gigabyte new mobo and fast gamers vga cards

ARCADIOS · Post by **ARCADIOS** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 4:54 pm

hi, i bought a new mobo today. gigabyte ga-965-ds3.
tomorow i will set it up with my 6600 conroe cpu.
it has 3 pci slots !!!!!
these slots are well positioned in
order not to have space problems when positioning creamwares cards.
i will report about performance after instalation.
a few questions though:
1. i have to buy a pci-e vga card.
are there any general recommendations?
2. should i avoid buying a fast gamers card?
i am willing to get a fast nvidia one, having much ram.
don't know yet the model. i need some help here.
3. i also don't know if i should go for a ddr4 card.
4. is it true that there are probs with pci-e and scopes cards together?

.....................................................................................................
5. should i buy a server mobo

god i am gonna become crazy

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[ This Message was edited by: ARCADIOS on 2006-10-14 04:29 ]

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 5:08 pm

Don't get a fast gamer's card. Just get something slow enough to be cooled by just a heatsink (no fan). I think Nvidia is slightly better but I don't have too much experience with PCI-e video cards.

ARCADIOS · Post by **ARCADIOS** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 3:28 am

well. finally i bought a gamers fast pci express card.
it is albatron 7900 gtx.
512dd3 ram on it.

i have the belief that it is good to use very fast gamers cards.

i tell you that when there is a heavy loaded project with lots of plugins and much graphics drowed in sequencer, the fast graphic card helps alot with having no problems with the graphics movements.

and when the graphics are moved smoothly then there are less chances for pops and clicks.

isn't that true?

is it finally a myth that there are "good" graphic cards for audio applications?

a good fast gamers pc i think it is very good for scopes cards and audio applications.

1. fast cpu.
2. fast vga.
3. fast and lots of ram.
4. ok.. no overclocking!

with this fast graphics i can zoom in nuendo in a loaded project while playing with other vsts or scopes synths and ully set to 3ms and no pops and crackles.

i think that the faster the pc and more gaming machine is better for audio, since you just make a few basic optimizations that a gamer wouldn't do.

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 4:33 am

On 2006-10-14 04:28, ARCADIOS wrote:
...is it finally a myth that there are "good" graphic cards for audio applications?
...

as Dark mentioned 'fast' cards have a cooler fan, which is often (depends on model and construction) an annoying source of noise.

That 'myth' originates from a time when graph card manufacturers wrote drivers that tried to reserve as much resources as possible - effectively locking out any 'competing' device on the bus.
It may not be relevant to the same degree anymore - as a non-gamer I can't tell.

But I'm pretty sure that the improvements you experience have nothing at all to do with 'a fast gamer card' - it's just a side effect.

If the thing didn't cost you an arm and a leg then it's perfectly ok, but you can easily waste a few hundred Euros on features that will NEVER be used in a DAW application.

the features that make a graphic card 'fast' are 3D rendering options and texture handling that (afaik) isn't even active when displaying the 'regular' GUI.
Unless the coders at Steinberg have written special routines (to deal with your GPU) you should experience no difference with a 'smaller' card (lower clocked, less memory) based on the same chipset.

cheers, Tom

Shroomz~> · Post by **Shroomz~>** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 5:06 am

You can test Astro's theory by under-clocking your new graphics card's gpu & ram, then testing your system's performance under identical Scope & native conditions.

Come back & tell us the results please

valis · Post by **valis** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 9:26 am

Astro is correct. Actually the idea that a 'faster card' will achieve better performance in windows harkens back to the days when 2d performance was first being 'accellerated'. A card without the ability to coprocesses bitblits and without a large amount of local ram for frame buffers was generally a poor performer that consumed a lot of cpu time and system ram for simple window operations. Cards that were '2d windows accellerators' are why 'show window contents while dragging' was originally created as they could manipulate the frame buffers with a lot less of a performance penalty.

Astro is also correct that these days musicians are actually shy to use 'high performance' gaming cards for reasons because thy often attempt to consume more system resources than they need for simple 2d windows operations in attempt to give you a better 'gaming' experience. Consuming all your bus bandwidth for a PCIe graphics card at the expense of PCI bandwidth is exactly the reason that Nforce4 and certain other chipsets are fraught with problems.

However if it works for you and you're happy with it then great! Let us know what games you're playing

Post by **garyb** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 9:29 am

you'll probably need to run double dawg with that card. i'll bet that it's driver sets the system to give the video card an insanely long pci latency(so that scope can't get use of the bus when it needs to). it's for games. gamers want graphics over everything! a cheaper card would have been a more sensible purchase.

pci overflow, anyone?

or maybe i guess wrong, either way a basic gforce card 256mb or 512mb ram under $100 would work just as well and maybe better.

ARCADIOS · Post by **ARCADIOS** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 10:07 am

On 2006-10-14 10:26, valis wrote:

However if it works for you and you're happy with it then great! Let us know what games you're playing

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[ This Message was edited by: ARCADIOS on 2006-10-14 11:19 ]

[ This Message was edited by: ARCADIOS on 2006-10-14 11:20 ]

ARCADIOS · Post by **ARCADIOS** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 10:20 am

my favorite game is scope 4.5

anyway, my small experience tells me that having slower vga with slower memory and slower gpu is not that good.
in fact i prefer nvidia.
take in mind that i use matrox triplehead2go and i have 4 monitors.
at the moment my chipset is intel 965.

this discussion leads me to the creamware suggestion that does not make sense anymore about the graphics accelarations turn off.

with slow card, and slow cpu, it is not possible to make simple movements, like moving a scope mixer over a running heavy nuendo. with a fast card and a fast cpu you can do that. without stucking frames.

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[ This Message was edited by: ARCADIOS on 2006-10-14 11:22 ]

Shroomz~> · Post by **Shroomz~>** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 10:27 am

Just out of interest Arcadios, do you fancy doing a masterverb test with your new graphics card (to check your available pci bandwidth relative to Scope card/s performance) ...please

ARCADIOS · Post by **ARCADIOS** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 2:44 pm

i will shroomz but now i cannot because i face some little problems here with acpi.
in fact i was a standard pc fan but with the new mobos i have to understand which irq from 1 to 15 is named another number from 1 to 23.
anyway i wil tell you for sure that i can load some synths and with much ease i can raise polyphony to 16. just with one move.
about the masterverb issue i think that it will not differ at all from my older asus p4c800e, abit ic7g, asrock dual vsta.
all gave about 10 to 12 mverb pro. i think that it is a scope issue more than a pc issue.
pulsar 6dsp+scope14dsp.
if i set the big one 1sr, error messages appear soon. if i set pulsar2 1st it is ok.
doesn't seem logical but it works this way in contrast to what other scope users say about setting the big card as first.
my question before i test it is:
is there a way to increase pci bandwith by setting pci latencys, and if yes which should be changed for optimal scope performance?
ps. my most recent xp instalations are with default values. i don't set any latency bymyself.

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[ This Message was edited by: ARCADIOS on 2006-10-14 15:47 ]

[ This Message was edited by: ARCADIOS on 2006-10-14 15:48 ]

ARCADIOS · Post by **ARCADIOS** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 3:16 pm

i made this test again and here are the results.

take in mind that it was a little in a hurry and not very carefull, i mean not very very optimized syste.
a loaded in an empty routing window and 48khz:
10 mverbs with no message.the 11th had a message.
12 mverbs classic, the 13th with message.
11 mv pro , th 12th message.
and guess what:
can any of you do this with 20 dsps?

20! optimasters filling all 20dsp power and giving dsp overload on the 21st.
what is your oppinion about that?

Shroomz~> · Post by **Shroomz~>** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 3:22 pm

On our 'main' Scope rig for making music we've got only 12 DSPs running on an Asus A7N8X deluxe which loads 14 MVs & on the 15th we get a dsp overload message.

Post by **garyb** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 3:37 pm

Arcadios, as i said, often the higher end video cards' drivers set pci latency very high(256 or higher). you don't need this for a daw and it can even be a problem with the scope card. try setting a lower value with double dawg(64 or 128) and see if it works better.

ARCADIOS · Post by **ARCADIOS** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 5:26 pm

how many optimasters?
also even if i decrease the time vga can hold the bci bus this doesn't mean that a fast and big card is not apropriate for audio. audio applications work better with fast and much ram vga.
unless you do not move anything.
and don't forget especially scope talking, scopes graphics are realy heavy. they do not disappear while moving which makes them need fast graphics vga if a project is in progress and running with 1 or 2 othe applications simultaneously.

the faster the better... optimized for audio always.
but speed is necessary!

about cpu: i use conroe 6600.
48khz and ully smallest.
no pops and crackles at all!!!!
vsts with nuendo together with scope synths.......ully lowest and if i check device manager cpu load is very very low, therefore the pc is stable and quiet.
this cannot happen with slower cpus.
if cpu load goes near 60-70 " then the pops appear. with conroe even with loaded and heavy project by zooming in nuendo while playback(very demanding) i chech task manager and cpu is not raising dangerusly.
with 478 gor example if i just wanted to move a synth, cpu would do a 50% jump and produce pops and crackles and distortion.

in conclution scopes i believe nead to cooperate with fast equipment. after all everything needs its optimization.

its better to optimize a fast rocket than trying to optimize a slow system just because of start being in love with "my nice stable 478".

myth

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[ This Message was edited by: ARCADIOS on 2006-10-14 18:29 ]

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 5:58 pm

On 2006-10-14 18:26, ARCADIOS wrote:
...
about cpu: i use conroe 6600.
48khz and ully smallest.
no pops and crackles at all!!!!

...
with 478 gor example if i just wanted to move a synth, cpu would do a 50% jump and produce pops and crackles and distortion.

...

its better to optimize a fast rocket than trying to optimize a slow system just because of start being in love with "my nice stable 478".
myth

Arcadios, you compare apples to oranges
the Conroe has 4 MB L2 cache, 8 times more than a P4 Northwood - that's why it doesn't stutter

cheers, Tom

Post by **garyb** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 6:00 pm

conroe is great, works great!

ARCADIOS · Post by **ARCADIOS** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 6:29 pm

why astroman?
i like oranges more than apples

Post by **hubird** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 9:21 pm

I like apples...

ARCADIOS · Post by **ARCADIOS** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 3:31 am

because are more stable and solid.
but oranges make more suspense, are more juicy and go with many coctails, many more than apples.
is it really a big stability differense?

talking about apples i have to mention that in recording studios i have seen them a lot combined with protools.
2 months ago in national greek radio studios, in which i have been working for 7 years, they put a scope professional machine for radio recordings, but i would like to see one in a recording session along with all that hardware that is there.
i wonder, this scope if set with mac, will it make an equal production machine to pro tools?
reffering to stability and quality.