cheap & effective PC for Scope

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 8:57 am

I just upgraded a P4 box used to house some Pulsar cards so I could run some decent softsynths on it (P4's are utter crap by today's standards IMHO, and the PCI bandwidth on this particular chipset is terrible). Since my main machine is an Athlon64 (single core) NForce3 based setup and has been the most stable and slick machine I've ever used, I decided to go with what I knew for the 2nd machine. I picked up a new 4000 chip (fastest single core, San Diego spec) and a slightly used Gigabyte mobo (DFI also made a good one) for £60. A matched pair of fast Corsair CL2 DDR400 512mb is also around £20-30, and a dual-output fanless AGP GeForce is also very very cheap. A 350-450W PSU is sufficient to power such a machine, you can pick up a good quiet one for around £25-35.

I think this is a great spec for a great price... pretty much a full machine for the cost of just a CPU with the latest greatest tech. It's way better in terms of capabilities than a stable 815/P3 setup. Scope performs incredibly fast and the PCI bandwidth is awesome (can't remember the last time I saw an overflow). It's also amazingly stable.

capacitor · Post by **capacitor** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 9:53 pm

I'm also looking at a dedicated Scope box, and am in a similar situation hardware-wise. So, this is timely advice

That's a great price for a good MB and CPU. I have everything else save for those two items.

What's the model of the Gigabyte?

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 2:54 am

t's the GA-K8NSC-939

The DFI board which I use in my main machine is the Lanparty UT NF3 Ultra-D

Both really good boards. The main difference as far as I can see is the Gigabyte doesn't have Firewire on board, but the DFI does.

capacitor · Post by **capacitor** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 8:28 am

Thanks.

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 12:16 pm

darkrezin wrote:... I think this is a great spec for a great price... pretty much a full machine for the cost of just a CPU with the latest greatest tech. It's way better in terms of capabilities than a stable 815/P3 setup. ...

yeah, the memory limit of the 815 is a true pity - otherwise they sell (tons of) excellent machines in the 1GHZ range for less than 100 Euro incl. shipping on German eBay, not to forget in really excellent cases. I know because I once picked up such a box at a local supplier for 10 Euro or so...

btw the signal to noise ratio with P3 and CoreDuo chipsets was about 3dB better than in any P4 setup I made. Not sure if it's a Pulsar One specific issue, tho

cheers, Tom

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 1:49 pm

Yep the 815's were nice - used to run mine with totally passive cooling and a silent PSU... the only thing that made any noise at all was the HD. 10 EU is hard to argue with too

But still, I gotta say that XP+Scope is painful with 512MB

The P4 box was total crap - hardly any meaningful speed increase from the P3 and absolutely terrible PCI performance (Asus P4PE).

Even though the 815 was very nice, NForce3 is the most stable and fast I have ever used (with single core CPU). PCI performance is amazing - in the main machine I use an RME 9652, 2x 6-DSP cards (will replace one soon with a 14-DSP card

), 3 hard drives (IDE and SATA), firewire, lots of USB devices, Gigabit LAN - rock solid, glitch-free, never saw a PCI overflow or any instability, Scope runs as fast as a standard Windows GUI app

This chipset really seems to move data around the board very very fast and with lots of bandwidth.

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 2:56 pm

sorry, I should have been more precise... I payed 10 Euro for just the computer case without PSU, which was still a bargain.
It's an almost-no-resonance type of metal with perfectly rounded edges, everywhre (!) - both sides can be taken apart individually by a handle mechanism that locks without screws (after pushing back the top cover of the tower, secured by one screw).
I may have an eye on the type of board you mention, tho - that stuff is dead cheap usually, since they all are after multi-cores ...

cheers, Tom

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 3:54 pm

yep, suckers

By the way maybe my post drove the prices up a bit, so it might be wise to wait a while. There's a DFI at the moment for £56 with 3 days left - crazy. The DFI boards do tend to go for more than the Gigabyte ones though. Other NF3 939 boards I've seen:

- ECS (Elite Group).... never tried but for the prices they go for it could be a good backup board

- MSI... I've had very bad experiences with MSI so I avoid them but some people seem to use them with no problems

I'm actually going to get a Carillon rack case soon from a friend of mine who's gone Mac. Those things are serious tanks - a lot of the soundproofing comes from the amazingly thick and heavy metal chassis. You can't buy them normally without buying a whole system, so I'm looking forward to it.

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Thu Apr 03, 2008 12:54 pm

I'll do a test when I install the 14-dsp card. Right now with 2x 6-dsp I run out of DSP before I can really hit any PCI limit.

katano · Post by **katano** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 1:22 am

darkrezin wrote:I'll do a test when I install the 14-dsp card. Right now with 2x 6-dsp I run out of DSP before I can really hit any PCI limit.

congrats to your new card

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 7:27 am

katano

I got the keys all sorted out now (thanks as ever to Ralf!) so hopefully I'll install it this weekend.

I'll also post some figures for the Timeworks verbs - I just ordered them. The demo got me convinced after 1 minute of checking it out, but I didn't have the DSP to justify it until now. I don't have to use my Eclipse for verbs now

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 9:05 am

OK I got the new card installed - Scope Pro and a Pulsar2 = 21 dsp available (20 in practice).

I tried the Masterverb test - on inserting the 13th I get this error:

A capacity limit of your DSP cards has been reached. The specific cause is:
Not enough DSP memory: cannot connect
PC master 32k Delay.Tap3 and Mix8.In3

This isn't a PCI error but seems related to routing delays. It also happens when loading 3 of Warp69's STW devices. I don't remember seeing this problem with 2x Pulsar2 cards and during searching Z I've found that it tends to happen more with 14/15-dsp cards.

I found some suggestions to play with 'board ID' and 'Host-Config' strings in cset.ini, but none of these helped. It happens with 1 or 2 STDM cables.

Both Scope cards are on their own IRQs at the moment. The Scope Pro has the ADAT24 board, and the Pulsar2/Scope Project has the Classic board (although I'm not using the cable snake right now, only one of the ADAT i/o's).

I always run at 44.1khz, slaved to the sync-plate wordclock (clock comes from Apogee rosetta800 - seems rock solid).

Anyone have any ideas on how to avoid this DSP memory error? Or is it a limitation of the cards? I can work with real-world projects just fine, although it would be nice to have a STW Ambience, Plate and Chorus/Delay loaded at the same time.

katano · Post by **katano** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 1:55 am

glad the keymaster was able to sort it out

regarding your error message, how many stdm cables do you use? have you tried to exchange pci slots?

if i remember well, i was able to load 15 masterverbs (then pci limit) with this card as second in my setup. first was another scope pro, third was an SRB...

have fun!
roman

katano · Post by **katano** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 1:59 am

btw, i wasn't able to load all the stw effects at once, even at 44.1khz. because i often use 24 ASIO2-24 INs and Outs. that's a lot of pci bandwith needed... That's why i'm looking straight forward to Xite

cannonball · Post by **cannonball** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 2:45 am

hi

sometimes i got the same error with STW verbs more with P100A

A capacity limit of your DSP cards has been reached. The specific cause is:
Not enough DSP memory: cannot connect
PC master 32k Delay.Tap3 and Mix8.In3

can differ in this part
Tap3 and Mix8.In3
with different number in and out
never tell to warp69
i'm nforce3/amd 64 3500/socket939 standard mode
18 masterverb
or 18 masterverb pro
3 p100stw before the PC master 32k Delay
1 a100stw before the PC master 32k Delay

ale

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 3:09 am

Hi Roman,

The keymaster always delivers!

OK regarding the error: 1 or 2 STDM cables makes no difference - the behaviour is the same. Obviously the 6-DSP cards only have 2 STDM contacts so I can't try more

I haven't yet tried different slots - the cards are on their own IRQs so I didn't think it would make a difference. When I get a new case I'll try it though (current case does not allow it).

I'm suspecting possibly bad versions of DSP files right now - I'll do a Scope reinstall when I have time.

It's not a PCI overflow so I have some hope that I might be able to get rid of it. Either way it's not a big deal... I can still work just fine. I'll have to play with the ASIO stuff - I actually use an RME card for my sequencer and connect it to Scope via ADAT, so in fact I don't have to have them loaded at all.

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 3:52 am

cannonball - thanks for your post... I guess it shows that PCI isn't the issue if you can load 18 masterverbs. I think I need to do a clean install while keeping a backup of my Scope/App/DSP folder. I had the STW demos installed which might be complicating things.

korgano · Post by **korgano** » Thu Dec 15, 2011 5:18 pm

Hi everybody,

I have same problem:

A capacity limit of your DSP cards has been reached. The specific cause is:
Not enough DSP memory: cannot connect
PC master 32k Delay.Tap3 and Mix8.In3

I have two cards conected with STDMCables.

Everything works fine except when I want to put SC Ambience and SC Plate together. I can use only one of those two at same time. Ohterwise I get the message:

A capacity limit of your DSP cards has been reached. The specific cause is:
Not enough DSP memory: cannot connect
PC master 32k Delay.Tap3 and Mix8.In3

I have all together 21 DSP and each of those two reverbs is using like 3- 4 yellow lines ...together is like less then 50% of 21 DSP Meter.

I have the same problem no metters what els is in project, even when is nothing else inside the project ecept those two reverbs.

Any thoughts?

korgano · Post by **korgano** » Thu Dec 15, 2011 5:24 pm

when is nothing else inside the project ecept those two reverbs I get this Message:

A capacity limit of your DSP cards has been reached. The specific cause is:
Not enough DSP memory: cannot connect
PC 256k Delay.out and nix.In

Post by **garyb** » Thu Dec 15, 2011 5:29 pm

there's a limit to everything.

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