PCI e audio card

pro tools is the only one so far that has announced PCIe compatibility. i'm going with an RME Fireface 800 for my quad when it arrives, i hear great things about that interface. it works on FW 800 or FW 400.

Thanks.
Good RME is a great company. But for tech and
logistic reasons i need a PCIe
audiocard. Waiting......

You might be waiting a long time.

I guess Digidesign had to work out a solution because there really is no other way, besides Magma boxes, to accommodate the TDM hardware in PCIe machines.
But an item I read, from a Soundblaster developer, made the assertion that PCIe really isn't very good for audio cards, in explanation for why that company would not be releasing any audio cards for that format (at least not any time soon)

quote:Steve Erickson : As far as PCI Express (PCIe) is concerned, which is the next bus, what we found is that the performance of PCIe is truly bad for audio. We are seeing four times degradation on the bus for audio. PCIe is designed for graphics and high data transfer, but audio sends very small packets and the overhead can be very big! Moving the data across PCIe is much, much higher than PCI. So what we have to do is go back to the drawing board and work on the transport part of the chip and re-design it to add more silicon to overcome some of the problems we had with PCIe. So for us to come up with a PCIe solution is going to take a while because we have to overcome the problems we're facing with that bus

I think your best solution is either go to firewire or trade down to a G5 which will support currently available cards.
(Firewire has been the standard for mid-level audio I/O for a long time now. There has been very little 'new' audio I/O product released for any flavour of PCI in the last 5 years or so, except mainly for 'compatibility' updates. (PT TDM hardware doesn't really count as it is much more than an audio I/O )

I have found an interim solution
I use my quad as a Sampler driven by my G5 2x2 with Logic on it and my Motu PCI system

The Quad is receiving midi thru AMS network

I use the Quad digital Toslink out, that I feed in my PCI Motu 1296 thru an M-Audio Toslink ---> SPDIF converter

Works great !

Best

Cyril

Quad G5 8GB, G5 2x2 3.5GB + Motu PCI 424 (53ins/12outs)+QLSO Platinum +Kontakt 2 Mac OS X (10.4.3) Raid 0 of a RocketRaid 1820 and 6 x 10 000 rpm Raptors

Has anyone noticed if Logic Pro or Protools LE is taking Advantage of the 4 processors in the new quads? Is the anyone using the new quad as a Node slave and having a G5 dual as the master?

I think Logic is a bit "buggy and crashy" on my new system running 10.4.3 Alot of permission problems, even after repairing permissions.

I wont load in Pro Tools 7 since the Quad is not approved by Digi.

Anyway a guy from RME say they are working on a PCIe
Card.
Thanks again.

where have you heard about this, Mathias Carstens of RME hasn't stated any PCIe plans AFAIK

I think that Apple should make an 8 channel optical port (lightpipe) so that all you need to get is a good converter. I have no idea why they will not do this.

This is an ADAT output, THAT WILL BE GREAT.
I could feed 8 outs from my slaved Quad to my Motu 2408

The problem is that Apple will have to pay royalties to the company that own ADAT ! I was told it was Alesis !

Also a few audio card manufacturers will be quite angry LOL

Best

Cyril

Quad G5 8GB, G5 2x2 3.5GB + Motu PCI 424 (53ins/12outs)+QLSO Platinum +Kontakt 2 Mac OS X (10.4.3) Raid 0 of a RocketRaid 1820 and 6 x 10 000 rpm Raptors

"I wont load in Pro Tools 7 since the Quad is not approved by Digi. "

This is no longer true. You can run PT 7 HD, LE, or M-Powered on a quad.

How's digi's quad support?

Does it use all four, or does it just run on a quad?

From what I remember from digi's site Pro Tools HD 7.1 supports use of all four processors for RTAS plugins while only untilizing 2 processors for the DAE which is how the os communicates with Pro Tools. It's still amazingly zippy though AND... Digidesign has 'future plans' for full utilization for all four processors.

THE MOTU 424 PCI E is shipping

http://www.motu.com/newsitems/the-pcie-424-card-is-now-shipping