PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

hi

just a little question about Creamware cards and OS X
is there any way to use Creamware cards only as Audio cards (just Analog in/out and adat for example) with os X ?
i know that SFP only works on OS 9 (Mixer, Fx, Synth, Midi, etc...)
but i have 4 cards, 3 (2 Pulsar II + Scope) in a G4 under os 9 (everything is fine) and i have a pulsar I card i would want to use on a magma chassis with a titanium BUT under os X (it's working with os 9 but i really need this with os X to use Kontakt 2)
with this Pulsar card i just need to manage Audio flow across Adat (to get 16 out), so i don't care to use mixer or anaything else with this card, just direct audio out and nothing more

is there any Driver (simple driver, Beta or rock solid....) to manage just Audio with Pulsar under os X ?
(to avoid to buy a FW audio card )

thanks a lot for your help

Gatam

afaik the only drivers are the regular sfp drivers

no, you can't run the cards on OSX.
What I did (I also use two macs, one with OS9), is I got me a RME ADAT/Midi interface off ebay.
There are several type of boards, with different number of 'ports', check the RME site.
RME is almost a standard in this domain, great drivers and software at it.
Works perfectly

Scope cannot be used AT ALL in OS X. The driver simply runs audio from the OS to the DSPs, and additional software is needed to route it from the DSPs to the I/Os. No such software or drivers exist.

Shayne

righty right Shayne, but there is the possibility (btw suggested by a member here > year back) to write a kind of 'middleware' driver to handle the communication when Scope runs in the WINE environment.

Given the fact that the GUI of SFP runs (as it's wxwidgets based it's not unlikely), it would be the most easy way imho.
For that purpose you have to write a low level driver according to the hardware layer of the OS, that's capable to map Windows audio calls (which the original Windows version of Sfp sees) to the respective Mac OSX parts.
With 'simple' audio interfaces this approach does indeed work - of course a complex system like Scope is much more demanding.

But it would under all circumstances require an Intel based Mac - and there is no such Mac with a PCI interface, so a Magma would be the only choice.
Certainly more expensive as the solution Huub and a few others found with the 2 machine approach.
In fact I would choose the latter any time, as I find a 'split machine' setup much more convenient. The hardware (except the Adat card) costs barely nothing.

so the a Scope under CrossoverMac (as the commercial version of WINE is called) is more a proof of concept. Crossover is very convenient, I really wouldn't want to bother with unix-ish config files to spare 50 bucks.
As far as I can tell it's an impressive product - I have a fairly exotic and complex developement system running under it as 'non-supported' software in 2 test licenses. Non-supported means it doesn't come with a readymade installer/pre-configuration like several 'major' Windows apps.

I can't remember which, but I have installed and used Windows audio apps under MacOSX and they worked perfectly except that they didn't output any sound. Pretty useless, but they didn't crash...
According to the documentation some basic communication between the Mac statndard sound driver and Windows multimedia drivers is implemented, but of course it fails if an application addresses it in a 'more smart' or optimized way.

cheers, Tom

Thanks to all

Hubird :
yes i know RME cards, i used RME Multiface a lot with my old good Titanium and it was rock solid (it was not mine otherwise i'd use it in this case)

Shayne White:
thx for the answer, you tell me exactlly what i was afraid to hear
Creamware cards need a software layer to route Audio from DSP to I/O
is it really necessary to adress the dsp to use Adat i/o ?
could i/o from a Creamware card be independant from DSPs ?

astroman:
the intel mac idea is nice but i need to use this card with a titanium under os X (apple PPC)
Anyway, i see that your intel based mac intervention is just to have an interesting devlopper discussion, but i would prefer an interesting devlopper action like writing os x driver for my needs (just kidding)


the idea was to use this Pulsar I just because .. she's here with these 2 nice adat ports , and with os X because of Kontakt 2
i would have to buy a RME card while i have a Creamware card which could do the job, annoying

Anyway, thanks a lot to all for your answers and help

Merci Beaucoup

Gatam wrote:...Anyway, i see that your intel based mac intervention is just to have an interesting devlopper discussion, but i would prefer an interesting devlopper action like writing os x driver for my needs (just kidding)...

well, your basically right, but the 'strategy' is in fact more related to your wish that you may assume
the true question is: what takes longer, is more work, reliability etc.

a 'driver' to communicate with the hardware has to be written in any case, that's a matter of fact.
if this driver is strictly OSX related, then the complete user interface has to be implemented in OSX, too. I don't know how much of this has already been achieved by the NOAH and ASB (remote) software.

if this (to be written) driver has a communication layer that's also compatible with the 'Windows-side' of SFP interfacing, then there is the possibility that the complete application will run immediately.
I don't think that it's very likely, but worth a close examination any time

but I'm afraid no PPC stuff will ever evolve out of whatever...

cheers, Tom

well, the future starts tomorrow. maybe

let's just hope that the musikmesse brings some very good news.

-greetings, markus-