PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

hello,

When I want playback an audio CD there are some cuts into the flown ... (I tried VLC 1.1.11 and VLC 2)

Do you have this issue ?

baba

I'm not sure what you mean by "cuts into the flown", but I am having problems with VLC v2.0.4 and Scope v5.1 PCI. I'm running in a Windows 7 x64 environment, and the audio signal is plagued by dropouts. I have VLC configured to play .wav files through the Microsoft Soundmapper, but I've tried configuring it to play directly through Scope (Sonic Core DSP Board) and it make no difference. Since VLC plays perfectly well through the onboard Realtek system as well as the Creative X-Fi (PCIe) system, I assume this is a problem with Scope v5.1, and probably something no-one is ever going to bother investigating.

I have the impression that Scope v5.1 was developed under pressure from users (like me) who wished to continue using their old Creamware SCOPE PCI cards in a contemporary 64 bit OS, like Windows 7/8. While I'm happy that a 64 bit driver/system was finally offered by Sonic Core, I was a bit upset to see the price tag (200 euro) and even more upset to see the list of "features" one is advised to disable in order to use it:

Intel EIST
Intel C State
C1E Support
Overspeed Protection
Hyperthreading
Execute Bit Support
Set Limit CPUID MaxVal to 3
Intel Virtual Tech
Intel VT-d Tech

It's not that I'm particularly attached to any of the above features (although all of them are useful) but more the fact that the list screams out "we did the MINIMUM amount of work required to make this offering available". Scope v5.1 is not a deep re-design of the original 32 bit code, but more a "fix and patch as necessary" kind of job to migrate to a 64 bit environment. I suppose that's to be expected, given that the PCI boards are no longer available and Sonic Core would much rather sell you one of their XITE-1 units than support old Creamware hardware. I'm not complaining (much). But the fine details of working out the bugs between v5.1 and specific applications (like VLC) are unlikely to ever receive any attention. I'd let this one go...

I dont think S|C can do ANY work at all to make a host system be able to keep up with its hardware.

so you don't think the 2 1/2 years that development took is enough effort? you don't think that the company should charge enough money for this to stay in business? maybe they should have just told you to pound sand and give up using your old cards at all....

so you think that NON-REALTIME features should be retained to work with a REALTIME system and don't care that reality doesn't allow this? all of the "features" that get turned off are power saving, except for turbo and HT, which are about VIRTUAL cores accellerating certain processes. the only problem with this is that it takes REAL cores to do the calculations for those VIRTUAL cores. this does not work in REALTIME. the power saving features allow the system to run the CPU at reduced power until a process asks for more power. a REALTIME system requires that the sytem is running at full power ALREADY. turning off all those "features" actually IMPROVES sytem performance.

actually, v6 is more the COMPLETE rewrite that you ask for, but that's an even bigger job than the 2 1/2 year v5.1 job. the new drivers being developed are slated to work with v5 as well. THE COMPANY MUST MAKE MONEY IN ORDER TO DO THIS!

many act like this is an easy job to have done what has already been done. if that's so, you can get an Analog Devices SDK and study up on your C and C++ and write the software. if it is an easy thing to do, then that would explain the hundreds of other dsp systems that have been manufactured and have been successfull.

well said... and to add a little bit:
how long did it take UAD to get their 2nd generation of cards to function ?
that's an economically healthy company making a 1 million profit from name heritage...
and another million from selling a worthless piece of video gear as a DSP booster for years

but all they got is a simple uploader for a few k bytes of DSP-machine code
linked into the VST chain

Scope is at least 10 times more complex, as it's a smart enviroment that delivers a complete processing chain
(not isolated plugins)
still UAD had a hell of a battle to roll the sh*t out

on topic: I had exactly the same issues with media playback with the RME Hammerfall
it was related to some kernel streaming WDM blabla (and failed already in XP btw...)
had to buy a HDSP card as RME clearly refused any support for the older cards

I did not use VLC at that point in time anymore, but GOM Player
According to my memory that worked with Scope in Win7/64
made me think ...damn, that card's more than 10 years old...

cheers, Tom

Coming up 12 years for my original Pulsar, which is still in service and being used to review the latest release synth (2012) from sur-audio, all parameters change and morphing in realtime between note on and note off which is more realtime than some of my hardware synths

I must have struck a nerve

Well, I was only answering babaorum's post of last March because I recently discovered the incompatibility with VLC. I searched the WWW for any possibility that someone else might have found a solution and I stumbled upon his post.

1.) I'm not upset that VLC and Scope v5.1 don't play well together. That would be WAY down on my list of priorities. I was suggesting to babaorum that he forget about this incompatibility because it wasn't important.

2.) I'm very glad Sonic Core did develop a 64 bit solution, and I bought it.

3.) I've been using old Creamware boards since the first months they were available. I can't even remember when that was, but I'm getting old too and I'm forgetting lots of stuff...

4.) Just for the record, so you know Garyb, I was a senior software architect at a fortune 500 company for 13 years. I specialized in real-time embedded systems (instruments). I've been programming computers longer than most people who read this forum have been alive . I don't do much programming anymore, I don't find it to be very satisfying work, and as a consequence I'm no longer up to date with all the latest technologies and tools. But when I finally switched my DAW from XP 32 to Window 7 64 (the reason I bought v5.1) I was forced to drag out Visual Studio 2010 and convert all my custom tools from the older managed .NET code to the new CLI C++ 64 bit standard. I may not be a Microsoft wiz kid, but I certainly understand and appreciate the difference between real-time and non real-time design and development. When I was doing this professionally, we would design and build entire DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENTS built around emulators to make the development of the actual products easier/faster/more reliable.

5.) As for power saving features, the demand and supply of power is rarely a real time event, anymore than turning on/off the monitor or disk drives is a real time event. Power can be requested in advance and maintained until it's no longer needed. Features like Execute Bit Support have nothing to do with either power or virtualization. HT is a real issue, and I would turn it off anyway.

6.) If I had been in charge of developing v5.1, I most likely would have taken the shortest/fastest route to the goal for precisely the same reasons that Sonic Core probably did – MONEY. The user base for Creamware boards is small and dwindling, and the economic return on developing software exclusively for that base is small. I don't know, but I suspect, that the PCI version of v5.1 was developed in parallel with the XITE-1 version. Makes sense to do so.

I paid my 200 euro. From a technology perspective, I got what I expected. I have some issues with Sonic Core, but those issues have much more to do with their business practices than technical shortcomings.

So relax all. The world isn't going to fall apart because VLC and Scope are incompatible, or because HT and Scope are incompatible. As long as my tools (all of them) serve well the goal of music composition, I'm happy.

that's all fine. i just get tired of people complaining about having to pay for software after a company that never made their hardware keeps their stuff usable for them. fwiw, VLC works just fine in 32bit environments. obviously, a product like that is not critical to music production, but obviously, it's best if one can use anything that they might want to for any reason.

odlumb, if all goes as it should, a person with your experience will be able to customize Scope into anything that you want once v6 is ready.

Great, looking forward to V6, I LOVE being able to solve my own problems and customize my environment.

And ya just never know what you might discover if you snoop around a bit!

For those who may be interested, the VLC/SCOPE v5.1 64 incompatibility problem seems to be squarely in the VLC camp.

VLC v2.0.4 and SCOPE v5.1 64 work fine together as long as the sample rate of the file VLC is trying to stream is the same as the current hardware sample clock. VLC plays a 48 kHz file through SCOPE just fine when SCOPE is running at 48 Khz. In the past, VLC could stream a 44.1 kHz file to SCOPE running at 48 kHz (or vice versa) with no problems, but apparently no longer.

A problem with on-the-fly resampling IMHO Not a SCOPE problem at all.