Pulsar XTC suitable replacement for my EMU APS ?

swayzak · Post by **swayzak** » Wed Feb 13, 2002 8:01 am

hi

My system is listed below.

Because the APS will not be getting xp drivers I wish to find a suitable replacement. This card has behaved (almost) flawlessly with neglible cpu overhead.

It seems the Pulsar xtc would be an exciting option......dsp power, not paying for audio ins/out (my Audiophile does this well), soundfont capability for all my soundfonts etc.

Reading other forums I have seen potential problems:

1. Creamware cards do NOT like being with other cards......would it sit happily alongside my Audiophile ?

2. Despite having onboard DSP their system requirements are still quite steep....would my system suffice ?

3. Several bugs e.g. poor latency with Cubase

Any advice gratefully received

swayzak

subhuman · Post by **subhuman** » Wed Feb 13, 2002 9:47 am

I would highly recommend NOT buying an XTC card without an I/O plate. Being dependant on another card's drivers is only going to cause you to run from one company's tech support to another - an XTC with I/O allows you to use the excellent ASIO latency of the Creamware card. An XTC with an I/O plate doesn't come with ProPack, though, but it is cheaper than a full Pulsar2 card still.

subhuman · Post by **subhuman** » Wed Feb 13, 2002 9:47 am

Your system looks good but no mention of chipset or motherboard - and that is perhaps the main thing that matters. Intel chipsets work best, particularly i8xx series.

swayzak · Post by **swayzak** » Wed Feb 13, 2002 3:41 pm

thanks

My motherboard is a trusty old BX Chaintech.

So an xtc on it's own would be a bad choice ?

I'm very happy with my Audiophile as a recording card (no crashes, conflicts etc.) so I really want an "on-board sounds" card and the xtc seems to fit the bill e.g. no superfluous ins and outs.

Are Creamware cards, ahem, "problematic" ? In seem to see more posts around forums describing problems rather than euphoria.

swayzak

swayzak · Post by **swayzak** » Wed Feb 13, 2002 4:22 pm

....actually, after doing a search on these forums I find a lot of reference to PCI bandwidth.

This sounds like it could be a real problem on my fairly old system - the APS never causes anything like this, even with 64 voices and all effects running !

And what about the major latency problems - I currently get 8 ms for VSTi's on my Audiophile.

swayzak

I gather that if I also buy an extra I/O board then the latency disappears ?