Anyone successfully using Cubase Pro 8 with Scope on XITE?

An area for people to discuss Scope related problems, issues, etc.

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Mr Arkadin
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Re: Anyone successfully using Cubase Pro 8 with Scope on XIT

Post by Mr Arkadin »

For anyone interested I received my replacement computer with a Z97 motherboard and so far it seems to be working OK with no BIOS tweaks at all (I may delve in there later). Twenty-four ASIO tracks and no PCI overload message. :D

This is still one powerful beast and amazingly quiet. Just the tortuous installing of all my software now. Ugh.

The spec is:

ASUS Z97 Pro
i7 4790K processors overclocked to 4.2GHz
16GB Corsair 2400MHz DDR3 memory
2x 1TB 7200RPM hard drives
2x Samsung 850 EVO 500GB SSD drives
NVIDIA GeForce GTX970 graphics card
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

Cubase 8.0
Scope 5.1 (natch)
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garyb
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Re: Anyone successfully using Cubase Pro 8 with Scope on XIT

Post by garyb »

that computer should work very well indeed for quite some time. you should still do the basic bios tweaks of turning off EIST and hyperthreading and also the power setting changes in windows.
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Mr Arkadin
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Re: Anyone successfully using Cubase Pro 8 with Scope on XIT

Post by Mr Arkadin »

I'm hoping to get ten years out of it like I did my XP machine :D . Tweaks to come later of course. There's so much just to install and get working again, I'm taking a break and going to my Krav Maga class to relieve some stress!
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dante
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Re: Anyone successfully using Cubase Pro 8 with Scope on XIT

Post by dante »

Yay. glad you got it sorted.

The i7 4790 is a beast -I'm getting over 50 channel mix at 96khz and CPU meter barely touching 60% and not overclocked.

I'm sure you'll enjoy its native power.
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iSiStOy
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Re: Anyone successfully using Cubase Pro 8 with Scope on XIT

Post by iSiStOy »

F...g Hell!
It looks like a bad mobo design again...
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frokka
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Re: Anyone successfully using Cubase Pro 8 with Scope on XIT

Post by frokka »

Mr Arkadin, could you please post an IRQ screenshot of the new machine for reference?

Dante, when you say you're getting 50 channels at 96kHz, are those ASIO channels or mix channels in Scope, the sequencer or a combination?
Could you post the complete hardware specs for that setup?
I've always had the impression that 96kHz is difficult to get stable and crackle-free when there is more than one DSP card.
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Mr Arkadin
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Re: Anyone successfully using Cubase Pro 8 with Scope on XIT

Post by Mr Arkadin »

frokka wrote:Mr Arkadin, could you please post an IRQ screenshot of the new machine for reference?
Sure thing.
IRQ.jpg
IRQ.jpg (212.15 KiB) Viewed 3925 times
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iSiStOy
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Re: Anyone successfully using Cubase Pro 8 with Scope on XIT

Post by iSiStOy »

I can only emphasize with what you went through, to get sthg correctly working.
I just out of a 3-4 years bad mobo design with my Xite. Had BSODs after a few hours of sound and it nearly drove nuts.

And yes, even with Xite, I can tell, you have to be careful of the motherboard you have.

Glad you have been able to test with several configurations, that was certainly the best way to ensure you invested into sthg solid!
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frokka
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Re: Anyone successfully using Cubase Pro 8 with Scope on XIT

Post by frokka »

There is a significant difference between the two versions.

The negative values at the bottom end are the devices using MSI – which is Message Signalled Interrupts, not to be confused with the Micro-Star International hardware company :-)

So there is an ongoing generational transition from the original physical line interrupt to the new MSI, and most likely compromises are made that unfavors the old IRQ scheme, which then are different among the boards.

On the first computer setup neither the GTX, USB 3.0 nor the SATA controller is using MSI.
Also notice that on the functional computer the XITE-1 is sharing IRQ with an USB controller and the most resource demanding unit on the bridge; the GTX graphics card. What does that really say about the risk of IRQ sharing in modern computers? In my opinion the problems that remain in some setups after disabling all the C-states are probably related to a mismatch of resources allocated between IRQ and MSI slots, or perhaps device drivers that are not optimalized for the current interrupt environment. Avoiding the IRQ sharing is therefore not a remedy for everyone.

It's possible on some devices to change from IRQ to MSI via the registry, if the driver supports it.
MSI have less latency than IRQs and are optimalized for multi-core / CPU hosts, which of course IRQs never were.

Also note that MSI has a never revision: MSI-X that was introduced in PCI 3.0 and is more efficient than regular MSI. Perhaps the newer boards will work better with older devices because of this.


http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=378044
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_Si ... Interrupts
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/librar ... 85%29.aspx

/frokka
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iSiStOy
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Re: Anyone successfully using Cubase Pro 8 with Scope on XIT

Post by iSiStOy »

That's interesting!
I won't post IRQ details of my new comp. here, but Xite is not sharing its IRQ anymore.
On the previous mobo, I had IRQ16 sharing Xite, a GTX450 and a USB Host and had a lot of troubles (BSODs after minutes, sometimes hours of running time).
my current MB model: Asus Maximus VII Ranger (blabla) on Z97 Express chipset. Works like a charm.
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Mr Arkadin
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Re: Anyone successfully using Cubase Pro 8 with Scope on XIT

Post by Mr Arkadin »

Well I didn't understand most of frokka's post but I hadn't even noticed the shared graphics card. It hasn't caused a problem yet (although I haven't tested it in a proper session with loads of tracks yet do time will tell). I have two other x1 slots on this motherboard so I think I'll be all right if I start developing any issues.
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frokka
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Re: Anyone successfully using Cubase Pro 8 with Scope on XIT

Post by frokka »

Mr Arkadin wrote:Well I didn't understand most of frokka's post..
Sorry about that, I'll try to make it clearer.

There is an old and a new way of dealing with interrupts.
Both has to coexist on the same system.
The new way (MSI) is better suited for modern computers and has less latency.
I can't tell exactly why your first computer didn't work, but it's clear that interrupts are handled differently on the new computer, and I think the newer motherboards are better for Scope because of MSI.
The motherboard drivers that are made these days are implementing and activating MSI by default.

/frokka
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dante
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Re: Anyone successfully using Cubase Pro 8 with Scope on XIT

Post by dante »

frokka wrote:Dante, when you say you're getting 50 channels at 96kHz, are those ASIO channels or mix channels in Scope, the sequencer or a combination?
Could you post the complete hardware specs for that setup?
I've always had the impression that 96kHz is difficult to get stable and crackle-free when there is more than one DSP card.
It's a simple setup. The 50 or more channels are the Reason SSL style mixer channels. The output from the SSL is a single stereo ASIO Channel to the XITE -1D running 4 mastering devices and a 3 voice Zarg ProWave

So I route another ASIO channel back from Scope into Reason for the ProWave and another for the ProTone running on PCI cards - routed to the XITE via aes/ebu.

So that's 3 scope PCI cards + 1 XITE 1D + Propellorhead Reason 8.1 all running at 96KHZ - no stability issues whatsoever.
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frokka
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Re: Anyone successfully using Cubase Pro 8 with Scope on XIT

Post by frokka »

Sounds like a dream setup Dante :D

Does that mean you load two different instances of Scope, one for XITE and one for the PCI cards?

/frokka
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dante
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Re: Anyone successfully using Cubase Pro 8 with Scope on XIT

Post by dante »

Exactly. This article http://www.hitfoundry.com/issue_12/pcx_mast.htm was written before I got rid of Steinberg BloatBase but now that Reason has MIDI out same tricks apply.

Also in those days I was using ADAT but now use AES/EBU to link the cards to XITE (More on this in upcoming ScopeRise)

So, for example, with the Zarg Prowave synth the routing goes as follows :

1) Reason MIDI Out to Scope XITE Sequencer MIDI IN
2) Scope XITE Sequencer MIDI IN plays Zarg ProWave
3) ProWave output routed back to Reason via ASIO
4) Reason mixes ProWave audio thru SSL Mixer
5) SSL Mixer ASIO output to Scope XITE-1 Mastering Suite
6) Output from Scope Mastering routed back to Reason for final Mixdown recording

Only 3 channels of ASIO used (one of them bidirectional).

Bottom line is that removing Steinberg leaves Reason + Scope as a very host CPU friendly system
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tlaskows
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Re: Anyone successfully using Cubase Pro 8 with Scope on XIT

Post by tlaskows »

You know that you can stick a PCI-e x1 card into any PCI-e slot. I have one UAD-2 in 1x and one UAD-2 in a 16x.

Works just fine...

-Tom
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Re: Anyone successfully using Cubase Pro 8 with Scope on XIT

Post by RP_001 »

Hi All,

Im having the same problems as Mr. Arkadin had recently ("PCI bandwidth reached"), on an Asus X99-A MB based pc, which I ordered in May of this year. Im learning graphics/modelling stuff at the moment, to do some 3D and architectural work for my brother's company so he offered me to order a workstation for this purpose. Of course this was also a great opportunity to upgrade my system to host the xite-1 for more "futureproofness" and the benefits of all extra cpu power of the newer cpu's (Intel 5820). I did some searching for a day and couldnt find any specific problems relating to this MB (I didnt read this topic till then, so I kinda freaked out I noticed the issues were related to the X99 board on page 3 orso .. AAAARGGH). The X99-A has two small PCI-E 1x slots so I didnt expect any problems, because I didnt have any compatibilty issues whatsoever using Xite over the last 6 years.

The situation is almost the same as Mr A: I cant have more than 6 ASIO channels in a project before I get the "PCI bandwidth" error and sound gets cut out and samplerate needs to be resetted. Ive tried Cubase 5 and Maschine 2.0 Standalone as ASIO host. There is however a difference with Mr. A's experience: I can load a pretty heavy project with Modular Mixers, Solaris 4, Qwave, Pwave, Prodyssey, Protone synths, all with several voices, but the devices itself dont seem to cause any problems, but rather in combination with the number of ASIO channels loaded in the project. When I load this project with a maximum of 6 Asio channels it runs ok, and presets on the smaller synths (prodyssey, pro-one) can be changed without problems. The big "dynamic dsp" synths like Solaris, Qwave, and Pwave are causing issues when changing presets for example, and the ASIO/Performance gets "buggy" for some reason.

So up till yesterday Ive tried all suggested solutions in this topic without any succes. (changing PCI-E slots, trying my old graphics card, switching RAM modules, bios tweaks, windows tweaks, different asio modules, and reading all "pci bandwidth" related topics here on Z, Etc). I also tried DPClat (OK), Alacrity PC tools (dont really understand this one). I didnt really know if the issues were only ASIO related or that Xite just wasnt compatible with this system for some reason. It was only yesterday I came up with the idea to not load any asio modules in the project and then load cubase just for sequencing the scope synths . Surprisingly everything just worked immediately without any issues. I could switch between presets on all synths, make manual dsp assignments without the issues I had before when using the Asio modules. So it seems the scope environment itself is stable and the problems are certainly ASIO related.

Of course I also want to use all my samples/vsti's/maschine stuff which need Asio modules obviously so im still searching for a possible solution, but I know for now that the scope/xite itself doesnt cause any compatibilty issues when using "stand-alone"

Any suggestions would be very welcome!

Asus X99-A MB
I7-5820 3.3 LGA 2011-3 CPU
Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 16GB Ram
Geforce GTX 960
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tlaskows
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Re: Anyone successfully using Cubase Pro 8 with Scope on XIT

Post by tlaskows »

Let me have a try...

-Tom
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tlaskows
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Re: Anyone successfully using Cubase Pro 8 with Scope on XIT

Post by tlaskows »

Well, it looks like those 'new' and 'better' motherboards are not good for Scope. Too bad. I'm using a motherboard that's worth about $40 right now and PCI cards. Only tried up to 32 channels. I'm sure 64 will work just fine too. Here's my setup. No dropouts or PCI errors.

Image

Image

Sorry about the big pictures.

How about getting a cheap PC just for Scope so it works properly?

-Tom
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garyb
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Re: Anyone successfully using Cubase Pro 8 with Scope on XIT

Post by garyb »

Z87 and Z97 are still plenty new and they work fine.
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