Hello Forum,
might it be possible to use a scope pro card ( 15 DSP, classic version ) on a OSX86 10.5x machine with PCI slots by installing the Xite-1 OSX drivers ?
Or, alternatively, is there a low cost version of excite in the 1000 EUR range available ?
I don´ t need soooo much DSP power and use scope for routing / monitoring and EQing. (don´ t even use more then 50% of my 15 DSP card) .
Scope Prof.15 DSP with Xite-1 on OSX86 Machine with PCI ?
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next to nothing
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I've already spent some time thinking about this and am already prepping to test a few OSX86 flavors on my Athlon 64 3000+ / Nforce3 board. I also have access to a DP35DP board and will try and test that as well.
The DP35DP is likely a better choice overall, as the Mac's these days are on similar Intel hardware and therefore should work out of the box. Also, they have 3PCI slots and a few PCI-E slots too, so it'd make a nice transition machine to the newer hardware. i.e. move my current environment to OSX, then when I have more money saved, I can empty out the PCI slots, use a PCI-E, and bob's your uncle! I don't have to buy a G5 to use OSX with current hardware and then buy a whole new Intel-based Mac to make use of my several thousand dollar investment in the X-CITE.
Cheaper than buying an Intel Mac too. A LOT cheaper.
That's assuming the OSX86 hacks don't make OSX wildly unstable for real-time audio. Crossing fingers.
--Sam
The DP35DP is likely a better choice overall, as the Mac's these days are on similar Intel hardware and therefore should work out of the box. Also, they have 3PCI slots and a few PCI-E slots too, so it'd make a nice transition machine to the newer hardware. i.e. move my current environment to OSX, then when I have more money saved, I can empty out the PCI slots, use a PCI-E, and bob's your uncle! I don't have to buy a G5 to use OSX with current hardware and then buy a whole new Intel-based Mac to make use of my several thousand dollar investment in the X-CITE.
Cheaper than buying an Intel Mac too. A LOT cheaper.That's assuming the OSX86 hacks don't make OSX wildly unstable for real-time audio. Crossing fingers.
--Sam
I have build a rockstable custom Mac Pro based on a Gigabyte P35-DS4 Board and a E4400@3,4 GHz. OS = Leo 10.5.2. Graphics is 2 x MSI NA 7600 passiv cooled ( NVidea 7600 ). It works rockstable with 4 Monitors @DVI, Of course the software is properly licesed. Logic Pro 8 works like a charm. The only restrictions is: no sleep mode and only 3 GByte RAM when IDE / JMicron controller is active.
The Board has 2 x PCIe 16x, 3 x PCI 1x and 2 x PCI classic slots.
It would be exciting to test if the Xite Software (or Scope 5) would work with the classic Board mounted on PCI.
If there is a chance to test this ( maybe a limited developer version, really just for testing ) just post or mail. I will post the results here!
The Board has 2 x PCIe 16x, 3 x PCI 1x and 2 x PCI classic slots.
It would be exciting to test if the Xite Software (or Scope 5) would work with the classic Board mounted on PCI.
If there is a chance to test this ( maybe a limited developer version, really just for testing ) just post or mail. I will post the results here!
Last edited by gomera on Sat Mar 15, 2008 1:25 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Shayne White
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My guess is that OS X support for Scope is only Intel compatible, not PowerPC. There are no Intel Macs with legacy PCI. Therefore, to bring OS X compatibility to the old cards is only possible with a Magma box, and there are hardly any users of those.
SC did NOT say that Scope 5.0 for the old cards would be OS X compatible, only Vista. They only make the OS X claim for Xite.
If I'm wrong, perhaps some enlightened user can correct me.
Shayne
SC did NOT say that Scope 5.0 for the old cards would be OS X compatible, only Vista. They only make the OS X claim for Xite.
If I'm wrong, perhaps some enlightened user can correct me.
Shayne
Melodious Synth Radio
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http://www.binary-sea.com
http://www.melodious-synth.com
Melodious synth music by Binary Sea
http://www.binary-sea.com
Is JMicron the brand of the chip or am I being dense? I imagine that the IDE bus drags the OS back into 32bit-land. Using all SATA (dvd drive as well) should allow us to use the much lusted after 8GB of RAM. (Mmmmmm, BFD2.... Ivory..... Women)gomera wrote:The only restrictions is: no sleep mode and only 3 GByte RAM when IDE / JMicron controller is active.
--Sam
yes, the JMicron is the Controller for the old IDE channels (1x Master and 1 x slave parallel, floppy control, 2 S-ATA ports). You can remove the .kext (driver) and/or deactivate the controller in BIOS, then the 3 Gig Problem is solved. As dehuszar mentioned, the current driver is only 32bit and therefore the System gets totally unstable adding more than 3 GB RAM.
If you deactivate the JMIcron you are restricted the native S-ATA Controller which gives you 6 Ports. But o.k., this is still 2 more than a Original Mac Pro provides!
Altough Mac Pro has no more PCI Slots ( I guess to make Digidesign happy ..
) I found some PCI hardware nevertheless works!
I needed a second network so i tried a simple, old 3com 100 MBit Card - worked out of the Box.
Terratec PCI Soundcards also seems to work.
So the fact PCI is absend means NOT PCI will not work!
All in all OSX86 machines are a real alternative to standard Macs and here in europe its not illegal to do this. The Apple EULA violates european laws when requiring original hardware. The bootloader is a open source system. Of course you have to buy a proper license. But then you are not extradited to apple, you can create and update the machine as YOU want. This will create a new kind of Mac users I guess.
And always remember: some years ago Apple has stolen logic !
If you deactivate the JMIcron you are restricted the native S-ATA Controller which gives you 6 Ports. But o.k., this is still 2 more than a Original Mac Pro provides!
Altough Mac Pro has no more PCI Slots ( I guess to make Digidesign happy ..
) I found some PCI hardware nevertheless works!I needed a second network so i tried a simple, old 3com 100 MBit Card - worked out of the Box.
Terratec PCI Soundcards also seems to work.
So the fact PCI is absend means NOT PCI will not work!
All in all OSX86 machines are a real alternative to standard Macs and here in europe its not illegal to do this. The Apple EULA violates european laws when requiring original hardware. The bootloader is a open source system. Of course you have to buy a proper license. But then you are not extradited to apple, you can create and update the machine as YOU want. This will create a new kind of Mac users I guess.
And always remember: some years ago Apple has stolen logic !
Well, I doubt Sonic-Core would be interested in supporting such a configuration, but that doesn't mean there's not a demand. And if the OSX version of SFP5 doesn't run on PowerPC installations, then it'd be the only way to run OSX against the current gen cards.
As long as Sonic-Core isn't advocating the setting up of an OSX86 rig, I don't see how it would kill anyone to say if it can be done, even if only in theory.
As long as Sonic-Core isn't advocating the setting up of an OSX86 rig, I don't see how it would kill anyone to say if it can be done, even if only in theory.
Oh man that's pretty sketchy... it's one thing researching it on a forum to build yourself, but a company selling these things? I don't think it will be too long before Apple hunts them down, and rightly so IMHO - they are blatantly infringing the OSX license for commercial profit. It's no different to selling warez.
From the FAQs:
Can I run updates on my Open Computer?
The answer is yes and no. No because there are some updates that are decidedly non-safe. Yes because most updates are not non-safe. It's best to check on InsanelyMac for this information but when in doubt don't update it. You may have to reinstall your OS X if it is a non-safe update.
The fact is that major OS version updates require at least some kext fiddling to get them to work, ideally on an imaged drive so you can go back and try again if you mess it up. This is the obvious downside and one they don't have an answer for, beyond "look at the forums". If I was going to look at the forums I might as well source the components and build the box for cheap to start with
From the FAQs:
Can I run updates on my Open Computer?
The answer is yes and no. No because there are some updates that are decidedly non-safe. Yes because most updates are not non-safe. It's best to check on InsanelyMac for this information but when in doubt don't update it. You may have to reinstall your OS X if it is a non-safe update.
The fact is that major OS version updates require at least some kext fiddling to get them to work, ideally on an imaged drive so you can go back and try again if you mess it up. This is the obvious downside and one they don't have an answer for, beyond "look at the forums". If I was going to look at the forums I might as well source the components and build the box for cheap to start with
That company needs to be taken out quick. Something like that has the potential to actually screw up a hobbyist scene.
Incidentally I managed to get OSX working on my old dual Xeon box (p4dc6+) although the cpu's are sse2 only so the sse3 emulation was a bit dodgy. I was initially also using a really old OSX that I had laying around from my G4 days and found it to be very difficult (I think it was 10.3.x or even 10.2.x), so I had to rely on a 10.4.8 iso I 'borrowed' from somewhere. It was mostly a proof of concept effort so I didn't bother to purchase a Tiger dvd, I simply wiped out my efforts once I got it working.
On my current machine (which is essentialy a mac pro with a 5400 intel chipset running 2x e5430 quadcore xeons) things were so much easier. Buy a 10.5 (Leopard) dvd, grab PC-EFI v8 and install. Update up to 10.5.2 for modern graphics card support (I'm lucky that they decided to support the 8800GT as I bought one 3 weeks before the announcement of the new mac pros in january). I cheated and used an existing hack to get my graphics card working (nvinject) instead of using the manual injection method. Neither is 'worse' but the manual method allows you to compensate for the fact that most PC parts don't have an EFI aware bios image (as a Mac-compatible card would). The only other sticking point for me was lack of support for my 2 onboard Intel pro/1000 gigabit ports, an old Intel pro/100 pci card fixed that though it seems kind of stupid to have to use that in OSX when I can use my gigabit just fine in windoze.
So, instead of using a 7 year old version of logic which can only see 1 of my 8 cores, sometime in the next few weeks I'll order up some Logic Studio goodness and see how things pan out. I've been using Bidule to test some Au versions of various plugins I own and things work great.
My osx86 exercises are really just to get me by until I can afford a Macbook Pro, which is where Logic will wind up. I had to get the desktop first as I actually make my living doing things *other* than music, and have to give preference to that.
Now, I should mention that when I built this machine the Mac Pro lineup had some serious flaws, which included their ancient graphics card support (I game occasionally but more importantly use Softimage XSI). Even the Quadro they offered was almost 3 years out of date. Had I seen the prices they offered a month after I ordered my parts I probably would have just gone with the Mac Pro. They're undercutting HP/Dell by about $1000 on their hardware prices which almost made me gasp. As long as you avoid overspeccing your RAM & HD's from the Mac store you can actually get access to hardware as cheap or perhaps even cheaper than you can build it yourself (due to the inflated prices from the still limited availability of 1600mhz 'E' xeon parts and the extreme retail cost of 800mhz ddr2 fb-dimms).
Now obviously Apple still doesn't offer a decent counterpart to a PC in the single slot priceranges, which is one of the main reasons the 'hackintosh' scene flourishes. The fixed nature of their midrange models is really a downer. Also, if I wasn't annoyed at Ableton Live's arrangement page & automation lanes I'd probably just stick with PC. However since I've been 'stuck' on Logic 5.51 for several years, I've investigated all of the other options. Reaper is actually great for the most part but there are some things about Logic I still just can't beat. Ableton is good for what it does well (in some cases better than Logic and I'll likely run it alongside) but when it comes to the final mixing stages (80% finished and beyond) I'm finding it lacking in flexibility.
Incidentally I managed to get OSX working on my old dual Xeon box (p4dc6+) although the cpu's are sse2 only so the sse3 emulation was a bit dodgy. I was initially also using a really old OSX that I had laying around from my G4 days and found it to be very difficult (I think it was 10.3.x or even 10.2.x), so I had to rely on a 10.4.8 iso I 'borrowed' from somewhere. It was mostly a proof of concept effort so I didn't bother to purchase a Tiger dvd, I simply wiped out my efforts once I got it working.
On my current machine (which is essentialy a mac pro with a 5400 intel chipset running 2x e5430 quadcore xeons) things were so much easier. Buy a 10.5 (Leopard) dvd, grab PC-EFI v8 and install. Update up to 10.5.2 for modern graphics card support (I'm lucky that they decided to support the 8800GT as I bought one 3 weeks before the announcement of the new mac pros in january). I cheated and used an existing hack to get my graphics card working (nvinject) instead of using the manual injection method. Neither is 'worse' but the manual method allows you to compensate for the fact that most PC parts don't have an EFI aware bios image (as a Mac-compatible card would). The only other sticking point for me was lack of support for my 2 onboard Intel pro/1000 gigabit ports, an old Intel pro/100 pci card fixed that though it seems kind of stupid to have to use that in OSX when I can use my gigabit just fine in windoze.
So, instead of using a 7 year old version of logic which can only see 1 of my 8 cores, sometime in the next few weeks I'll order up some Logic Studio goodness and see how things pan out. I've been using Bidule to test some Au versions of various plugins I own and things work great.
My osx86 exercises are really just to get me by until I can afford a Macbook Pro, which is where Logic will wind up. I had to get the desktop first as I actually make my living doing things *other* than music, and have to give preference to that.
Now, I should mention that when I built this machine the Mac Pro lineup had some serious flaws, which included their ancient graphics card support (I game occasionally but more importantly use Softimage XSI). Even the Quadro they offered was almost 3 years out of date. Had I seen the prices they offered a month after I ordered my parts I probably would have just gone with the Mac Pro. They're undercutting HP/Dell by about $1000 on their hardware prices which almost made me gasp. As long as you avoid overspeccing your RAM & HD's from the Mac store you can actually get access to hardware as cheap or perhaps even cheaper than you can build it yourself (due to the inflated prices from the still limited availability of 1600mhz 'E' xeon parts and the extreme retail cost of 800mhz ddr2 fb-dimms).
Now obviously Apple still doesn't offer a decent counterpart to a PC in the single slot priceranges, which is one of the main reasons the 'hackintosh' scene flourishes. The fixed nature of their midrange models is really a downer. Also, if I wasn't annoyed at Ableton Live's arrangement page & automation lanes I'd probably just stick with PC. However since I've been 'stuck' on Logic 5.51 for several years, I've investigated all of the other options. Reaper is actually great for the most part but there are some things about Logic I still just can't beat. Ableton is good for what it does well (in some cases better than Logic and I'll likely run it alongside) but when it comes to the final mixing stages (80% finished and beyond) I'm finding it lacking in flexibility.