Adding Another CW Card

Counterparts · Post by **Counterparts** » Mon Oct 27, 2003 4:57 am

Hi all

I'm soon to buy the Xmas offer Pulsar XTC card (and associated plug-in goodies) and have a few questions regarding this.

I guess I need to buy an S/TDM cable to connect the two, yes?

How do I go about installing drivers/software for the second/(both) card(s)?

Lastly, I remember seeing a thread regarding the order of the DSP chips making a difference in terms of DSP capacity available (something like that). Could somebody point the thread out to me or indicate what pitfalls I need to look out for?

TIA,

Royston

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Mon Oct 27, 2003 7:08 am

Hi Royston,

afaik the cable comes with the card (XTC is intended as an extension), SFP already has all the drivers in place and the order of DSP allocation is dynamic.
One may squeze a little bit by loading modules in a certain order, but that's not worth the effort. There might have been something with the 15DSP boards, though.

When the DSP code processes data which 'belongs together' on 2 or more separate chips, this may cause sample delays (phase errors) if overlooked in the design of the device.

The order of the boards usually only matters if a Pulsar One system is extended. Then the new board should be set to #1 in the cset.ini file to take advantage of the improved IO interface and lower latency of the 2nd generation boards.

happy pulsaring, Tom

Marc de Ruiter · Post by **Marc de Ruiter** » Mon Oct 27, 2003 7:10 am

I had to contact Creamware support to get the TDM cable. If you only have 2nd generation SFP cards (Luna II, Pulsar II etc. ), install the card with card with the highest number of DSP chips first, so this becomes the card that handles most of the PCI data-traffic. Run setup. Then install the other cards. If you have 1st generation cards mixed with 2nd. In stall the 2nd generation card with the highest amount of DSP fist, so you can use the ulli feature of these cards.

Counterparts · Post by **Counterparts** » Mon Oct 27, 2003 7:44 am

Thanks for the replies, guys!

(astroman)
Does that mean I just plug the card in and away I go? i.e. I don't need to install/register any of the software with the second board?

(marc)
They're both 2nd generation cards, so the issues you mention shouldn't cause a problem for me (Pulsar II Pro currently).

Royston

Post by **garyb** » Mon Oct 27, 2003 12:50 pm

yes,there is a key to register.otherwise,plug and go.the registration process takes a moment only.

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Mon Oct 27, 2003 3:04 pm

Royston, you probably have that bundle with the mastering stuff in mind.
You first register the new hardware, as Gary wrote.

Then, when registering your new software the dialog should offer 2 boards from which you have to pick one (because according to highlanders there can be only one) on which you want to register the software.

Now comes the interesting point: On 'regular' devices your choice is free, but in this case it might insist on the XTC card because the software is bundled. I dunno if it really will.

Usually one registers the software with the board which is expected to be owned for the longer period of time to avoid that unregister/register trouble if a board is sold.

cheers, Tom

Counterparts · Post by **Counterparts** » Tue Oct 28, 2003 4:21 am

astroman wrote:

Royston, you probably have that bundle with the mastering stuff in mind.
You first register the new hardware, as Gary wrote.

That and doubling my DSP clout

(Thx Gary!)

Then, when registering your new software the dialog should offer 2 boards from which you have to pick one (because according to highlanders there can be only one) on which you want to register the software.

Will SFP still potentially use either board for e.g. the Optimaster, or will it only render that device on the board for which it is registered? Same question for the existing SFP effects etc. which are currently registered on my existing board.

Thanks again,

Royston

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Tue Oct 28, 2003 7:22 am

SFP distributes the modules over available DSPs regardless of registration data. That is a totally automatic process and generally working very well - though there may be some exceptions (in certain cases only) with the larger boards.
The board is nothing but a mega-dongle in the registration process

cheers, Tom

Counterparts · Post by **Counterparts** » Tue Oct 28, 2003 7:56 am

Excellent!

I have also got off my butt, downloaded the manual and read the relevant sections...seems pretty straightforward.

Royston

dbmac · Post by **dbmac** » Tue Oct 28, 2003 10:45 am

Make sure you install the 3.1c drivers for each board - it's a seperate process from installing SFP.

/dave