XITE-1 PC CONFIGURATION REFERENCE

The Sonic Core XITE hardware platform for Scope

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fra77x2
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Re: XITE-1 PC CONFIGURATION REFERENCE

Post by fra77x2 »

Come on guys hurry by the end of the next decade you must have managed to make a stable working system. 7 pages "Xite-1 configuration setup". Is it me or there are 2 guys that can't make a system work all these years? I must have been extremely lucky the first PC i bought worked very good with the PCI cards, and the first laptop I bought for the Xite the same! Lucky me! I must have slept with Domino... All these years with a working system I have also managed to learn production synthesis and a myriad other things. So happy 2031 with a working system! Come on lets find some motherboard experts I want this and that and this wow this is excellent! It kind of works! yeah!
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yayajohn
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Re: XITE-1 PC CONFIGURATION REFERENCE

Post by yayajohn »

Bud Weiser wrote: Thu Dec 31, 2020 9:20 am
yayajohn wrote: Wed Dec 30, 2020 2:53 pm Hey Bud. Not sure about the BNC. I think it is broken if you want to use the Xite as a master clock. Mine seems to work in slave and yes it is Scope 7.
Excellent news !!!
I didn´t try because I might have misunderstood somewhere here @PlanetZ some time ago.

Now I will, because I want all the digital gear be slaves, except the masterclock I bought.

Thx for the pic and ...

Happy New Year !!!

:)

Bud
Just make sure to check the specs on the PCIe slot you use and compare to what I experienced.
Not sure if that is the only issue but I don't care how it works, I just care that it does work.
Hope it works for you too.
HNY!
dawman
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Re: XITE-1 PC CONFIGURATION REFERENCE

Post by dawman »

yayajohn wrote: Thu Dec 31, 2020 6:05 am Hey Jimmy HNY!
Not sure if the plugs I have would really test the CPU cores. (AAS,Arturia, MusicLab, Pianoteq, PA subscription bundle,AIR)
On one of Faxi's VSTi I made it hit 100% pretty easily. I think it was the Pathfinder WT but his later VSTi instruments basically made that one obsolete.
Probably will eventually invest in some more now that I can.
Mostly bought this system for future proofing because I sure don't enjoy the migration aspect of it.
PM me if there's something specific you want me to try.

Dan
Nothing actually.
My concern with so many cores are buffer settings, which are fine for recording, like 256, 44.1, etc.
I stick with Quads because even the 3700X has latency I find annoying.

The 5600X or a new Intel 6/8 core will be what I tackle this summer.

Gotta keep GaryB busy too.
Nobody builds better Scope DAWg’s than he.

Happy New Year YaYa
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Bud Weiser
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Re: XITE-1 PC CONFIGURATION REFERENCE

Post by Bud Weiser »

yayajohn wrote: Thu Dec 31, 2020 11:43 am
Just make sure to check the specs on the PCIe slot you use and compare to what I experienced.
Not sure if that is the only issue but I don't care how it works, I just care that it does work.
...
In theory, it should work w/ any PCIe x1 slot not sharing ressources w/ other devices.

I have my SCOPE PCIe card in a PCIe x4 slot which is directly connected to processor.
The PCIe x1 slots run thru z97 chipset still.
https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/p ... iagram.png
I cannot thank Dawman enough for pointing me on that.

This is also the case w/ Z390 and Z490 ...
https://linustechtips.com/uploads/month ... 5b2aa7.jpg

So, when you have one of the blue PCIe x16 / x8/ x4 slots free and possibly use Intel iGPU for graphics, put the card into one of these slots NOT sharing w/ any PCIe x4 M.2 SSD and SCOPE will run AFAP.
Projects will load significantly faster too.

In my machine, SCOPE PCIe got an exclusive IRQ that way.

:)

Bud
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yayajohn
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Re: XITE-1 PC CONFIGURATION REFERENCE

Post by yayajohn »

So I guess based on that info: The first 1x PCIe slot that I used must have been sharing resources with the video card right next to it because it was NOT going to synch up with the BNC. After I moved it to the 3rd 1x PCIe slot it has worked perfectly.
But just to point out on my motherboard the first PCIe slot is a PCIe 3.0 x4 (x4 mode)
and the one it works on is a PCIe 3.0 x1
I have no idea if that is relevant but just so you are aware.
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Bud Weiser
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Re: XITE-1 PC CONFIGURATION REFERENCE

Post by Bud Weiser »

yayajohn wrote: Fri Jan 01, 2021 8:34 am So I guess based on that info: The first 1x PCIe slot that I used must have been sharing resources with the video card right next to it because it was NOT going to synch up with the BNC. After I moved it to the 3rd 1x PCIe slot it has worked perfectly.
But just to point out on my motherboard the first PCIe slot is a PCIe 3.0 x4 (x4 mode)
and the one it works on is a PCIe 3.0 x1
I have no idea if that is relevant but just so you are aware.
right click Win [START[ ... click [RUN] ... type msinfo32 ... click hardware-ressources > conflicts/sharing

You possibly did already, but that´s where you can see the differences when you try SCOPE PCIe in the different slots.

When I used the SCOPE PCIe card in any of the PCIe x1 slots,- it always shared IRQ (#16 IIRC) w/ several other devices.
Using the 3rd blue PCIe x16 (x4 mode) while using iGPU,- it enabled an exclusive IRQ for SCOPE XITE as also the usage of ULTRA M.2 (PCIe) NVMe SSD (x4 mode), usage of 2nd M.2 NVMe (x2 mode), 2 Samsung Pro and EVO SATA 600 SSDs and didn´t had to deactivate any USB controllers or eSATA.

It´s all mainboard architecture /chipset related and not matter of PCIe modes (x2, x4, x8 or x16).
It´s about ALL the available slots you normally use for graphics cards ARE connected directly to processor,- which enables the exclusive IRQ and faster data transfer (which is only limited by the PCIe card itself then).

All the other stuff runs thru the motherboard´s (Intel) chipset, together w/ network and many other devices.
It might not matter for the common (pro) soundcards, like RME p.ex. as also might not be essential for mixing.
But I play ext. keyboards and modules thru XITE, use SCOPE synths and VST in addition.

On my mainboard, the ULTRA M.2 (32Gb/sec) slot was only full speed when not using a graphics card in PCIe X16 #1,- that´s why I use iGPU (Intel graphics) which works great for me.
I enjoy loading NI Komplete Ultimate CEd content form Ultra M.2 (Samsung 970 EVO NNVMe x4 / 1TB) and won´t get conflicts/sharing w/ SCOPE/XITE PCIe either.

On your mainboard, it might behave different according to the relation of PCIeX16 and M.2 slots.
All the PCIe M.2 slots (might) share w/ PCIeX16 slots.
And, you want the OS not on a M:2 SSD because trim function might kick in out of the blue, saturating PCIe bus, resulting in clicks, pops and other audible artefacts.

I have a smooth running machine, running Win7 Pro SP1 off Samsung Pro SATA SSD.

:)

Bud
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yayajohn
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Re: XITE-1 PC CONFIGURATION REFERENCE

Post by yayajohn »

hmm, that is a lot of food for thought. Thanks for that info Bud.
My documentation says my M.2 shares with a SATA port and disables it when a drive is present. So I have to use the other ones which is not a problem unless I have a lot of drives.
The TRIM function is definitely concerning but if I'm reading it right, it applies to all SSD drives? Not just the M.2?
Also you may be able to set that so it runs at a certain time?
Researching it still though.
circlingkailas
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Re: XITE-1 PC CONFIGURATION REFERENCE

Post by circlingkailas »

Holy cow, everyone! This post is 11 years old and people still are having problems configuring a PC for the XITE. Sonic Core should be ashamed! This forum sounds more like an IT forum!

Having that comment out of my system - I have a XITE that is unused that has been sitting in its box for almost 10 years. It would be wonderful to have a trustworthy recommendation of a current (2021) laptop, ideally off the shelf, that will work stably with the XITE. Does anyone have any recommendations?

Also, I would like to use the ExpressCard using the Sonnet Expresscard Thunderbolt adapter, or the PCIe card with a Sonnet PCIe Thunderbolt adapter. Does anyone have experience with these as a stable, reliable way to use a modern laptop with the XITE.

I have a bunch of Mac computers sitting around, and know in the past there were people using XITE on a Mac via Bootcamp, but that seems sketchy unless you have some solid positive experience to share.

I currently have a PowerPulsar on an old XP machine, and would really like to move on to the XITE.

Thanks for your help.
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garyb
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Re: XITE-1 PC CONFIGURATION REFERENCE

Post by garyb »

XITE via bootcamp is fine. that is just running a Mac on Windows.

the Sonnet adaptor works perfectly, HOWEVER, not all Thunderbolt connections are the same. if it is a USB3/Thunderbolt connection, it will NOT work.
fra77x2
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Re: XITE-1 PC CONFIGURATION REFERENCE

Post by fra77x2 »

"This forum sounds more like an IT forum"

My opinion is that this is mostly this forum mistake than sonicore's.

I never had problem using my PCI cards or my Xite-1. The first PC i bought (for the former) and the first laptop I bought for the latter worked right away. Perhaps I am just lucky or other people just unlucky, but in any case people without some sense of PC usage can have a hard time to achieve something that is simple and straight-forward.
Marvin
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Re: XITE-1 PC CONFIGURATION REFERENCE

Post by Marvin »

Hi folks,

I’ve been silent for quite some years, children, company,… you know. Now back on track.

First of all I have to thank Gary, valis, Jimmy, yayajohn and Bud a lot for their insights regarding a separate IRQ for the Xite-1 and the importance for the PCIe slot of being connected directly to CPU and not via chipset.

That means either
- a Z490 or Z590 board without (!) a graphic card using the iGPU of the CPU instead, or
- a X299 board, which offers a lot of lanes directly connected to CPU, but as the appropriate CPUs for this chipset doesn’t have iGPU you have to add a graphic card.

I consulted Digital AudionetworX (www.da-x.de, located in Berlin) to build me a new PC for Scope, and after some considerations we chose the X299 way. Yes, costly, but I decided to not invest a lot of time for researching all the options and compatibilities ending up in a yet not optimal solution. Moreover I have now a perfectly tweaked system maxed out for audio this way, and as my old X58 system with an i7-920 Nehalem from 2009 is now indeed 12 years old, it was really time for a new one.

The results:

I can absolutely confirm that I can sync XITE-1 as slave to my masterclock via BNC! Like „the bug“ is gone! Was not possible with my old system, the X299 works like a charm! Chrystal clear and stable. Also sync with XITE-1 as master works.

I can also confirm that I haven’t got any (!) pops or clicks with the new system. My old X58 did those annoying pops from time to time, now that is history.

Specs:
motherboard: Gigabyte UD4 PRO
chipset: X299
processor: Intel I9-10920X
RAM: 32 GB DDR 4
OS: Win 10 latest
Does it work? Oh yes! 😎

BTW I switched to Samplitude with this system, as I would like to use an old but like new Tascam US-2400 as controller, Sam could talk with it in native mode offering all options. Real fun!

Cheers

Alex
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yayajohn
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Re: XITE-1 PC CONFIGURATION REFERENCE

Post by yayajohn »

Nice system! 8)
Marvin
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Re: XITE-1 PC CONFIGURATION REFERENCE

Post by Marvin »

Thanks, but only because of your posting regarding BNC-sync as slave. This makes me curious about the reasons and let me read a lot of postings about all the setups. PCIe connected directly to CPU, with an own unshared IRQ. Both were not possible with my old system (wish I could have known that back in 2009...), but now this is a new era. Also the start of even large projects is now much faster, like instant. Click and boom, it is there.
Thanks a lot again! :)
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Sounddesigner
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Re: XITE-1 PC CONFIGURATION REFERENCE

Post by Sounddesigner »

Computer upgrade time. Black Friday sales are comming and i'm looking to get a better computer. My eyes are on the 12th Generation i5 or i7. Mainly the i5 12600k wich is a 10-Core running at 3.7Ghz . Anybody has experience with this Generation of CPU's and their Motherboards? Any problems with them and XITE-1?

I see the 14th Generation of intel i5/i7/i9 CPU's has just been released but they are too new plus the Per Core speed is slowly being reduced in favour of more Cores. The 12th Generation i5 is the fastest CPU released in recent years running at 3.7GHZ, and it still has 10-Cores wich is more than i need. I currently use a i7 4790k Quad wich runs at 4GHZ.
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garyb
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Re: XITE-1 PC CONFIGURATION REFERENCE

Post by garyb »

i haven't heard of any issues...
nebelfuerst
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Re: XITE-1 PC CONFIGURATION REFERENCE

Post by nebelfuerst »

I wouldn't expect any issues with this CPU. But be prepared, that motherboards sometimes require weeks to get firmware to work as expected.
One board of mine took 6 months to get a pcie-issue fixed, but they provided weekly updates to add new RGB-LED functions.
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valis
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Re: XITE-1 PC CONFIGURATION REFERENCE

Post by valis »

nebelfuerst wrote: Mon Nov 13, 2023 11:08 am I wouldn't expect any issues with this CPU. But be prepared, that motherboards sometimes require weeks to get firmware to work as expected.
One board of mine took 6 months to get a pcie-issue fixed, but they provided weekly updates to add new RGB-LED functions.
This is to be expected for a few reasons, the most obvious being the gaming crowd who is enamored with such things. However what this usually translates into is the company that makes these products looking to have them integrated into everything, they're cheap and easy to make so profitable. Firmware updates for a motherboard are a bit more challenging to implement and test, and for PCIe challenges and such often require more than their own team to fix things (BIOS/EFI, binary blobs from each component manufacturer in-line, and if the lane goes right to the CPU it will have to be done in tandem with Intel or AMD).

No fun to be sure, but it's understandable. Tyan/Supermicro (as well as Dell/HP for prebuilt/OEM) and the smaller Korean companies like MSI & ASRock all offer boards that are not oriented towards consumers playing games, and tend to be more stable and tuned for the usages we might expect. They're also more responsive to issues like the one you mention, though not necessarily more timely.
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Sounddesigner
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Re: XITE-1 PC CONFIGURATION REFERENCE

Post by Sounddesigner »

This is re-assuring. If noone has contacted tech-support with complaints about current CPU's issues with XITE-1 then it's safe to reason there's likely little to no issues. Or atleast no show-stoppers.

@nebelfuerst, 6 months to fix a Motherboard issue sounds like a nightmare. That's one reason i'm trying to avoide buying the newest released CPU's and would rather buy a older Generation, hoping that the bugs/kinks have been matured out. I'm gonna try to avoide such a senario and will certainly keep a eye open to it. Thanks for the warning!

@Valis, i will consider MSI, since it is less consumer oriented. That is my current Motherboard, wich has served me well apart from one small issue created by the Builders at a shop sloppy shipping. My other consideration is Asus.


EDITED
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Sounddesigner
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Re: XITE-1 PC CONFIGURATION REFERENCE

Post by Sounddesigner »

I received my new Computer about a week ago and have good and bad news concerning this computer configuration. Overall this PC System works but when i got up and running i used SCOPE Platform devices wich was fine then i played back a couple Native Projects in Sonar and heard a lot of pops and clicks. I also notice that the freshly installed Windows 11 was using about 4 and 1/2 GBs of RAM. also at start-up SCOPE would get a message stating ' a driver could not load into Windows due to Security Settings".

I brought the excessive RAM usage down a bit to about 2 and 1/2 GBs consumed by turning off a lot of unnecessary services including 'intel Graphics service'. I solve the driver not loading by going into Windows Security > Core isolation> turn off Memory integruty, this also helped in bringing excessive RAM usage down. None of this stopped the pops and clicks when using Native DAW Sonar. I tried moving the XITE-1 PCIe card into another slot and still no luck.

What stopped the pops and clicks was me increasing the ULLI Buffer from 1ms to 2ms @ 96khz samplerate. My older computer systems can handle some small Projects @1ms @96khz but this new computer can't, it requires 2ms ULLI @ 96khz. I don't believe it is a hardware problem that i can't use the lowest latency settings due to the massive amount of RAM Windows is using plus my Computer-Builders installed a bunch of unneccessary programs/Services that i've been turning off as i identify them. I suspect i'll be able to run my smaller projects at the smallest Buffer once i finish reducing the high RAM consumption threw turning off more garbage, but either way it's working now i just have to start at the higher 2 ms buffer. SCOPE Platform has spoiled me when it comes to low-latency, routing, etc and i tend to demmand these things with Native as well.

My initial conclusion is that this ne PC Configuration is a success with XITE-1, i'll need to further investigate for the final conclusion, wich may take a while.

My new System specs are below:

CASE- MID TOWER ANTEC P101-SILENT BLACK.
CPU- Intel Core i5-12600k Alder Lake 3.7GHz (4.9GHz Turbo) 10-Core,
MOTHERBOARD- MSI PRO Z690-A, DDR4, Triple M.2, PCIe 5.0,USB 3.2, USB Type-C, 2.5GbMEMORY RAM- DDR4 16GB (1x16GB) PC4-25600/3200MHz
GRAPHICS CARD - GeForce GT 730
PRIMARY HARDDRIVE- 1TB SAMSUNG 980 m.2 Solid State Drive,NVMe PCI-Express 3.0, 3500MB/s
SECONDARY HARDDRIVE- 2TB Western Digital Blue SATA 3 6GB/s 64m cache
OPTICAL DRIVE- LG Blu-ray 14X Recorder,16x DVD Recorder SATA combo drive
POWER SUPPLY- Apevia 500W Extra Quiet ATX Power Supply (6+2pin)
OPERATING SYSTEM- Microsoft Windows 11 Home 64-Bit Edition.
SOUNDCARD INTERFACE- SCOPE XITE-1 DSP.


PS. Magic Micro built this System for me, i usually go to them since they are cheap and also carry older CPUs like the 12th Generation i5 12600k wich is what i wanted. The good news is that the 12th generation, the 13th generation, and the 14th generation i5/i7/i9 all use the same Socket LGA 1700 and Motherboards, so the older 12th generation should be compatible with Windows 12 when it is release since i'm sure the newer 14th generation CPUs will be. They all share the same Socket so they all should share the same future compatibility. The older i5 12th generation i chose is EXTREMELY powerfull and only cost about $239 wich is insane and unbelivable. This 10-Core i5 is FAR more power than i need thus this 10-core should last 10 years, possibly beyond. This is my 3rd computer built with XITE-1, the SCOPE longevity carries on!
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valis
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Re: XITE-1 PC CONFIGURATION REFERENCE

Post by valis »

You can try the HPET to RTC trick in your EFI/BIOS, but most likely another driver is hogging too much time in the background
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