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features.
RAVENNA ASIO users have to set WOL & Shutdown Link Speed to Not Speed Down.
For better performance, RAVENNA ASIO users should use a dedicated RAVENNA network adapter.
Find more details on this page.
Please also follow the Native recommendations from this page.
MEDIA DRIVES
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Format block size: if you only use audio files, the best size is 64 Kb when formatting the drive.
But if you also need to use video files, 64Kb is not the optimal size, in that case keep the Default Allocation size (128Kb).
The best way is to use separate drives for video and audio, if possible.
SYSTEM CONFIGURATION (MSCONFIG)
Many installed programs have associated background services, which usually can then start faster, or get updates automatically. But this uses memory and CPU power, so you should only run useful programs.
!!!Be careful, if you remove an essential program or service, Windows may not start anymore !!!
Windows Control Panel > Administrative Tools > System Configuration:
The boot menu timeout can be changed in the Boot tab (min 3 seconds).
Services Tab
Check the box Hide all Microsoft services, those are critical for Windows.
Service Bonjour is critical for RAVENNA networks and Virtual Transport.
Do not disable your graphic card and ASIO card driver or service.
Common services that can be disabled are: printer services, Skype, QuickTime updaters ...
Startup
Open the link to Task Manager to access the list.
Do not disable Microsoft Windows Operating System or any other critical driver – program for your system.
Common programs that can be disabled are Adobe Reader, Java updater, Skype, QuickTime...
Those programs will be still be installed and accessible, but will not be loaded during Windows startup.
WINDOWS UPDATE
One of the main issue with Windows 10 is that Microsoft wants the OS to always be up to date.
That means, by default, you do not have control anymore if you want to apply updates or not.
As in previous versions, sometimes an update can go wrong, and Windows can become unusable.
Hopefully it is still possible to get control under the hood.
Please note that it will only works on Pro or Enterprise versions, not on Home editions.
Automatic Updates configuration
If you want to follow the Microsoft update policy, you should at least defer the Windows updates.
Include Page
Go in Windows Start > Settings > Update and security > Windows update.
In Update settings, click on Change active hours and set it according to your needs.
This prevents Windows to restart the computer, but it still downloads the updates.
Go now in Advanced Options, and check the "Defer feature updates" : this will defer updates, allowing only widely tested updates to be applied on your computer.
Click on the "Learn more" button for further details.
Defer Updates is highly recommended, as several big feature updates can make your system unusable.
Additional configuration
In both case, Merging recommends you disable updates from other computers (your computer can receive, but also send updates directly to other computers, costing computer resources and network bandwidth) .
Go in Windows Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update > Advanced options > Choose how updates are delivered.
“Updates from more than one place” should be set to off. The second option will be automatically disabled.
Disable Windows update
You can also completely turn off the Windows Updates engine.
Please refer to this page for details.
DPC LATENCY CHECK
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Windows 10 Tip :Creating a new user account without Microsoft ID
1.Use Local Users and Groups :
In Windows Start Search field, type lusrmgr.msc to access the console.
You can easily add local users, and configure if they are part of Users or Administrators groups.
2.Go in Settings > Accounts and click on "Other people" in the left hand pane.
Click on "Add someone else to this PC".
In the next page, select "I don't have this person's sign-in information", then "Add a user without Microsoft account".
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