KVR Audio

Audio_dream · Post by **Audio_dream** » Thu Aug 26, 2004 1:11 pm

I'm looking for the fastest solution.

An internal PCI card or an external firewire box.

It seems firewire is the future...but i doubt it's

faster than pci.

DevonB · Post by **DevonB** » Thu Aug 26, 2004 1:15 pm

Do you need faster that 6ms/256 samples? There are cards that do 1.5ms/64 samples, but your cpu will direly suffer.

Devon

Audio_dream · Post by **Audio_dream** » Thu Aug 26, 2004 1:18 pm

6ms/256 is okay.
Can a firewire solution deliver that ?

MidiMan · Post by **MidiMan** » Thu Aug 26, 2004 1:29 pm

Yes, it can!

I'm using a m-audio Firewire 410 at that latency without problems.

System:
P4 2,8 GHz
1,5 Gb RAM

spaceman · Post by **spaceman** » Thu Aug 26, 2004 1:32 pm

MidiMan wrote:Yes, it can!

I'm using a m-audio Firewire 410 at that latency without problems.

has the firewire ever given you any problems?

vtx · Post by **vtx** » Thu Aug 26, 2004 2:04 pm

410 here to,,6Ms no problem,,firewire no problem,,but saving for Motu 828mk11,,need more inputs,,darn guitarists recording in stereo these days,,although I'm still not sure whats happening to stereo tracks that are panned hard right.
When you set a rewire host to run in higher priority,,what happens to plugins and rewire clients,,are they pushed back??

MidiMan · Post by **MidiMan** » Thu Aug 26, 2004 11:56 pm

spaceman wrote: has the firewire ever given you any problems?

None at all, except my SB Audigy (in the same machine) now seems noisy as hell...

soma · Post by **soma** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 12:31 am

Isn't USB 2.0 faster than firewire? Is there anyone out there who knows of a good external card capable of 5.1 monitoring (via digital out is ok) and low latency/low load? I tried looking on the Nuendo site but all the 5.1 products there are internal.

Sorry for the highjack but it looked as if your question was answered.

smp · Post by **smp** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 3:07 am

soma wrote:Isn't USB 2.0 faster than firewire? Is there anyone out there who knows of a good external card capable of 5.1 monitoring (via digital out is ok) and low latency/low load? I tried looking on the Nuendo site but all the 5.1 products there are internal...

As far as I understand it, firewire has synchronous data transfer while USB 2.0 is asynchronous. Firewire can transfer data at up to 400 megabits per second, and USB 2.0 has a theoretical maximum of 480 megabits/second. However, firewire can transfer and receive data up to that speed at the same time. USB 2.0 on the other hand can either transfer at up to 480, or receive at up to 480, but not at the same time. Real world benchmarks I have seen over the years appear to indicate that even then USB 2.0 isn't as quick, but I can't find any of those tests at the moment. Also, some of that could come down to vendor implementation (eg apparently Apple's implementation of USB 2.0 is shite compared to Windows-based computers - put the same drive in a firewire HD enclosure on a Mac and it performs much better. Apparently).

If I'm wrong, I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will correct me

-s

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 3:11 am

[DELETED]

DevonB · Post by **DevonB** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 5:08 am

smp wrote: If I'm wrong, I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will correct me

-s

No problem.

There is 1394a firewire which is 400mbps. This is true that it is 'faster' than USB2.0 which is 480mbps. 1394b, on the other hand, is 800mbps, which is obviously faster than USB2.0. Good specs on USB2 enclosures seem to be around 19MB per second, and Firewire a little faster. I need to do more research though to get more specs.

Devon

DevonB · Post by **DevonB** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 5:09 am

ttoz wrote:
DevonB wrote:Do you need faster that 6ms/256 samples? There are cards that do 1.5ms/64 samples, but your cpu will direly suffer.

Devon
just to add, the cpu on the mac with the mia at 64 samples is only a v small cpu hit

also i believe the rme cards aren't supposed to have this problem?

i do know on my now gone windowz desktop i had the mia at 2.9ms and never had cpu fluctuations.

Hey Theo, do 64 samples, 128 samples, 256 samples and 512 samples, and tell me your CPU usage for each? It should be quite different.

Devon

Robert Randolph · Post by **Robert Randolph** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 5:15 am

DevonB wrote:
ttoz wrote:
DevonB wrote:Do you need faster that 6ms/256 samples? There are cards that do 1.5ms/64 samples, but your cpu will direly suffer.

Devon
just to add, the cpu on the mac with the mia at 64 samples is only a v small cpu hit

also i believe the rme cards aren't supposed to have this problem?

i do know on my now gone windowz desktop i had the mia at 2.9ms and never had cpu fluctuations.
Hey Theo, do 64 samples, 128 samples, 256 samples and 512 samples, and tell me your CPU usage for each? It should be quite different.

Devon

On my machine using ASIO it's no different in sawstudio, in samp/sequoia it is slightly different, in tracktion.. it goes crazy.

Low latency vsti : PCI or Firewire