3dsp PCI card & tech questions?

[happycritter]

Hi folks:

I've been searching valiantly on the SonicCore site and here on Planet-Z to no avail. I have a few noob questions to pass through so that I may plan my system. For my needs, the SCOPE platform will be predominantly an audio tracking/mixing/fx platform with little synth use.

What type of PCI card is the new-ish 3dsp SCOPE PCI card? Is it PCI, PCIe and what is its electrical connection (x4, x8)?

Did SonicCore orphan the 3dsp SCOPE PCI card?

I believe that SCOPE 5.1 supports the 3dsp PCI card, yes?

I've been successfully running a Pulsar I card on an HP xw8400 with a single CPU (no room on the mobo for second CPU and XP won't recognize it anyways). I would like to take advantage of the full potential of the HP by running a different OS. I've seen the debates about 32bit vs. 64bit, and XP vs. Win7 vs. Win8, so I am open to using any of these. Will Win7 allow full access to memory and both Socket771 cores? (I may go for dual-Quadcores in the future and be completely satisfied with what I have for years to come)

I thank you all for your opinions and advice.

Regards.

HP xw8400
2.33 GHz Xeon Dual core
*Quadro FX3450 (edit)
Win XP Pro
Pulsar I card (happy and stable)

[Mr Arkadin]

All the cards are standard PCI cards. The 5.1 software will run on all cards, including your Pulsar I. However with the Pulsar I you cannot achieve low latency, so if you add a 3DSP card that would become the master, allowing low latency, and you could cascade the 3DSP and Pulsar I cards using an STDM cable to give you seven DSPs of joy. I'd be tempted to look for a second hand Pulsar2 as this would give you ten DSPs in total (6+4) at a good price.

You can use XP or 7 - although I doubt you're really going to gain anything on an old computer by using 64-bits, if it can even handle it in the first place. I still use XP for my XITE-1. Personally I'd avoid Windows 8 but that's because it's new and in my opinion looks like shit.

[happycritter]

Thank you for the rapid and informative reply Mr. Arkadin.

I have Win8 on this laptop and I find the obtuse array of icons/windows/whatevers to be unnecessarily cumbersome, however, I can deal with it if it improves performance and stability for my audio box.

Aren't the 3dsp cards on the next generation SHARC (21469s) chips so it's like the equivalent of a 12dsp or so of the old chips?

Eitherway, my reasoning for the 3dsp is that it has the same chips as the XITE and if I make the 3dsp happy then the driver really won't know the difference between the PCI card or the XITE so I should have a smooth upgrade when it's time.


Will Win7 see 8Gb of memory as opposed to XP only seeing 4Gb of that 8Gb? Unfortunately, I've never seen an actual breakdown of what each OS sees/does on any website anywhere. It's only been addressed piecemeal in context to something else all over the net and, for whatever reason, I haven't had much luck keeping score because I'm not sure which OS is being addressed in replies. lol

Thanks again folks.

[Mr Arkadin]

I have Win8 on this laptop and I find the obtuse array of icons/windows/whatevers to be unnecessarily cumbersome, however, I can deal with it if it improves performance and stability for my audio box.

Well latest OSs are usually not the way to go when it comes to music software as all the bugs have yet to be ironed out and the developers have yet to catch up. Remember there was no Windows 8 when Scope 5.1 was developed, although it does work on Windows 8 if you really want to keep using it.

Aren't the 3dsp cards on the next generation SHARC (21469s) chips so it's like the equivalent of a 12dsp or so of the old chips?

No. They're the same chips as previous cards. Only the XITE has the newer Sharcs (as well as some old ones for backwards compatibility).

Will Win7 see 8Gb of memory as opposed to XP only seeing 4Gb of that 8Gb?

If it was a new computer I would say yes. Your computer? I don't know.

[garyb]

64bit will see the extra ram. 32bit will only see 4gb.
this hardly matters unless you really are using a ton of samples. only Kontact and a few other apps can even use the extra memory. most audio apps cannot, meaning that most people with a ton of memory aren't doing anything with it.

win8 has been stable and works a bit better than win7. it's really just win7 in a new wrapper. xp still works fine, i would use win8 for a new machine just because the new software often won't run in XP.

there are NO new PCI cards. they were all made by Creamware. the new hardware is the XITEs and those are PCIe. they have the new chips, not that it matters that much to the user, except power-wise.

the XITE and PCI cards use the same software, but the XITE version has differences for the different hardware. to the user, there's not really any difference, but both types of hardware have their own version of Scope.

[Eanna]

A 32 bit os can only address 4gb of memory.. A 64 bit os can address much much more.
If your bios reports that it can see 8gb, then a 64 bit install of windows will see the memory.

The requirement to run a 64 bit os should be made with due consideration.
Some scope features dont work on 64 bit windows - think the native sequencers and the sts samplers?
You only really need more than 4gig of ram if you run large multisample libraries or are running like two rewired daws or something..
You know best your own requirements

[happycritter]

Thanks guys for your replies.

The only "sampler" I expect to use (regularly/dependently) is Superior Drummer (virtual synth in SONAR) and the largest projects on that are around 1.2Gb for the loaded library. The largest of my projects entail about 12 to 15 .wav files so I don't think I'm going overboard there.

I thought that perhaps moving to Win7 (32bit) would give me access to more memory compared to XP (32bit) so I could stay in the 32bit realm but increase addressable memory (oh well), as well as put me in an OS that would give me the longest use with the updated hardware. Somehow I was getting the impression that Win7 in either bit-depth gave more access to memory. Thanks go out to garyb for informing me about the real world; making the memory issue moot.

Strangely, I find sending audio out of SONAR into SCOPE and then back into SONAR again to be 'fun'. I'm weird that way - it feels sort-of like cheating or something (hahaha) but definitely cool. The choruses in SCOPE are rather nice, as are the 'verbs (guitarist here).

I've found the audio quality and flexibility of the SCOPE stuff to be superb - so SCOPE will be my platform ever after. The learning curve isn't near as bad as I was cautioned it would be.

[Eanna]

You can tighten your Windows ship a fair whack by disabling unnecessary services and programs and that. msconfig is your buddy there, as is the Services control panel. Just don't do anything without knowing how to back it out! And make the commitment to do a backup once you have a stable system!
But in general, you can't do too much damage playing about in Windows... Google anything you're not sure of...

The loaded library for your Superior Drummer instrument may well chew less RAM than you think... And you can (probably) reduce the number of multisamples per kit piece when you're arranging, and ramp up the number of samples when you go to print/bounce the instrument midi to audio.
Keep an eye on your Task Manager to see what resources you are using for your larger projects.. Scope itself can chew a bit too... but for me, since your primary instrument is guitar, you're recording a few audio tracks in, and not doing some big orchestral arrangement or other

So you will probably get plenty of mileage from 32-bit OS, as well has have the capability to be able to use 32-bit-only VSTs (like some older things) without messing with JBridge or something like that.. A whole lot of fine orchestral stuff was done on 32-bit OS's over the years
Don't forget too, with Scope DSP's taking a chunk off your CPU load, you will find you have -more- system resources to play with in Sonar than you otherwise might...

Strangely, I find sending audio out of SONAR into SCOPE and then back into SONAR again to be 'fun'. I'm weird that way - it feels sort-of like cheating or something (hahaha) but definitely cool. .

That's pretty typical - Scope is a great Mixing environment too... I never sat behind a big well-appointed mixing desk, but I can "pretend" with Scope..

Do try the Masterverb Test thread to see how well your motherboard and connected hardware fare with Scope - especially if you intend to run a few reverbs and choruses, which shuttle a nice bit of data over the PCI bus to and from RAM....
http://forums.planetz.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=17078

[happycritter]

Thank you Eanna.

The HP xw8400 Bios allows one to reach fairly deep into the machine, and I've turned-off quite a few things I know I'll never (or don't want anyone else to) use through Bios already. I suppose that HP knew that their end-users would be savvy IT peeps (which I am not). I saw the Bios on a recently built machine with mouse support so I guess things have changed considerably since DDR2 was the bees knees .

Thanks to everyone's input I think I have narrowed down the OS I will use: Win 7 Ultimate (32bit). With Win7 Ultimate (32bit), all of my cores will be available for use. Thus, when I switch to the 3dsp card, I can run 2xQuads (that legacy PCI for the Pulsar I runs it right over the second socket).

Question, does hyperthreading interfere with IRQs or, a better question rather, does hyperthreading play havoc with CPU tasking so it's bad for our audio platform (needing the CPU to do its gig NOW)?

With hyperthreading turned-off, as recommended, does one lose the advantages of quad-cores or is there still some residual benefit to having quad-cores?

[garyb]

hyperthreading theoretically speeds up certain offline processes by running them in "virtual" cores. real cores must calculate for the virtual ones. that means pops and clicks in your realtime audio. disable it, you won't miss it.

you don't need the ultimate version to run all cores either.

[happycritter]

Thanks garyb.

I was eyeballing the 'Win 7 Pro (32bit)' as well. I'll run with whatever is on sale that handles 2 processors and 8+cores.

Oh, since you folks are so forthcoming with such great help, I can share a few things about workstation video cards. Generally they run exactly the same chips as comparable gaming cards but they are optimized to allow more 'clip frames'. The best way to describe 'clip frames' is to think of the windows (not OS) of the running applications themselves. This way, switching between applications is more seamless and less buggy/jittery (makes life in the CAD realm much more bearable) so there can be some benefit for DAWs with these. Honestly though, the Quadro FX3500 is all the card one would ever need for a DAW and they can be had for around $40 these days. Sometimes, the drivers are written better for the workstation cards. Ooohhh, hockey game! Talk to you all later.

[garyb]

the number of cores is not an issue, but you need pro to use 2 physical processors. the same for win8.

[Eanna]

I'd tend to agree with Gary re. Win7 Ultimate. For me, from what I remember, it has additional services that you really don't require to run a stable Audio PC.

Hyperthreading is a funny beast. It exposes a duplication of some processor components to Windows. So, taking a PC with a single quad-core CPU, with HyperThreading off, the Windows Task Manager will show four processors. But, switch HyperThreading on, and Windows will present eight graphs, one for each of what looks like eight processors.
In fact, there are still four physical cores, but now, Windows can see eight logical (i.e. virtual) processors, each capable of handling the scheduling of processing threads from the OS. However, at any one time, there is only four threads actually doing work, one thread per core...

So what's the benefit of HT? For highly multithreaded programs, performance can be increased by up to 30% apparently. How heavily multi-threaded is your DAW and Scope? I don't know.
When I got my PC, and before I installed Scope, I switched HT off. Then, a few months later, I said, to hell, I'll enable it. I haven't experienced pops or clicks in my audio performance myself, nor have I experienced significant performance improvement..

When HT came out first, some Operating Systems, and many Applications, did not leverage HT well. I imagine that more modern Operating Systems have been coded to take full advantage of HT, and I imagine that more modern DAWs and VSTs have had similar treatment -you get a rough view onto this if you check how active the multiple Processor graphs are when running your audio software with HT switched on...

So, to answer your question: HT definitely had a bad rep, but I've switched it on not so long ago, and it's OK on my setup, altho I'm not totally convinced I'm getting that much more processing power with it switched on. As with most thing in life, YMMV...

But HyperThreading has no impact on the number of Core that Windows can use - Windows 7 (any edition) will use whatever number of physical cores it has available to it...

And again, Gary's right - to use more than one physical CPU chip, you need Win7 Professional....

[happycritter]

Hey gang,

Thanks for the information and getting me back on track.

Great explanation of hyperthreading - thought it might be some goofy stuff with registers, etc. on the chip itself (all the marketing gunk about 'HT ready').