KVR Audio

Steve Bolivar · Post by **Steve Bolivar** » Wed Aug 09, 2017 4:21 pm

Any suggestions for a basic graphics card with drivers that will play nice in a DAW?
I won't be playing any games, it's going into an ASUS X99 PRO USB 3.1 motherboard with i7 6850 CPU, Win10-64. I just use a TV for monitor at 1920x1080p that has 3 HDMI inputs and a VGA 15-pin DE-15 connector. It looks like the non gaming cards usually have a small fan and I'm ok with that since it may be easier to deal with than a massive heat sink and shouldn't make much noise in my silent case.
Thanks for any help

Astralv · Post by **Astralv** » Sat Aug 12, 2017 1:18 am

I would go with AMD- anything you can afford, just make sure you only install basic drivers and not any gaming software that packaged with it. AMD is about to release new generation of graphic cards. NVIDIA is also ok. I would go with $200 and above range.

metamorphosis · Post by **metamorphosis** » Sat Aug 12, 2017 11:06 pm

Steve Bolivar wrote:Any suggestions for a basic graphics card with drivers that will play nice in a DAW?
I won't be playing any games, it's going into an ASUS X99 PRO USB 3.1 motherboard with i7 6850 CPU, Win10-64. I just use a TV for monitor at 1920x1080p that has 3 HDMI inputs and a VGA 15-pin DE-15 connector. It looks like the non gaming cards usually have a small fan and I'm ok with that since it may be easier to deal with than a massive heat sink and shouldn't make much noise in my silent case.
Thanks for any help

Onboard video will be fine if you have any. Otherwise go with a fanless, cheap as possible Ati card. Nvidia tends to cause issues with latency in their drivers. You won't get anything out of spending more money.
Cheers-

lfm · Post by **lfm** » Tue Aug 22, 2017 6:12 am

I would look at Gigabyte which has both Nvidia and Amd based cards:
http://www.gigabyte.se/Graphics-Card/NVIDIA-Series

Really good comparison charts and everything. Check wattage for computer chassis what you got.

Checking benchmarks and compare models:
https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/

Things to look for in computer specs - check that your powersupply has headroom for going up in graphics card.
I would not settle for less than 550-600W to be sure. Very common for off shelve computers to have Intel graphics onboard and settle for 250W or so powersupply - which means you cannot upgrade anything in graphics.

I've had a hard time upgrading starting to do video and my 350W supply really stop me from the better cards.

You don't need to go for $200 anything at all - you get just fine cards for $100 for daws.

I had no problems running daws for 15 years on Nvidia Geforce 210 cards, upgraded just recently to GT 730 which need 300W powersupply and was my limit having 350W - and it does even full hd video quite ok.

Nvidia latest 10-series meaning 10xx cards is all good stuff. But then up around $200.

Mostly overlooked when choosing computer - check powersupply....depending on brand they are not easy to upgrade, a little special to fit into chassis on Dell etc.

DJ Warmonger · Post by **DJ Warmonger** » Tue Aug 22, 2017 6:18 am

Go GT 1030. It's cheap and silent, but also new. You can still connect 4K monitor to it and stuff.

metamorphosis · Post by **metamorphosis** » Tue Aug 22, 2017 8:11 am

As I said, nvidia's drivers tend to cause latency issues - AMD's don't.
I found firewire to be unusable on nvidia drivers past 2010.
YMMV of course.
M@

Kaine · Post by **Kaine** » Tue Aug 22, 2017 10:05 am

metamorphosis wrote:As I said, nvidia's drivers tend to cause latency issues - AMD's don't.
I found firewire to be unusable on nvidia drivers past 2010.

Only in combination with certain FW400 chipsets, which themselves have been legacy since about 2010, so probably why it's not being kept in mind with newer drivers. FW800 cards work fine alongside them still.

However, unrelated to the above the GT1030 drivers have gone to crap in the last week or so for DPC, so that ATI advice will probably get you the best card for the money right now, if you just need a cheap passive the ATI ones will do.

metamorphosis · Post by **metamorphosis** » Tue Aug 22, 2017 10:27 am

I tried it with a new combo FW400/800 card in 2016 and it failed, and then a different chipset FW400 card, so I think the issue is probably more widespread than you suspect, but still, you may be right that it's firewire-specific.

lfm · Post by **lfm** » Tue Aug 22, 2017 1:37 pm

metamorphosis wrote:I tried it with a new combo FW400/800 card in 2016 and it failed, and then a different chipset FW400 card, so I think the issue is probably more widespread than you suspect, but still, you may be right that it's firewire-specific.

I tested FW cards 2010, and with that amount of bus activity for those drivers no wonder that anything else needing attention over busses will have trouble.

Don't know how they improved drivers since - but then it took 20% one core, and overall 8% on quad core i7 on Windows 7 to just keep audio up.

I talked to Focusrite on that - why all ins/outs were running audio all the time whether used or not - but that was the way they did it then.

So went internal RME cards instead and run comfortably 64 samples ASIO and could probably run 32 as well - and no cpu wasted on keeping audio up.

For Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 I could not get below 128 samples buffers - so it might be due to Nvidia, but don't know. Did not test any other graphics cards - never came up.

Kaine · Post by **Kaine** » Tue Aug 22, 2017 3:25 pm

metamorphosis wrote:I tried it with a new combo FW400/800 card in 2016 and it failed, and then a different chipset FW400 card, so I think the issue is probably more widespread than you suspect

Yeah, fair enough probably still the case then. I had a VIA and a TI 2213B on the desk and working, but I didn't delve into any other chips at the time. I've not had any feedback to reflect yours above recently, but then I'm the first to fully agree that given the number of controllers out there that the chances are pretty high that some of them are not going to behave well in use, especially given the rather potted history of Firewire support.

Steve Bolivar · Post by **Steve Bolivar** » Wed Aug 23, 2017 1:36 am

Thanks for all the advice. I wound up with a EVGA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti. I know it's probably overkill for DAW use but I'm hoping to leverage it's CUDA cores for working with Sony/Magic Movie Maker (entry level VEGAS). The power supply should be ok with it, EVGA SuperNOVA 850 P2, 80+ PLATINUM 850W. Potential FireWire issues won't be a problem. I'm looking at a Roland Studio Capture, USB 2.0. I was tempted to try the PCIe-424 card to keep my MOTU 24io that currently has a PCI-X card but don't know if I want to spend $300 to keep a 13 year old interface running.

Kaine · Post by **Kaine** » Wed Aug 23, 2017 10:23 am

Vegas prior to it being sold was all about ATI's Open Cl and not CUDA, although I don't know about Magic Movie Maker however.
Do Sony still own that one?

Steve Bolivar · Post by **Steve Bolivar** » Wed Aug 23, 2017 1:05 pm

Looks like MAGIX took over most of the Sony Creative Software titles. I was wrong, it's not Movie Maker, it's actually VEGAS Movie Studio. In the online reviews and in the specs for it they list "Supported GPUs, NVIDIA
Requires a CUDA-enabled GPU and driver 270.xx or later.
GeForce GPUs: GeForce GTX 4xx Series or higher (or GeForce GT 2xx Series or higher with driver 285.62 or later)."
I'll report back in a few weeks on how the new system runs and if VEGAS MS can access the 1050 ti GPU.

metamorphosis · Post by **metamorphosis** » Wed Aug 23, 2017 10:54 pm

How is Vegas? I hear it's very user-friendly compared to Adobe's stuff.

Steve Bolivar · Post by **Steve Bolivar** » Thu Aug 24, 2017 1:01 am

Vegas Movie Studio 14 Platinum doesn't get as good reviews as the other prosumer video editors but I found it easy to use and very stable on my Win7-64 machine. I used Sound Forge before so the layout felt familiar. One thing about it that most of the others don't do is tempo sync video effects and have a measures: beats:ticks time ruler available. I haven't used it much beyond basic testing since my current machine is so slow, but looking forward to using it on new one. Version 15 is supposed to come out August 28.
https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2374255,00.asp

Simple Graphics Card for DAW