Mountain Lion vs Mavericks - does it matter?

[SixChurchStreet]

I'm currently on PT10, running Mountain Lion. I'm considering a move to PT11 soon.

In general, has there been a consensus on which is the most stable, or preferred OS version to be running PT11 on?

[dr_daw]

It all depends on whether or not you need to run a co-install. If you have 32bit AAX or RTAS pluggins or Instruments that haven't been ported to 64bit AAX that you can't live without then you are best off sticking with Mountain Lion. If you don't need a co-install, then it seems like people are doing fine with Mavericks and PT11. Good luck and remember to clone your system before you 'upgrade'.

[treason]

I don't think there is a consensus, sadly. I made the switch early to a Mavericks/PT11 only dedicated system and I've had good experiences (the well known PT11 bugs notwithstanding). I've run the same PT11 session on both ML/Mavericks and I had better results with Mavericks. I wouldn't go back to ML and I will not use PT10 unless transferring over an older format session.

Yet others (Russ from PT Expert, for example) doesn't have kind words to say about Mavericks. Not sure what the particulars are there.

In short - no consensus. I'd setup two partitions and see what works for your individual setup.

Good Luck!

[John_Toolbox]

Mavericks seems to use more RAM, which may be an issue if you are running a lot of VIs

[CygnusX-1Bk2]

I find the ProTools Expert guys to be more Windows friendly.

I'm on the fence about switching to Mavericks myself. I can't seem to open 10 anymore since upgrading to 11 so the coinstall does me little good. When I try to launch 10 on my 10.8.5 machine it hangs loading plugs then gives me a message stating that ProTools has run out of memory trying to load my plugins. I only have a handful that are not AAX anyway, but I would still like to use Causmonaut Voice which is one reason I wanted to coinstall in the first place.

[SixChurchStreet]

Thanks everyone for the advice. I suppose I'll stick with Mountain Lion for now. I've got no real reason to want to move to Mavericks. Not even positive I want to move to PT11 at this point. Do we expect Avid to throw out another $299 update (PT12) this year, or does it look like they'll be sticking with 11 for a while?

[Bob Olhsson]

More RAM typically means more noise. I understand Mavericks also has more power saving "features" which is great for browsing the web on a laptop at Starbucks but a step backwards for media production.

[SixChurchStreet]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

More RAM typically means more noise. I understand Mavericks also has more power saving "features" which is great for browsing the web on a laptop at Starbucks but a step backwards for media production.

Points taken. I'm more and more hesitant to do OS upgrades because I know that any enhancements made have nothing to do with my primary usage (obviously audio). Thanks.

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

More RAM typically means more noise.

What??? I have found that more RAM means less noise because more stuff can be done in memory. If computers had infinite amount of memory, processing would be much much easier...

[John_Toolbox]

Originally Posted by JFreak

What??? I have found that more RAM means less noise because more stuff can be done in memory. If computers had infinite amount of memory, processing would be much much easier...

More samples loaded = more noise!