PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

In these days my dear friend PC P4 3 Ghz is getting some troubles and looking at the thread "Anyone still using Creamware with a Mac?" (thx Sodiumcycle !) I'm wondering if really it would be a good idea to buy an old g4 with os9 to run my 2 pulsarII cards+Syncplate. In fact I'm currently using the PC "just" to run the creamware system..
Would it work fine?
Honestly, since I'm a mac user I'd prefer to stay in the mac "world", but I have no idea if the creamware cards works better on a PC context or not...Eventually, does the Os9 actually support also sfp 4.5 and 5.0 in the next future?
Any experience? Thanks a lot
Ste

jetmoon wrote: Honestly, since I'm a mac user I'd prefer to stay in the mac "world", but I have no idea if the creamware cards works better on a PC context or not...Eventually, does the Os9 actually support also sfp 4.5 and 5.0 in the next future?

i was using OS9 happily up until SFP3.1c, but have never tried 4.0/4.5 on one. Scope 5.0 will be OSX compatible anyways, which is what i'm waiting for. i'm guessing Scope 5.0 WILL NOT be OS9 compatible, so that's worth considering for the future.

I have a solid background in Macs starting 1985...
imho it doesn't matter much under which OS you run Scope if it serves as an external sound generation/processing module (communicating via Adat busses with your main system).
There may be a concern with the PCI bandwidth of a G4 machine if you have demanding reverbs.
I never really tested that, but my PCI G3 Mac seemed to have no such 'bandwidth' at all...

There are quite some devices that don't run under Mac OS9, so the most universal, simple and cheap solution would be (imho) a P3 based Intel 815 box under Win98. Asus CUSL and TUSL mainboards are classics in this context and still available in quantities for a few bucks on eBay.
You really don't need more to run a sound processing module and you actually don't have to mess with the OS (after installation) at all. It boots, loads SFP and that's about it.

The installation of the OS may look kind of wiered if you have only Mac experience, but it's not too demanding. After all you can ignore all about tweaks and tuning as you don't intend to run a sequencer and such stuff on the Windoze box. I've run it from a 1GB IDE flash drive for years. No problems.

If you don't have demanding reverbs (several instances of Masterverb Pro and in particular the excellent SonicTimeworks P100 and A100 devices) and don't mind the stuff that won't run under MacOS you may as well do the same with a G4 Sawtooth or Quicksilver box.
But you can bet that no such machine will ever run Scope 5 under OSX - I wouldn't even hold my breath on the G5.
Admittedly I have no idea how complex 'universal binary' is for products relatively close to the hardware layer of the machine, but I wouldn't expect much efforts for an architecture that is discontinued by Apple since several years now.
You may have a fine machine, tho... to be honest Apple has a more than slight drop in production quality since they switched to Intel...

cheers, Tom

Thank you very much, Mr Arkadin and Astroman..
Well, learning this..I don't think I'll gor for a G3 or a G4 machine..(I WANT to use demanding reverbs, no limits!) Maybe the best thing to do is to reinstall XP on my PC P4 and update motherboard drivers. This probably will fix all the actual issues on it.
And then...save the money and buy my third Pulsar 2 card..(used) It is surprisingly cheap right now
(how many creamware cards could I install on the same machine?)
Thanks again
Ste

yes format your c hard disk and use less programs. that will do

jetmoon wrote: (how many creamware cards could I install on the same machine?)

Ste

depending on how many pci slots you have, 3.

garyb wrote:

jetmoon wrote: (how many creamware cards could I install on the same machine?)

Ste

depending on how many pci slots you have, 3.

Including Syncplate, or do you mean i.e. 3 PulsarII cards + Syncplate ?
Thanks a lot
Ste

the syncplate only takes a slot on the case, not the motherboard, so yes, 3 cards plus syncplate.