SHARC DSP revision number

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summer
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SHARC DSP revision number

Post by summer »

Hi,

It's been a awhile since I was active here and also since I used my Scope cards.

I have two laying around that I don't use anymore since I don't have the PCI ports but I'm considering trying out the EXITE-D.

Since the product was announce back in 2010 (I think?) I'm just worried that I will buy some pretty outdated DSPs. I couldn't find any info on which SHARC DSPs they are using on their website.

Does SonicCore ever update the internal hardware?

Thanks in advance!
dawman
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Re: SHARC DSP revision number

Post by dawman »

XITE racks use ADSP-21369 as does Solaris too.
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garyb
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Re: SHARC DSP revision number

Post by garyb »

DSPs do not become obsolete in the same way that a CPU does. since they are purpose-made, they continue to fulfill that purpose. the old dsps from the PCI cards are still made and sold, and there are 6 of those in the XITE as well, for the purpose of code compatibility.

don't worry. it is almost impossible for the unit to become out of date because of the dsp chips used.


in addition, there is no newer Sharc that will make the XITE work better or be more powerful. it is, and will be for the foreseeable future, at the cutting edge of dsp usage. more dsps, or more powerful dsps would not even work.
summer
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Re: SHARC DSP revision number

Post by summer »

@dawnman and @garyb thanks for replying!

Is there any way of knowing how my old scope 1 and 2 cards compare to the new XITE DSPs in terms of performance? Just so I have an idea of how much I can add before running out of power.

This post http://forums.scopeusers.com/viewtopic. ... 46#p220644 says the XITE is 10 times more powerful than the old 14 DSP. My old Scope 1 had 4 DSPs and the Scope 2 had 6. As I remember it my 10 DSP system needed to be balance carefully after adding the big mixer with compressor and limiters on 8 to 10 tracks and having a couple of UKNOW 07s running.

I know I could probably bounce some tracks but it doesn't fit that well with my workflow nowadays so I'd rather have to avoid that.

Btw. I thought the XITEs came in 10 and 18 DSP versions.

Thanks again!
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garyb
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Re: SHARC DSP revision number

Post by garyb »

the XITE-1D is about 3-4 15dsp cards depending on how it is loaded.
the XITE-1 is 6-10 15dsp cards of power, again depending on how it is loaded.


yes, 6dsps are the older dsps, used for compatibility with older plugins. the others are the newer Sharcs, so 4 of those for the XITE-1D and 12 for the XITE-1.
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dante
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Re: SHARC DSP revision number

Post by dante »

garyb wrote: Mon Apr 16, 2018 9:48 am in addition, there is no newer Sharc that will make the XITE work better or be more powerful. it is, and will be for the foreseeable future, at the cutting edge of dsp usage. more dsps, or more powerful dsps would not even work.
Whilst this is true in the practical sense of the XITE - there are newer chips used for DSP based music making. UAD have done this. Whilst the older PCIe-based UAD-2 SOLO/DUO/QUAD cards use the SHARC 21369 (same as Scope XITE) - the newer UAD-2 OCTO, along with UAD-2 Satellite and Apollo, use SHARC 21469 processor chips.

"The newer 21469 chips are smaller and consume less power than the 21369, allowing 8 processors on a 'short' PCIe card for the OCTO. There are no compatibility issues between the chips; you can freely mix and match all UAD-2 products. The algorithms and sound quality of UAD Powered Plug-Ins are exactly the same for all UAD-2 products."

Of course, XITE is still the only music audio platform to combine 12 DSP on a single board (plus the other 6 older ones).
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garyb
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Re: SHARC DSP revision number

Post by garyb »

exactly. that's 18dsps. it shouldn't work, except Juergen is pretty smart.

the only advantage would be a smaller pcb. it might not work at all.

in the end, there are other issues with getting more power, kinda like in a Super car. they can put 1500hp engines in them, but can they get the power to the ground without destroying the car?

there are always limitations in life. it's only in ad copy that the future is limitless. eventually, though, if there's a reason for dsp manufacturers to do so, i.e., a whole lotta sales, there will be something that can be scaled the way the Sharcs can be that can use more processors with more connections and will be much, much less limited. i'm not gonna endorse Skynet, though.

so, yes, there are newer chips, but the older chips are not being discontinued in the near future, and there is no reason to go to another line altogether, because it would involve an inordinate amount of time and money redesigning EVERYTHING, including all the software(even if the plugins could stay the same). this is one of the reasons that Sharcs were chosen by Creamware and continued by SonicCore, because Juergen thought about the future. the power of an XITE is pretty much what the computer itself can best handle, and it is actually beyond the design limitations for multiple dsps. it would be nice if it were a little more powerful, but issues of communication between chips and between the PC are probably bigger limitations(hardware issues). as far as i know, there are no other dsp processors made or are there likely to be made in the near future, that will overcome the limitations of chip to chip communication, and that will also run the Scope software. the limitations of the PC are the limitations of the PC, and don't affect the choice of dsp.

newer is usually better, but not always.

UAD uses Sharcs and many other Audio companies use Sharcs because Juergen and Holger's teams with Creamware used Sharcs. believe that. they were the first.
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dante
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Re: SHARC DSP revision number

Post by dante »

Well, I don't think there's any point in redesigning an XITE with the newer chip just to reduce form factor - I mean - the thing is 1U anyway which is already the ideal form factor. And there's no point redesigning it to fit more chips - because chip count is already at its limit.

And for UAD their design limit is 8 chips (not as smart as Juergen) with the newer Sharc. So yeah I think both platforms (Scope and UAD) have plateau'd for the foreseeable future - at least in terms of power.
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Re: SHARC DSP revision number

Post by dawman »

For 12 years I’ve used Scope Cards then the XITE-1 the last nine years.
2 different DSP Chips vrs. 7 different CPUs and 4 OSS.

I like DSPs better.
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dante
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Re: SHARC DSP revision number

Post by dante »

I like em all.

Intel i7-4790
Sharc ADSP21065
Sharc ADSP21369
AMD Custom 8 Core CPU (XBOX One X)

They all do awesome shit.
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Sounddesigner
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Re: SHARC DSP revision number

Post by Sounddesigner »

I doubt you'll be dissatisfied with the XITE-1D. If you're coming from a very old 10 dsp pci card system then the jump to the XITE-1D is very significant and should be enough power to keep you busy for a long time to come, especially if you have a powerfull computer to go with it. I think when one makes a huge power leap to a faar bigger and more powerfull dsp hardware system or computer they generally be ok if they're use to working with far weaker hardware systems.

There's good reasons why you don't read a lot of posts here from people complaining about XITE-1/1D having too little power, that's because the XITE-1/1d platforms are very powerfull. Most complaints over the years have been mainly about not able to fully harness the power they have not really the need for more power. The XITE-1/1D are powerfull hardware units, they were powerfull when they were first released in 2009 and they are still very powerfull today. A XITE-1D may be all you need for ever or atleast a very long time but if you suspect it may not be enough far in the future then get the bigger XITE-1.

My situation was similar to yours, I had a 10dsp SCOPE PCI system long ago, also a single core AMD 3000+ computer, and also a UAD-1 card. I upgraded to a first generation i7 then ditched the redundant UAD and then upgraded to a SCOPE XITE-1 (I use XITE-1 at 96khz wich is equivalent to you using XITE-1D at 44khz). Since doing this I have never had any extreme or serious need for more power. I did recently upgraded my first generation i7 to a more recent i7 4790k. I have more power than needed overall with XITE-1 and my i7 4790k. Like before the only thing I'll likely ever need to upgrade is my computer again not the XITE-1 cause it's very powerfull and also cause it allows me to use Native with it, and I shouldn't need to upgrade my computer for another 10 years (my last i7 lasted close to 9 years). XITE-1 helps the computer to last longer and vice-versa the computer helps keep the XITE-1 powerfull. In the old days single core computers had EXTREME power shortage problems and extreme latency problems but a lot changed with the release of i7's and even moreso for SCOPERs with the release of XITE-1/1D. EXTREME power shortage problems I don't believe generally is the case anymore ESPECIALLY for SCOPERs who have both i7 and XITE-1/1d combination. We can always use more power but EXTREME power shortages are generally a thing of the past (extreme shortage meaning only being able to run 1 or a very small few plugins on your computer or SCOPE hardware).

You going from a 10dsp to a XITE-1D should be a impressive power leap to you if you were use to getting by with very little. If you get the XITE-1/1D and a newer i7 you should be fine for a very long time if not forever and the only thing you may need to upgrade occasionally is the computer due to the nature of Native plugins (huge sample-libraries, super-multi-algorithm-all-in-one-channelstrips that grow bigger, artificial-intelligence in some plugins, etc all eat away at Native cpu power cause they are very hungry and without SCOPE XITE-1 to slow down the computer's upgrade cycles one may be forced to upgrade the computer even quicker, I know I would be.).

EXTREME power shortages are generally not a problem, especially for XITE-1/1D users. XITE-1/1D are very powerfull.


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Last edited by Sounddesigner on Wed Apr 18, 2018 7:19 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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dante
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Re: SHARC DSP revision number

Post by dante »

I can vouch for the power of i7-4790 + XITE-1D + Pulsar 2 + Luna 2 + Luna 2 - I run all at 96KHz and very rarely reach any limits and on those rare occasions have been able to workaround easily.
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Re: SHARC DSP revision number

Post by astroman »

@summer the 'newer' Sharcs have additional modes of code processing that perform much faster than the previous chips.
There's also more on-chip memory which is quite important in Scope environment.
Most new developements will take advantage of these features (which aren't fully exploited yet afaik), thus making expectations even more future-proof.
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Re: SHARC DSP revision number

Post by dawman »

Ladies & Gentlemen ......Astroman.
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Re: SHARC DSP revision number

Post by Spielraum »

summer wrote: Mon Apr 16, 2018 7:49 amDoes SonicCore ever update the internal hardware?
completion expansion / cascading would be my biggest wish :roll:
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