KVR Audio

moldofunker · Post by **moldofunker** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 9:05 pm

I will get a firewire audiophile soundcard and i don't know what PCI-Firewire card to buy. Also i will mostly use vstis, not much recording and i'm wondering if the Firewire card will eat my resources.. Anyone experienced problems with pci-fw cards ? Should i take a $15 card or the price is proportional to quality ?

valdiorn · Post by **valdiorn** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 9:18 pm

uuuh, I don't get it?? a firewire USB card?? You do raealize these are different connections??
It's like getting a Diesel-oil/Gasoline truck... That just doesn't exist.

Also, PCI-firewire? Do those exist?

PCI = Internal card (which you plug in one of the PCI slots on the mainboard. It's much faster and more stable than the other, but you can't use it with Laptops...

USB = USB connection port. Both low speed (USB 1.0/1.1) and high speed (USB 2.0)

Firewire = a FIREWIRE connection port. It may look similar to the usb port, but they are two totally different types of connectors! Firewire has a higher transfer rate than USB and therefore firewire cards are expensive

PS: I know I said firewire has the most transfer rate, well USB 2.0 is slightly faster, but it's not as stable as firewire.. in the long run, firewire IS better

DevonB · Post by **DevonB** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 9:24 pm

Oh man, what a mess.

YES, there are PCI Firewire cards. I have one. Never used it. 1394b is also FASTER than USB2 (800Mb vs 480Mb). Yes, there is 1394a which is 400Mb as well. 1394a is 4 or 6 pin (6 pin has 45W of power, 4 pin doesn't) and 9 pin for 1394b.

Firewire PCI cards are *NOT* expensive. If you can't afford $7....???

Wish I could give you more direct experience though.

Devon

Armoor · Post by **Armoor** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 9:28 pm

I have a PCI Firewire card that came with my Dell. I know it's a cheapy and it works okay -- no resource hogging. If you have an available PCI slot than you already have a reserved IRQ and all the available DMAs and and such reserved. It should be autoconfigured when you boot up for the first time. Mine is not a combo card with USB2 and Firewire but I think that those cards are good also. All those cards are pretty much working on hardware specs and WindowsXP has drivers built in the OS for most of them. ie. I didn't have to install a driver.

Hope that helps.

moldofunker · Post by **moldofunker** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 9:05 am

I edited my first post, i was talking about PCI to Firewire not USB (donno what was in my head :

)

I wanted to know if will eat my resources with the transfer over the pci because i have the alternative to get a mobo with firewire on it. But i guess is the same thing.. is it ?

Perret · Post by **Perret** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 1:02 pm

Regarding a PCI card vs. "built-in" firewire: At least in my case I had to buy a PCI-based firewire port card for my computer because the built-in ports wouldn't quite co-operate (they were really sensitive to other activities like graphics when using lower latencies at higher CPU loads; I had to raise the latency to 100ms or something to make it stable with large projects).

I think at least in the case of this motherboard the built-in ports end up on the PCI bus anyway, but with a PCI card you at least have the option to try different PCI card spots (leading to the use of different IRQs). My motherboard is an ABIT AI7 btw, and my soundcard is an ESI Quatafire 610.

Obviously my case may be an isolated incident, but at least it's one example of the built-in ports not working as well as a PCI-based card. I know that some firewire-based cards (e.g. MOTU) are notorious for requiring certain components in your firewire card, but I haven't heard of any particular problems with the Firewire Audiophile. Odds are you won't be having any problems.

My suggestion is try to make sure you can return or exchange the components if you can't make them work properly.

DevonB · Post by **DevonB** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 1:30 pm

Perret wrote:I think at least in the case of this motherboard the built-in ports end up on the PCI bus anyway, but with a PCI card you at least have the option to try different PCI card spots (leading to the use of different IRQs). My motherboard is an ABIT AI7 btw, and my soundcard is an ESI Quatafire 610.

Different slot doesn't buy you much of anything except maybe a different IRQ. All the slots are on the same bus, unless we're talking about some servers (I've seen some servers have 96 PCI slots, having a total of 16 seperate busses) Also, with the south bridge or ICH chip for the 800 series and above Intel boards, the PCI bus and IDE and/or SATA channels are handled by the same chip. Used to be North Bridge handled PCI and South Bridge handled EIDE.

Devon

Perret · Post by **Perret** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 3:01 pm

DevonB wrote:Different slot doesn't buy you much of anything except maybe a different IRQ. All the slots are on the same bus...Devon

Yeah, that was my point: by using a different slot you can get a different IRQ, which can solve some conflicts. For the built-in firewire ports, they always use the same IRQ and there is really no easy way of allocating another one.

DevonB · Post by **DevonB** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 3:49 pm

Perret wrote:
DevonB wrote:Different slot doesn't buy you much of anything except maybe a different IRQ. All the slots are on the same bus...Devon
Yeah, that was my point: by using a different slot you can get a different IRQ, which can solve some conflicts. For the built-in firewire ports, they always use the same IRQ and there is really no easy way of allocating another one.

No, getting a different slot doesn't ALWAYS push a new IRQ. It depends on the BIOS. On some boards, like my Asus, you can assign a specific IRQ to the slot. If you set it for auto, like most are, then during the enumeration process on boot, the IRQ is assigned auto-magically. You could move a card and still get the same IRQ though. Some boards are now pushing IRQ assignments to specific slots for IRQ sharing as well. Also, if you are doing ACPI, this is all a moot point as you use virtual IRQ's anyway.

Devon

moldofunker · Post by **moldofunker** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 4:19 pm

DevonB wrote:
Perret wrote:
DevonB wrote:Different slot doesn't buy you much of anything except maybe a different IRQ. All the slots are on the same bus...Devon
Yeah, that was my point: by using a different slot you can get a different IRQ, which can solve some conflicts. For the built-in firewire ports, they always use the same IRQ and there is really no easy way of allocating another one.
No, getting a different slot doesn't ALWAYS push a new IRQ. It depends on the BIOS. On some boards, like my Asus, you can assign a specific IRQ to the slot. If you set it for auto, like most are, then during the enumeration process on boot, the IRQ is assigned auto-magically. You could move a card and still get the same IRQ though. Some boards are now pushing IRQ assignments to specific slots for IRQ sharing as well. Also, if you are doing ACPI, this is all a moot point as you use virtual IRQ's anyway.

Devon

Well is better with a PCI to FW then, thanks!

Devon you mentioned about the ACPI, i disabled it from the winxp installation (as i read on some tips&trics website). This means i can get different IRQ if i'll change the slot ? I have an A7N8X-X Asus. I am good with computers but the bios still have some secrets though..
Thanks

PaintedBlue · Post by **PaintedBlue** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 4:27 pm

I have read that the Firewire chipset manufacturer matters depending upon the audio interface you are connecting to it. For example, certain audio interfaces only behave nicely with the Texas Instruments Firewire chipset.

DevonB · Post by **DevonB** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 7:46 pm

funkalized wrote:Devon you mentioned about the ACPI, i disabled it from the winxp installation (as i read on some tips&trics website). This means i can get different IRQ if i'll change the slot ? I have an A7N8X-X Asus. I am good with computers but the bios still have some secrets though..
Thanks

I did too, and wonder now if I should have. I believe (Without going back to research again) that the A7N8X-X does NOT allow you to set IRQ based on slot. It did have fixed IRQ's if I remember. Again, all off the top of my head. In that case, what you got is what you got. Keep in mind, IRQ priority is 0,1,2,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,3,4,5,6,7 in that order. You run out of IRQ's, you'll need to share IRQ's. Most cards that adhere to the PCI 2.2 spec shoudl be able to handle IRQ sharing... but devices that pump a lot of data like audio, nics, hard drive and video are not good canidates for this. printer ports, some usb input devices, etc are better for this as they aren't nearly as demanding.

As for learning the BIOS, seriously, just go onto Asus's website, and download several different chipset manuals and just read them cover to cover. You'll be amazed in how informative they are and how much you'll learn. If you have a specific question, ask on the forum, and if it's from the manual, post a link to the PDF as well as the page number. Google also will uncover a lot of answers too.

Devon

DevonB · Post by **DevonB** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 7:47 pm

PaintedBlue wrote:I have read that the Firewire chipset manufacturer matters depending upon the audio interface you are connecting to it. For example, certain audio interfaces only behave nicely with the Texas Instruments Firewire chipset.

Got any links on that?

Wouldn't surprise me though.

Devon

Perret · Post by **Perret** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 9:25 pm

DevonB wrote:
PaintedBlue wrote:I have read that the Firewire chipset manufacturer matters depending upon the audio interface you are connecting to it. For example, certain audio interfaces only behave nicely with the Texas Instruments Firewire chipset.
Got any links on that? Wouldn't surprise me though.

The MOTU 828 MKII for instance supports only the TI chipset. This is mentioned on the MOTU website if I'm not mistaken.

PCI to Firewire experiences?