I noticed every few minutes I was getting audio breakup, and finally I realized what it was: I’d set my desktop background to a slideshow.
I never noticed it before, but I’m always running with audio applications maximized, so I didn’t see the screen background changing.
Maybe someone already worked this out but I didn’t see any mentions of it.
Many things can impact performance, e.g. windows Aero theme was a major issue in windows 7.
See: https://www.cantabilesoftware.com/glitchfree/ for a comprehensive guide on optimising Windows OS for audio.
Thank nice manual.
For window 10, Figure 4.10 Sleep and Hibernate settings, you need use commande: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/920730/how-to-disable-and-re-enable-hibernation-on-a-computer-that-is-running Lien Fr: https://support.microsoft.com/fr-ma/help/920730/how-to-disable-and-re-enable-hibernation-on-a-computer-that-is-running
Possibly, I have not run through this guide since Windows 7, 3 years ago perhaps. Most stuff should still be relevant.
Anecdotal random bit (but might be useful for some):
My computer - Windows 10 - was weirdly shit at running audio, like, some of Ableton’s default synths (mostly arpeggiated ones) were simply not usable as well as a bunch of my piano library’s presets, small sound-glitches in games all the time, occasionally even music playback issues and I did all of the things recommended to setup a system for music. Nothing. Nada.
The only thing that finally helped was this abracadabra here:
powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61
which unlocked the previously hidden Ultimate Performance power plan. All my troubles went pooof! instantly. That was a good day 
Just set it on my rickety old machine. We’ll see if it helps …
Are you running a laptop?
Your fans will take-off Jon 
Desktop, no idea why HP thought it would be a good idea to hide that from users.
My patches are small. Small brain. Small patches. Honestly, with my meager setup (8-year-old computer), I didn’t notice a difference, performance- or fan-wise. I guess I will leave it on for the time being as I am too lazy to type “power …” into the Windows search bar.
I use a program called Process Lasso to push the laptop into high-performance mode and stop unnecessary tasks… and I run VCV interface off the dGPU-you can specify in your settings.
Runs very well on 8750H, can do really big patches when you play with the thread count and buffer sizes.
Would be nice to measure timing stability though because that can have a huge effect on percussion/drum beats, etc… without being easy to detect sometimes.
Looking forward to next generation of Intel processors though… feels like we’ll finally be in the clear for awhile.