** Audio effect processing on your video card **

[bmanic]

I'd like to remind everybody again (it's been said a couple of times here already) that it all comes down to the coders of the dsp effects themselves. Having been part of a huge plugin shootout on PT HD hardware last winter and checking out the TC 6000 system (mucho expensive $$ lots of DSP power) I've come to realise that power does not guarantee a good sound, at all. Not even a basic "my first eq" plugin doing 10x oversampling will sound superb. It takes a lot of experience, knowledge of maths and good ears and taste to make good plugins not to mention research if you wanna model something vintage (that tape saturation/compression.. Studer anyone??). Just wanted to pull y'all back to earth.

As for that UAD-1 analogy, seeing that you get a DSP card free, eh? I see it like this: You get a bunch of extremely good plugins but have to suffer because of the dongle that only allows you to use about 7 of them at the same time. Wanting more requires the purchase of an additional 'dongle'. I'd rather put my money on companies like Vonxengo, Kjaerhus and Sonalksis.

Cheers!
bManic

[jamesOne]

BionicFX Announces Audio Processing on NVIDIA GPU

Thanks for all of the enthusiasm and support.
Thanks for all of your critical comments and questions.
Thanks for all of the E-mail.
It's very much appreciated.

The first product is called BionicReverb. It's an impulse response convolution reverb. In addition to general performance increases, the video card let's us do things that have not been possible using the CPU.

The artist developing the GUI is Rob Chang:

http://www.ethereality.info/

http://www.cgnetworks.com/story_custom. ... 1321&page=

Rob is amazing artist with Prince of Persia, Dave Mirra's BMX, and a slew of other titles and films under his belt. He is unbelievably talented and the interface is already starting to be very unique. No square metallic boxes that look like 1U rack units here. As soon as the GUI is stable we will post screen shots.

If you are interested in beta testing, send a message to betarequest@bionicfx.com.

An official press release about the AVEX technology is going out tomorrow. A link is available on the bottom of the website. www.bionicfx.com

When I get some time over the weekend, I will try and answer some of the questions.

Bionically,
James

[Ixox]

....
The artist developing the GUI is Rob Chang:
http://www.ethereality.info/
http://www.cgnetworks.com/story_custom. ... 1321&page=
Rob is amazing artist with Prince of Persia, Dave Mirra's BMX, and a slew of other titles and films under his belt. He is unbelievably talented and the interface is already starting to be very unique. No square metallic boxes that look like 1U rack units here. As soon as the GUI is stable we will post screen shots.

James, do you use pixel shaders also for the GUI ?
I'm kidding but more information about the GUI than about the audio possibilities will make many people smile...

[bmanic]

Damn, for the first time I'm regretting that I have an ATI Radeon 9500 pro gfx card . So my next card needs to be a Nvidia one? Dammit! Ati works so much better in the games I enjoy most (yes, I'm a simulator freak, both vehicle and airplanes. I've put more money on wheels and HOTAS systems than even the computer ).

Cheers!
bManic

[mauseoleum]

will this technology stay limited to NVIDIA chips or will other cards be supported in future?

what about more-in-2d cards like matrox? and what about cards like fireGl ?

[mauseoleum]

will this technology stay limited to NVIDIA chips or will other cards be supported in future?

what about more-in-2d cards like matrox? and what about cards like fireGl ?

[simonw]

let me remind you that you can always use more than one video card in the same system. It should be fairly easy to use one for actual graphics needs, and then use one or more additional video cards for audio processing.

All the modern GFX cards mentioned are AGP cards not PCI. I do not know of any motherboard with two AGP slots... ?

[krraqk]

It sounds veeeery much exciting!!

Some basic questions:

There ia planned third party development (that will be fantastic) or only we can expect effects, etc. from Bionicfx?

How many video cards can be used simultaneously? (and how, because the pcs have only an AGP slot).

How many convolution reverb instances we can expect to run in this brute 40 gigaflops? (sorry cant resist to ask that ).

Keep us informed please.

[cloudspine]

What will be the minimum requirements (regarding Nvidia cards)? Will it run on the GeForce FX 5200, or the latest line of cards only?

[Roman Empire]

Would a solution for the problem with finding a motherboard with 2 builtin AGP-slots be instead to buy one with onboard gfx-adapter that is based on Nvidia, and then additionally buy an Nvidia AGP-card?

Really looking forward to this. Especially when there´ll be the necessary plugins available for it, and in a great quality of course:

Chorus, Limiter, Compressor, Delay, Filter, Distortion and EQ + of course the reverb already available.
At that time I hope to see some kickass specs about shitloads of them running at the same time, and on the FX 5200 chipset, which many decently priced (€ 50) cards are using.

Thumbs up!

[VitaminD]

http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20 ... 35943.html

the story has hit tom's hardware.. they have a bit more information.. so here are some quotes from the article:

So far Cann cannot take as much performance away from the GPU as he would like. "Right now, getting the data back from the video card is very slow, so the overall performance isn't even close to the theoretical max of the card. I am hoping that the PCI Express architecture will resolve this. This will mean more instances of effects running at higher sample rates," he said.

hmm pci express? well strike one for me is having a radeon, strike two is me not willing to pay 400+ for a new cpu and mobo so I can have a pci express videocard..

and

Still, there is significant boost of performance and reduce the load for CPU for people who are using applications such as Cubase, Ableton Live, and other VST compatible hosts. Cann's first commercial application will be BionicReverb, which is expected to go into public and free beta in October. The final version is scheduled to be released at the Winter NAMM Conference in January 2005.

october huh? I have a radeon but maybe ill still try it

At this time, Cann plans to only support Nvidia graphics cards. "When I started, ATI had a problem with floating point data. I have heard they have resolved it, but I won't have time to purchase and research their newest cards until after this is released," he said.

Pricing was not announced yet, but Cann says he will make his technology available for "far less" than the cost of professional studio DSP solutions which can run into the high five-figure range. He estimates the price will be somewhere between $200-$800.

if its $800 (is this just the reverb??) then maybe a powercore would just be more worth it? I mean they'd get some professionally done tc effects and have the ability to get powered synths like v-station and the virus .. I guess we'll all have to wait until october to find out (unless of course you are on the beta-testing team)

but I'm wondering when he started this 'adventure' and when ati had FPU problems.. hrm

[mike.0]

but I'm wondering when he started this 'adventure' and when ati had FPU problems.. hrm

The ATI pixel shaders only support 24 bit precision, this could be the reason.

http://www.beyond3d.com/interviews/ps_precision/

[snooky]

$800!!!

No,No,No...better get a dedicatd DSP card (they´ll get better once this technology breaths the makers of UAD and PoCo in the neck)

You get a bunch of cool plugs too!

[jens]

it's actually quite funny (and also a bit sad ):

the statement says: 'somewhere between $200 and $800' - but everyone seems to read: '800$'

[snooky]

it's actually quite funny (and also a bit sad ):

the statement says: 'somewhere between $200 and $800' - but everyone seems to read: '800$'

Because that´s what this technology will cost!
the $200 part is only so you wont feel cheated on this new tech...once it´s out everybody wants it and whatever the pricetag, ppl will buy!