Luna2+KT7A/RAID=problems???

boohoo · Post by **boohoo** » Fri Jun 07, 2002 1:25 pm

Hi
I was on the verge of buying a Luna2 but have read a number of negative reports relating to socket-A systems particularly those utilising ABIT motherboards.
My current system comprises of a KT7A-RAID (HPT370 chipset)Athlon 1.4Ghz 512MB 133 SDRAM.
Will I have problems?
Will this card allow me to utilise its DSPs with all Direct Sound/VST plug-in's or am I limited to those distributed by Creamware (if I cant use TC Native parametric eq's forget it!)
Can I really run these plug-ins in real-time or does this depend on my overall system configuration.
Whats all this talk about slow DMA channels or DMA channels not running at optimum speed?
I dont have a clue about any of this.
Can someone enlighten me please?
Cheers.

[ This Message was edited by: boohoo on 2002-06-08 13:01 ]

remixme · Post by **remixme** » Sat Jun 08, 2002 2:22 am

I have the exact same motherboard although I don't use the Raid, and you will have to disable it, along with USB if you hope to use any pulsar card.
After a few tweaks you will be able to get sound without crackles, but only at about 13ms.
I would not recommend doing so take I mean take a look at my thread at all the steps you have to go through to get decent performance.

http://www.planetz.com/forums/viewtopic ... &forum=3&7

So no, not recommended.

boohoo · Post by **boohoo** » Sat Jun 08, 2002 6:36 am

Thanks
Thats a real shame.So why do Creamware manufacture a device that is so choosey about the motherboard it operates on?
From what I have read Creamware consider VIA chipsets to be sub-standard, yet the motherboard reviews I have read rated the KT7A-RAID highly.
I suppose it depends on the application.

[ This Message was edited by: boohoo on 2002-06-08 07:38 ]

remixme · Post by **remixme** » Sat Jun 08, 2002 8:11 am

As discussed elsewhere on this forum, VIA are to blame not creamware, they forogt to implement a feature that almost all pci cards use called 'bus parking'.
This caused problems with soundcards such as the SBlive, however this could be got round in software patches.

Creamware cards need a machine with decent pci performance.

VIA has been continously slated by everyone who wants to use raid/sound/scsi as being seriously underpar.

The reason the board received rave reviews is because your average reviewer wants cheap raid/ overclocking abilities/ and a cheap price. For your average person this is what it provides.

For creamware it is not upto the job.

remixme · Post by **remixme** » Sat Jun 08, 2002 8:14 am

Oh this is not limited to ABit motherboards, it extends to every VIA chipset motherboard which unfortunely includes practically every athlon motherboard, apart from those made by amd or with an amd chipset, both are hard to find.
The problem may possibly be corrected with the new KT400 chipset from VIA, but I wouldn't hold my breath, move to intel while you will still get a decent price for your existing hardware.

boohoo · Post by **boohoo** » Sat Jun 08, 2002 11:59 am

Thanks
Thats fair enough.
Did VIA literally 'forget' to implement bus-parking on the chip-set? Or is there a specific reason for omitting it?
What about the patch, did it make any difference?
If this is already answered please steer me in that direction.(I've read Darth etc.)
Its a pity I've got one of those Intel hang ups otherwise I probably would switch over.
This is all starting to get very depressing.

[ This Message was edited by: boohoo on 2002-06-08 13:05 ]

[ This Message was edited by: boohoo on 2002-06-08 13:18 ]

[ This Message was edited by: boohoo on 2002-06-08 13:28 ]

boohoo · Post by **boohoo** » Sat Jun 08, 2002 12:58 pm

Has anyone tried both the 'unofficial'George Breese patch(PCI latency)and the VIA 1.04 patch? Is there any difference? Did they fix the problems?

remixme · Post by **remixme** » Sat Jun 08, 2002 2:51 pm

I've experimented with many differnet versions of the unofficial patch, version 0.19d is best for the KT133a chipset. As described in the thread listed above. The VIA one is useless, only helpful for promise raid controllers.

Trust me, when you get to the point where you get acceptible pulsar performance, stability becomes an issue, and vice versa.
It is no way to go about making music.

I been here, got the t-shirt, the sweater, you name it.
It is not worth the hassle.
Either buy a different sound card or an intel motherboard solution.

You will save yourself a lot of time and money in the long run!!!

[ This Message was edited by: remixme on 2002-06-08 15:51 ]

boohoo · Post by **boohoo** » Sun Jun 09, 2002 4:17 am

Thanks.
Finacially I'm not in a position to replace my motherboard, and my priority right now is improving the capabilities of the digital audio applications I'm using.
I was originally going to buy just an I/0 card such as the RME Digi 96/8 PST but for the same money I could get the Luna2 giving me the power of the Sharc DSP's.
The ESI Waveterminal 192X also looks good for the money but are all PCI card going to be problematic?
Are there issues with any other cards that anyone knows of?
I actually only bought the KT7A-Raid because it has an ISA slot, the only board I could find that has one (I wasn't prepared to outlay fo a new PCI based MIDI Express interface on top of everything else) and the RAID facility sounded useful.

boohoo · Post by **boohoo** » Sun Jun 09, 2002 5:10 am

Another point, made to me when dicussing what to purchase, was that as the market for sound cards with extra DSP power is relatively new, more vendors will start offering products, prices will become increasingly competitive and technology will improve (as it always does)so its not the best time to rush out and buy one if the budget is limited.
As far as I'm aware there are currently only 3 main players, the Creamware Scope Fusion platform,TC Works Powercore, and Universal Audio Powered Plug-In's, all of which I believe are being sold at a prices that are far in excess of what they should be, I mean how costly is it to fabricate a PCI DSP card? The sooner this market opens up the better.

[ This Message was edited by: boohoo on 2002-06-09 06:13 ]

jupiter8 · Post by **jupiter8** » Sun Jun 09, 2002 10:45 am

On 2002-06-09 06:10, boohoo wrote:
I mean how costly is it to fabricate a PCI DSP card? The sooner this market opens up the better.

[ This Message was edited by: boohoo on 2002-06-09 06:13 ]

The cost of developing the software far exceeds the cost of the hardware.
Especially in Creamwares case.

boohoo · Post by **boohoo** » Sun Jun 09, 2002 11:14 am

I had considered that fact but there is also a branding issue to consider.I am new to this whole area but I would have tought that it would be possible to produce a generic DSP PCI card designed to process the code for
all Direct-X/VST plug-ins. Surely the market for sound cards with DSP processing designed for amateur/semi-pro use will develop in a similar manner to the market for 3D graphics cards. Will this be the case?What direction is all this moving in?

remixme · Post by **remixme** » Mon Jun 10, 2002 2:49 am

would be possible to produce a generic DSP PCI card designed to process the code for
all Direct-X/VST plug-ins

Yes, I'm sure it would be possible, but sinec the plugins are optimised for your average intel/amd processor. You would have to put one of these on a pci card; highly inefficient.

Why do that when you can just write better quality plugins for native dsp, as protools, creamware, and TC, already do.

What direction are things moving in?
Computers get evermore powerful and complicated, along with dsps, graphics card and the like.

There will always be someone stretching the limits of what a cpu can do on its own in the way of plugins, and then still wants more; so in walks your dsp solution.

boohoo · Post by **boohoo** » Mon Jun 10, 2002 3:28 am

What about 64 bit PCI cards? (and higher eventually?)

remixme · Post by **remixme** » Mon Jun 10, 2002 3:55 am

Well the next big thing in terms of busses is PCI-X which will probably appear sometime next year, I have wondered to myself what this will mean for creamware cards, but I should imagine there will be a certain amount of backward compatibility, otherwise people won't go for it.

Ultimately faster busses, means more powerful cards to go out them eventually.
But these will still be as a dsp solution, as this is the most efficient use of bus bandwidth.
We can only look to the future.