New DAW with old Scope SP card - or not?

[spoimala]

I was some time away from Scope things, well, ten years or so But now is the time to come back, and I still have my beloved 15 DSP card collecting dust.. but now is the time to make some use to it!

I started designing a new PC DAW only to find out that PCI slots are not that common in todays mobos

So what are my options here?
- Are there any decent new mobos with PCI slots that support the newest things (fast ram, fast disks and powerful cpu)?
- Are there any adapters available that I could use to connect Scope card with using - say USB-C?
- Is there any upgrade path from Scope to XITE?
- Or should I just forget the Scope and do something else?

[dante]

You can still get motherboards with PCI -probably Gary, Valis and Dawman would be able to guide in that respect. I had both cards and XITE-1D but now the cards are retired since I decided to forego them in favour of a Z390 motherboard supporting an i9 with 8 x Intel cores but no PCI slots. The upgrade path from PCI to XITE is mainly just transfer of devices I think (GaryB to clarify). But since PCIe is going to be around for a very long time and XITE/XITE-1D is compatible with machines running 8 or maybe even more Intel cores - its the path forward for Scope. Many (like myself) keep the cards in a second older machine.

[valis]

There's quite a few options for mainboards listed in the this subforum and the troubleshooting one. Read some threads, I think DAWman posted an MSI one that'll be a bit harder to find recently but there should be others mentioned in that thread and others. GaryB often tells you what chipsets are the best bet.

As for adapters, there are some PCIe > PCI adapters that some seem to have used to relatively good degrees of success. There's also Magma chassis but these are quite costly. Personally, I'd go for a system built around Scope/

The only upgrade path from Scope to XITE I'm aware of is selling your cards to finance the upgrade.

Scope is great, if you still remember it and have a workflow that can utilize it or adapt to it. Otherwise let me know how much you want for that 15 dsp card

[astroman]

The only weak spot in Scope PCI is the transfer of delay/reverb buffers between DSPs and memory, leading to the infamous PCI overflow error.
It's not as bad today as it was for a while, but the performance of the old BX and 965 chipsets will probably never be reached again.

I gave up fairly early and simply delegated reverb to the native CPU, mostly using Valhalla DSP plugins... and would use Warp69's Relab Developement's plugins another valid option (if funds allowed...)
The unexpeced part of the story: I actually like the Valhalla 'sound color' a lot if mixed with Scope.
There are only 2 Scope reverbs still engaged on my system: Early First's 2016 and the (fantastic) free UM1280 by Relab.
From the delay section Celmo's Vintage Delay and Tape Echo have survived.

Since moving the main reverb away from Scope, PCI overflow has never been a problem.
But I agree with Dante to check the hints to proven motherboards.

[garyb]

actually, the more current motherboards work quite well, just about as well as the old BX and definitely as well as the 965. there is no reason to be stuck on a very old computer.

there are certainly new motherboards with PCI slots, but they will be commercial products, not gamer stuff.
the previous generation of chipsets, z87 and z97, work really well. look, PCI is obsolete for almost 10 years, but that doesn't mean that nobody makes products. Dawman recently posted about a commercial mb with a lot of PCI slots.

the upgrade path to XITE is simply to sell the PCI card and get an XITE. Scope is the same in both products.

usb-c has a lot of bandwidth, theoretically, but it is not made for the type of data transfer involved. while true Thunderbolt WILL work, as it is just PCIe in spec, usb-c disguised as Thunderbolt will NOT work.

forget Scope? well, you CAN do that. you have done it for a while. there are things that Scope does, that cannot be done any other way, practically. so, if you need it, you can use it. there is no reason not to mix native, hardware and Scope.

[spoimala]

Many are referring to Dawman having posted something recently, but I seem unable to find anything recent. Where is mr. Dawman, help me

The problem with previous generations is that they do not support newer CPUs.

@garyb : If there are new mobos with PCI, would mind giving some examples? I've asked a few local stores and they all say they either don't have any, or only have one that supports 7th gen Intel CPUs.

What do you mean by "commercial products vs gamer stuff"?

[bosone]

you can always use a PIC-e to PCI converter
it should work

https://forums.scopeusers.com/viewtopic ... 19&t=36020

I tried it, but it could handle just one Scope card and it had not increased the PCI bandwidth for me, meaning that i could load just as many masterverb as with the standard PCI connector.

[spoimala]

I was looking at this: anyone has experience?
https://www.startech.com/Cards-Adapters ... d~PEX1PCI1

[garyb]

startech? poor performance.

difference between commercial and gamer? uhhhh...i think the names say it all.

some examples from this forum:
https://forums.scopeusers.com/viewtopic ... 19&t=35597
https://forums.scopeusers.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=36386

[dante]

Many are referring to Dawman having posted something recently, but I seem unable to find anything recent. Where is mr. Dawman, help me

I've sent him a PM.

[spoimala]

startech? poor performance.

How poor? Any better alternatives?

difference between commercial and gamer? uhhhh...i think the names say it all.

You mean professional? Like a server board or...? Whatever the category, I'm fine if it does not support overclocking or whatever gamer feats.

some examples from this forum:
https://forums.scopeusers.com/viewtopic ... 19&t=35597
https://forums.scopeusers.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=36386

The latter is missing M.2 so is not really an option for anything serious these days.

iBase boards look ok, but I have yet to find a place that sells them.

This is the best(?) I can find, but still seems to be retty rare at dealers: https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/C2 ... v-10/sp#sp

[garyb]

dealers just want to impress the kids.

can't do anything without m.2? then you know your priorities.

PCI has been officially obsolete for years. if you use PCI, you will have to give something up, most likely.

[Spielraum]

? set your prio 1 to scope
! brainstorm / system consideration is always when my scope is birth:
>3 primary systems<
1.) newest (win10 ...if i need)
2.) sandbox, what ever (win7, backup exchangeable)
3.) winXP sp3 (scope important for me)
then the hardware maximization / modernization
... guaranteed fun for me and my groud

or I keep my system, working well. and i think that a moog55 is only screwed on for maintenance purposes...

[valis]

? set your prio 1 to scope
! brainstorm / system consideration is always when my scope is birth:
>3 primary systems<
1.) newest (win10 ...if i need)
2.) sandbox, what ever (win7, backup exchangeable)
3.) winXP sp3 (scope important for me)
then the hardware maximization / modernization
... guaranteed fun for me and my groud

or I keep my system, working well. and i think that a moog55 is only screwed on for maintenance purposes...

This is correct, what is your priority?

Scope works fine in a machine that has a modern CPU & GPU that has PCI slots, but as Gary states you'll be more limited in configurations as you need a board with PCI slots. However Scope ALSO works just fine alongside a speed demon sporting dual NVMe/M.2 slots and the latest GPU+CPU. It, by housing it in a machine built to order and connecting to your 'main' machine via ADAT/AES/SPDIF/Analog i/o & MIDI. In fact for me this is my Scope machine, System 3.) in Spielraum's list above and that machine has run consistently since 2001 when it was built (it's an older Dual Xeon on one of the first P4 era Xeon chips).

[spoimala]

dealers just want to impress the kids.

can't do anything without m.2? then you know your priorities.

PCI has been officially obsolete for years. if you use PCI, you will have to give something up, most likely.

That's not helping much.

I'm willing to give something up, but my priority is, this will be my main office computer and being a software developer, I want as fast disk i/o as possible. I can give up on some CPU. 8th gen Intel core could work well. Or a decent Ryzen. And I don't want to have two machines.

Currently I think I'm going to build my dream machine and give Startech a try (or some else type of adapter if any of you have suggestions). If it won't work, then... maybe sell the card and jump into a new world. Would be a pity, as I really liked how the SFP worked back then.

[garyb]

the XITE works the same way.

why is that not helpful? i'm not Harry Potter. if you must have all the most modern parts in one computer, you should just purchase an XITE(if you want Scope). i wouldn't bother with the Startech adapter, unless you don't need PCI performance, per se.

[spoimala]

I already told you I don't need "all the most modern parts".
What would help, for example, would be what kind of limitations I would encounter with Startech. That I can use only 5 Masterverbs? I'm perfectly fine with that.

[valis]

Keep in mind not everyone has time to read every post in every thread in full, so remembering what you may have said versus the 3 or 4 other people who are currently asking technical questions may not be feasable when someone is time limited.

The limitations for limited PCI bandwidth are already documented, PCI overflows when using devices that tax the host system (such as reverbs when using delay lines) are 1 concern, but there may be others. Also experience has shown with other offerings that Startech is a vendor that has perhaps a lot of variability in their component choices, so one part may perform dramatically different than another. Only way to really know for your purposes is to try it out.

That being said, if you rely on your primary machine for income and thus need a predictable, billable machine, why not consider Scope in a secondary machine? Best of both worlds, at least imho...

[spoimala]

That being said, if you rely on your primary machine for income and thus need a predictable, billable machine, why not consider Scope in a secondary machine? Best of both worlds, at least imho...

Mostly for ease of use and comfort. Don't want to need to fill my room with computers And jump between two machines. But I guess it could be an option though. Then I guess I would need an ADAT card for my primary machine, provided I'd like to use primary as main daw, and only use Scope as a synth / fx prosessor as an external unit? Or what would you suggest?

[valis]

That's how I use it. RME Multiface II on my DAW box, ADAT+AES to Scope (10 digital channels back & forth) and MIDI. The reason I prefer this is because Scope works great with quite a few configurations from the past 12-14 years, and I can focus on building that to run Scope as stably as possible without compromising on my other needs. It also means I can separate out my workflows on top of machine stability.