pci sxpansion

[lagoausente]

Those tests are pretty bad compared to my current setup, however that could just be a laptop or PCIe bottle neck.

I'm pretty sure the ADK 9000 would perform better. It is pretty much a laptop with desktop performance, tweaked for DAW performance.

I would be very interested if you could test the Timeworks stuff.

On the masterverb thread there are guys who have 17, 15 and 20, but also there are a lot that have 9. So it may be a laptop limit, or simply the way each mainboard shares PCI bandwith with other devices, I think it must depend on many factors. I´ll try looking in the Bios settings if have any option that could improve the results.
Do you know if exists any tool to analize the PCI bus performance, and how is used for each devices? That would help to fin out where the neck really is exactly.

[voidar]

Not sure really. Try googling.

I'm still on a PCI system. All I have used are DoubleDawg and such tools to control the latency.

My system is pretty much tweaked for the benefit of the DSP, which is what you had to do to get 19/20 instances.

I think the consensus is that the newer hardware has worse legacy PCI performance than the old. As I said, I am still one one of the classic "good" boards.

[voidar]

How y'a doin' winger?

[winger]

Sorry it took so long. Results are not too good at this point.

I can only start 3 MasterVerb's and after a minute or so I will get the pci limit exceeded message.

I had a 15 dsp scope, 6 dsp pulsar II and 4 dsp pulsar installed. I loaded up a bunch of devices I developed for a mixer project. I load 24 channel strips, 32 channel panner, 32 channel stereo mixer, and 7 32 channel mono mixer. Basically a 32 channel stereo mix with 7 aux busses and 24 strips. Strips have 4 band eq and compressor. I also loaded 1 MasterVerb. I loaded all this up and it worked consuming about 50% of my dsp resources. It works great, for a while. After a few minutes I got a message about a communication error from pulsar II. The message is not clear if this is communication on the pci bus or between boards across the stdm buss. I thought the later. But unless I have a bad stdm cable I don't know why this would happen. After this the system is toast. Nothing will work until I power down the pulsar/scope cards and restart everything.

Not sure how much more I can get from this. I will do some more testing when I get a chance.

[lagoausente]

Sorry it took so long. Results are not too good at this point.

I can only start 3 MasterVerb's and after a minute or so I will get the pci limit exceeded message.

I had a 15 dsp scope, 6 dsp pulsar II and 4 dsp pulsar installed. I loaded up a bunch of devices I developed for a mixer project. I load 24 channel strips, 32 channel panner, 32 channel stereo mixer, and 7 32 channel mono mixer. Basically a 32 channel stereo mix with 7 aux busses and 24 strips. Strips have 4 band eq and compressor. I also loaded 1 MasterVerb. I loaded all this up and it worked consuming about 50% of my dsp resources. It works great, for a while. After a few minutes I got a message about a communication error from pulsar II. The message is not clear if this is communication on the pci bus or between boards across the stdm buss. I thought the later. But unless I have a bad stdm cable I don't know why this would happen. After this the system is toast. Nothing will work until I power down the pulsar/scope cards and restart everything.

Not sure how much more I can get from this. I will do some more testing when I get a chance.

Do have your laptop cardbus aswell? If your laptop have both pcmcia and expresscard disable the cardbus, i had the same problem.

[winger]

I don't understand. The input connection to my pc is card 34. Isn't this card bus, not pcmcia? My pc has a single expansion slot which is card 54/34. How does pcmcia fit into this?

[lagoausente]

I don't understand. The input connection to my pc is card 34. Isn't this card bus, not pcmcia? My pc has a single expansion slot which is card 54/34. How does pcmcia fit into this?

There are diferent connectors. Mine have both, I thought it could same in your laptop, check the device manager or laptop specs, if you only have expresscard so I don´t know what you could do. Try disabling on bios all energy saving regarind pci bus, expresscard etc..

[winger]

you asked if midi worked. I connected midi cables between the scope card and pulsar II card. Then loaded a 4896 and configured a fader as a midi controller. Then connected the 4896 midi out to pulsar II dest. Loaded the midi monitor and connected it to scope midi source. Then moved the fader and the monitor showed all the midi controller data. This is not a hard test but does show it atleast works.

As far as my pci overflow problems, the performance still sucks. Right now I can load 5 reverbs, and will get the overflow within a minute or so. I was failing at 4 before so I tweeked pci latency on the scope cards to 128, THis helped a little. When running my large mix project I would fail very quickly after loaded, but after changing the latency I get 10 or 15 minutes before it happens. Better but still poor.

I might try a different laptop just for reference.

[lagoausente]

you asked if midi worked. I connected midi cables between the scope card and pulsar II card. Then loaded a 4896 and configured a fader as a midi controller. Then connected the 4896 midi out to pulsar II dest. Loaded the midi monitor and connected it to scope midi source. Then moved the fader and the monitor showed all the midi controller data. This is not a hard test but does show it atleast works.

As far as my pci overflow problems, the performance still sucks. Right now I can load 5 reverbs, and will get the overflow within a minute or so. I was failing at 4 before so I tweeked pci latency on the scope cards to 128, THis helped a little. When running my large mix project I would fail very quickly after loaded, but after changing the latency I get 10 or 15 minutes before it happens. Better but still poor.

I might try a different laptop just for reference.

I have already replied that my midi problem was from a riser cable that was damage. It´s working perfectly now.
Regarding bandwith, could you find things to change on Bios? I should disable all energy saving options, like PCI bus and cpu, turn from "automatic" to "disable".
Also try a diferent CPU speeds. My old T40 with 1.6 centrino and the magma got pci overflow when was to max speed, at 1.6ghz, and best performance at 600mhz.
Actual Core 2 Duo T400 seems to perform the same or better at max cpu speed.
I should check also the latency of your graphics card. If you have a powerfull graphics card that could be worse for the pci bandwith. You can maybe decrease the buffer with some tools out there.

[winger]

Well, my graphics is nothing special and the pci latency tool will not change it anyway. My bios is very simple, and does not give me the option to change the speed.

I have tried theis acople times. If I load my mixer project, and remove the 1 master verb in it, it runs for 2 or 3 hours and the the entire pc locks up. Power off is the only way out.

Not sure what else I can do with this system.

The laptop is an hp pavilion dv9000 with 2 gig of memory, turion 64 (dual core) and nvida graphics. Runing windows 7 and scope 5.

[lagoausente]

Well, my graphics is nothing special and the pci latency tool will not change it anyway. My bios is very simple, and does not give me the option to change the speed.

I have tried theis acople times. If I load my mixer project, and remove the 1 master verb in it, it runs for 2 or 3 hours and the the entire pc locks up. Power off is the only way out.

Not sure what else I can do with this system.

The laptop is an hp pavilion dv9000 with 2 gig of memory, turion 64 (dual core) and nvida graphics. Runing windows 7 and scope 5.

Ok, but Nvidia graphics seem they are dedicated graphics.
Download this tool and install it (x86 or x64 depending you OS): http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=951
You will see all buffer settings for your devices. If your graphics card buffer is higher than put the same value you have on your Scope card. If the graphics has a buffer too high (by default), it reserves more resources for itself.
Another thing maybe occur is that you only put a 5V, and didn´t replace the 3V. I could be a good option to get a Picopsu not expensive on ebay and make a full power supply for all voltages, have a look: http://www.mini-box.com/s.nl/it.A/id.417/.f
Regarding Bios, it´s very strange you have not option about power saving options. Look in depth.
I can load 8 masterverbs stable, 9 little unstable. Not the best but not so bad. I have not freeze problems. I suspect is a power problem because of the 3V, maybe because your are using more than one card, and I´m using only one Scope Pro. I think the pico-psu (you must check the properly Wattage) could convert your unit in the same as the ATX version.

[winger]

The power supply I have does provide the 3 volt supply, but to us it, I have to modify the mother board again because the 3 volt supply on the mother board is derived from 5 volt supply. I will try this eventually.

I had already downloaded the pci latency tool. I don't see what you are talking about this buffer size. It only gives me options for to change latecy. Am I missing something or did you give me the wrong link?

[lagoausente]

The power supply I have does provide the 3 volt supply, but to us it, I have to modify the mother board again because the 3 volt supply on the mother board is derived from 5 volt supply. I will try this eventually.

I had already downloaded the pci latency tool. I don't see what you are talking about this buffer size. It only gives me options for to change latecy. Am I missing something or did you give me the wrong link?

Is correct, just decrease the graphics latency to the same valu scope card. The 3v seems not much work, only remove two legs.

[winger]

I see display adaptor "NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150" with bus 000 dev 05. It shows latency as 0. If I change latency say to 64, it shows letency 0, new latency 64 -- even after I say apply. I set scope and pulsar to 200 ( the max it will set). The only other devices the toool seems to allow me to change are SD host adaptors and IEEE 1394 bus host controllers.

[winger]

Progress, I thought. I orignally lowered the pci latency for iie1394 bus host controller thinking it might contend with scope. Then I got to thinking maybe this was the interface the communicates to the card bus to scope. So I set it and the scope cards to 128. I was able to load 15 masterverbs before I got insufficient dsp resources and crashed.

I tried again, and got 11 but after a little while I got overflow. After a number of attempts it appears I can load a bunch of them but I will eventully get pci overflow no matter how many I load, even 1.

I tried the 3 volt supply but that seemed to make it worse, so I put it back. Getting

[lagoausente]

Progress, I thought. I orignally lowered the pci latency for iie1394 bus host controller thinking it might contend with scope. Then I got to thinking maybe this was the interface the communicates to the card bus to scope. So I set it and the scope cards to 128. I was able to load 15 masterverbs before I got insufficient dsp resources and crashed.

I tried again, and got 11 but after a little while I got overflow. After a number of attempts it appears I can load a bunch of them but I will eventully get pci overflow no matter how many I load, even 1.

I tried the 3 volt supply but that seemed to make it worse, so I put it back. Getting

Interesting, I didn´t used the pci tool with the Virtuavia yet, but can be a good idea. Try to disable Firewire on device manager and see what happens.
Another idea, did you have the laptop attached to AC always? Try testing the test attached to AC and on battery power and see if there is any diference (could be for power saving features the changes the pci performance).

[winger]

I tried disableing the ieee 1394 device, no change. I tried it with ac, and with battery, still no difference. I'm running out of ideas here. The system is almost useless like this, I cannot reliably run even 1 Masterverb. Frustrating.

[Fluxpod]

You could try and disable ahci battery.That helps sometimes.

[winger]

I show 3 drivers under batteries,

Microsoft AC Adaptor
Microsoft ACPI-compliant control method battery
microsoft composite battery.

Did you mean acpi-compliant control method?

[winger]

I tried disabling Microsoft ACPI-compliant control method battery but that did not help.