reset 
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/05/12 19:42:45
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I'm sure there's more than one way to skin this cat, so to speak. Since I haven't actually done the PC/Laptop hard disk sharing thing, I'll defer to others who have.
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juca
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/05/12 20:24:55
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Hi all:
Only for you all know about. I´m using an Asus P4P800-E De Luxe version motherboard, wich have a I865 chipset. The chipset take control over two channels of SATA and I have installed two Seagate Barracuda SATA 150, model ST3200822AS, with 200Gb each. The processor is an Intel P4 2.8 HT, with Hypertreading enabled both in BIOS and OS (and in Sonar 4PE also) and 1Gb DDR400 memory (two sticks of 512Mb).
I have two Yamaha DS2416 (WDM drivers) cascaded and interfaced via ADAT lightpipe (optical) cables with the Yamaha 01V digital mixer, and the system work fine, without any problems. The power of this system is fantastic and it ever work at very low latencies (2.9 minimum) and very low CPU/disk usage percentuals.
I never had any problem using SATA drives with this MB. And, of course, my System/Programs/Backup HD is a Maxtor IDE 133.Greetings.
****** Juca Nascimento ******
Keyboards/Composer/Arranger
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Jim Wright
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/05/12 21:55:57
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ORIGINAL: Nathan Knight
I was hoping to use the onboard Firewire...do you know if the onboard Firewire on the MSI Neo2 is integrated in the chipset?--so I wouldn't be using a PCI Firewire card. So if I'm only using 1 PCI device on the GigaStudio computer (an Audiophile 2496), which slot should I put it in?
Nathan - As far as I know, there are no chipsets with integrated Firewire. While lots of motherboards have on-board Firewire, every one I've looked at uses the same brands of Firewire chips you can get on PCI cards. For example, Gigabyte boards use TI chips (generally the best, especially for MOTU gear), while MSI and others tend to use VIA chips. As far as I know, all motherboards with on-board Firewire have the Firewire chips connected to the PCI bus -- they just don't eat a slot. There's no speed advantage between a PCI Firewire card and an on-the-motherboard Firewire card (assuming the chips have similar specs). On the other hand, you can find chipsets (like the nForce3 250 Gb) that include both SATA and Gigabit LAN support. Here, you get a definite performance boost (for both SATA and LAN), because they're not throttled by the PCI bus speed. It's also a bonus for audio cards hooked to the PCI bus (directly, or through USB or Firewire, which both use the PCI bus) -- because keeping disk and network traffic off the PCI bus eases the load all around. I'm looking very hard at the MSI Neo2 Platinum (with an Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego, like losguy), in part because it has for-real Gigabit LAN through the nForce3. Since I plan to use FX Teleport, that matters to me for my DAW. The tests I've seen show that the nForce3 gigabit LAN has seriously more throughput than a PCI-bus connected Gigabit LAN chip like the Gigabyte motherboards use. Plus -- the nForce3 LAn eats fewer CPU cycles in the bargain. I'm not thrilled about the VIA Firewire on the MSI board, but I can always add a Firewire 800 PCI card with TI chips if it turns out I need it (I don't own any MOTU interfaces currently, and the RME Fireface is not in my budget). Since Firewire goes over the PCI bus either way, there won't be a speed or bus-loading hit if I do this. On the other hand, there's no way to upgrade a PCI-bus-based Gigabit LAN connection to run like the nForce3 LAN support. Just my 2 bits. - Jim
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Nathan Knight
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/05/13 01:31:53
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I'm looking very hard at the MSI Neo2 Platinum (with an Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego, like losguy), in part because it has for-real Gigabit LAN through the nForce3. Since I plan to use FX Teleport, that matters to me for my DAW. The tests I've seen show that the nForce3 gigabit LAN has seriously more throughput than a PCI-bus connected Gigabit LAN chip like the Gigabyte motherboards use. Plus -- the nForce3 LAn eats fewer CPU cycles in the bargain. Can you tell me a little more about FX Teleport? I've been hearing it mentioned here and there in the PC-DAW newsgroup but didn't look it up till just now when I re-read your post. I have always used 2 DAWs for my studio, one main one running Sonar and handling all the recording and mixing while the 2nd one (hooked up via MIDIoverLAN giving me 15 virtual MIDI ports) dedicated to GigaStudio and other soft synths. This setup has allowed me to get about 60 tracks of 24-bit audio with about 22 plugins while triggering tons of GigaStudio channels of streaming samples. I wonder if FX Teleport might be something I could use with GigaStudio? Is it restricted to VST? Could I use it to control ReBirth, Reason, Fruity Loops, etc. from Sonar (in another machine)?
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/05/13 01:45:22
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ORIGINAL: Nathan Knight
I'm thinking more of when it's time to upgrade the GigaStudio DAW, to not have to re-convert all my Akai sample CDs to Giga and go through that whole process again...to just take the HDs with me and move them into the new computer. Maybe mobile racks aren't necessary for that? Or are they? No, not necessary. Just pull the HDD(s) from the old machine and move them to the new machine. Swapping internal storage HDDs is equivalent to moving external HDDs among machines. System HDDs add the complexity of having the OS and associated drivers. For that swap, you can format the drive/reinstall the OS, or more simply, just disabling all the drivers in the Hardware Manager before shutting the machine down for the swap.
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Nathan Knight
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/05/13 02:09:08
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I just read up on FX Teleport. Very interesting. It seems to be made with GigaStudio in mind mainly. That's a good thing. My questions are these:
* By bypassing (any) sound card in the GS machine and using the Sonar cound card, how will that work? If the Sonar machine is already powering some 40-60 tracks and they're all running through my Tascam FW1082, how will that same sound card handle another 20 (or so) tracks of streaming audio from GigaStudio?
* What about the samples? Will the GigaStudio samples be on the GS machine and only stream over to the Sonar sound card?--or are the samples on the Sonar machine HD and are triggered from the GS machine?
Nathan
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calaverasgrandes
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/05/13 03:06:49
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I guess I am lucky. My audio machine is a gigabyte n400 pro. Itt uses the nforce ultra 400 chipset. With 2 raid controllers hung off of the pci bus. Right after I bought it I noticed a chirp on some of my recordings. I found a solution in a 3rd party shareware bios! It's by this guy called pr3ach3r or some other such nonsense. He made it deliberately because he wanted to use teh N400pro as a workstation board, running raid for system and storage disks. Well thats how I am doing it now.
No problems until I added a midibox on LPT1. This causes my system to go to hell after about 30mins. Whic is weird because it isnt on the PCI bus at all! It's on a seperate controller that also runs the other legacy ports, floppy and kybd/ms Which then reports to the southbridge. Weird. I'm gonna mess with it more tonite, get back to you guys.
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strom32
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/05/13 07:18:25
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Hi Lliam
Yep, I was afraid of this happening, my 3112 SATA Gigabyte Pro 2 MB clicks and Pops with the SB Live and even on board sound. My future M-Audio card I suspect will do the same...
What I wanted to ask was whether you tried running IDE drives on the problem MB instead of SATA by disabling the SATA controller. If so did this fix the problem?
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Jim Wright
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/05/13 12:00:16
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Hi Nathan, ORIGINAL: Nathan Knight
I just read up on FX Teleport. Very interesting. It seems to be made with GigaStudio in mind mainly. That's a good thing. Originally, it was made for working with VSTs. I hadn't realized the current version supported Giga.
My questions are these:
* By bypassing (any) sound card in the GS machine and using the Sonar cound card, how will that work? If the Sonar machine is already powering some 40-60 tracks and they're all running through my Tascam FW1082, how will that same sound card handle another 20 (or so) tracks of streaming audio from GigaStudio?
FX Teleport works by creating VST 'stubs' in your host machine (the one running Sonar) that send MIDI (and other VST commands) over to the 'server' machine where the plugins are actually running. The plugins, running on the server, create audio that's piped back over the LAN to your host machine. The VST stubs on the host machine then deliver the audio to Sonar, just like a regular VST would do. The streaming audio from the 'server' machine is coming over a dedicated LAN connection -- it's not (at this point) coming through the sound card at all. When the VST stubs output audio, Sonar mixes it together with all the other audio streams in your project. Note that, while Sonar has to mix the teleported audio, it doesn't have to generate it, or stream it from hard disk. The mix outputs from Sonar are output to your sound card in the normal way. So -- if the Sonar mixer (and your CPU) can handle the additional mixing load, the sound card will never know the difference. Mixing audio is relatively cheap, in terms of CPU cycles. Processing audio (EQ, reverb, etc) eats a lot more CPU. Softsynths also tend to eat a lot of CPU. With FX Teleport, the processing and synthesis CPU load is moved to the server machine(s).
* What about the samples? Will the GigaStudio samples be on the GS machine and only stream over to the Sonar sound card?--or are the samples on the Sonar machine HD and are triggered from the GS machine?
Nathan
The samples must exist on the server machine(s). The actual VSTs must also exist on the server machine (and presumably the GS equivalents). In my case, I use Spectrasonics Atmosphere, Trilogy; Culture, Komplete 2, some PMI pianos. I would need to install all of them on the server machine. Since I have an external 160GB Firewire drive, I'd put on the sample data on that drive, so that I can use it with my main machine, server machine, or laptop -- but only one at a time, of course (you can't connect the drive to two machines at once). There are licensing issues too, if you use authorized plugs, but Spectrasonics is cool about that (I think it's the drive that gets authorized, not the CPU/motherboard, so the plugin works on any machine with the HD connected), and the Culture dongle (growl) is easy to move to another machine. The major upside to FX Teleport (compared to other ways of using multiple PCs for music) is that all the plugin settings are saved with your Sonar projects, even for the plugins running on server machines. When you load a Sonar project, everything is restored just as if it was running on one big machine. I'd guess that if you were using P5 v2 device chains, it would work just the same -- only better, because device chains store more settings. The brilliant part is that the host app (Sonar, P5) thinks its talking to regular VSTs -- the fact that the 'stub' VSTs are teleporting everything over the wire to server machines is invisible to Sonar/P5. The major downside is that the control panels (dialogs) for your 'teleported' plugins will appear on the server machine display, and you'll have to use the server machine mouse/keyboard to operate the control panel. This is a showstopper for some people. In my case -- I use a video switch box and a separate KVM to share one keyboard/mouse and two LCDs between multiple PCs. Plus, it's easy to connect a second mouse/keyboard if it's really needed. So, I think I'll manage fine when I start teleporting (I've never actually used FX Teleport, but I understand how it works pretty thoroughly, being a long-time music geek). From various reviews and posts in a number of forums, FX Teleport seems to work pretty well. Another downside: you may need to run with at least 5 msec latency to compensate for LAN latency. That's probably less of an issue with Gigabit LAN; FX Teleport was designed to work with 'Fast Ethernet' -- 100 Mb/sec rather than 1000 Mb/sec. You should be at least a little tech-savvy to use FX Teleport, I think. When I build my new DAW (this summer), I'll set up the old one with several boot profiles: 1. Boot in XP, running with FX Teleport over Gigabit LAN (no audio or MIDI connections needed). 2. Boot in Windows 98SE, running my OASYS PCI card, connected to the main DAW over ADAT and a separate MIDI connection. I'll also run some VST plugins on the second machine (whatever is happy under 98SE), since the OASYS card doesn't eat much CPU. - Jim
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/05/13 12:41:13
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ORIGINAL: Nathan Knight
On second thought, if I were to add a laptop to my studio computers, it would be nice to have an audio HD that could be swapped with the Sonar DAW and the laptop from time to time. But these mobile racks don't hook up to laptops, do they? Typically, no. Would a Firewire or USB drive be a better option for that? Because most laptops don't have Firewire, but they do have USB, it seems that if I buy an external HD (which I've been thinking of for some time to use with my laptop), should I get a USB external drive? Would that be as fast as a Firewire drive? My laptop doesn't have Firewire. Are there Firewire adapters for laptops that don't have Firewire? FW and USB2 are roughly the same speed (I say roughly, because it depends on whether you're talking FW800 and whether you're getting the full USB2 bandwidth, so let's just stick to roughly for now). USB2 uses more CPU power than FW does, so on that point FW has an edge. But USB2 is easier to get natively, especially on laptops. You can get a FW PC card for your laptop, if you wish. Also, others report much success with external USB2 audio drives, so there you have it. Nathan, a little fatherly advice, if you please: Keep your questions down to a dull roar. Do some homework. You're asking some pretty basic system quesions. Answers to most of your questions are available at your local PC shop. Find a good one and get the tech's ear. You'll learn a lot and feel great about it too.
post edited by losguy - 2005/05/13 12:42:24
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Nathan Knight
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/05/13 16:54:30
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Nathan, a little fatherly advice, if you please: Keep your questions down to a dull roar. Thanks Carlos, point taken. The thing is, I'm currently buying 2 new DAWs from the ground on up and I have so many questions. Is there a better way to pursue a particular subject with an individual from this forum via direct email? OK...if I may, I have a few more questions for Jim on FX Teleport... The major downside is that the control panels (dialogs) for your 'teleported' plugins will appear on the server machine display, and you'll have to use the server machine mouse/keyboard to operate the control panel. For the past 5 years I have used GigaStudio on a dedicated computer with its own monitor, but the keyboard/mouse were hooked up to a KVM so that my Sonar machine could share the kb/mouse while having its own monitor. I've used MIDIoverLAN for MIDI...and it worked wonderfully giving me 15 virtual MIDI ports. (Here's a picture of my last studio setup in Rio http://nathanknight.com/studio_pics.htm) My main question now is if the "server" computer (in my case running GigaStudio, Fruity Loops, Reason, ReBirth, BFD, etc), needs a monitor at all...or will FX Teleport allow me to control everything I'd need from the "main" computer? Since I haven't bought my graphic cards yet (though I already have my 2 19" LCDs) I'm beginning to wonder if a dual head card (or cards...if the "server" computer will need a monitor as well) is the route I should go. This would be a big jump for me...to give up control of the GigaStuio from its own computer...and to treat it as a plugin from within Sonar. Hope you don't mind these questions as it would mean a change in the hardware I am now buying. Actually, I just bought a new PCI Audiophile 2496 for the GigaStudio machine (as that's a good performance card for GigaStudio with low latency, etc.), but maybe I should sell it or try to send it back?--unless there would be a scenario that I'd need a card on that machine? I used to run the S/PDIF signal out from my Giga machine to the digital in on the Sonar machine. Since I have an external 160GB Firewire drive, I'd put on the sample data on that drive, so that I can use it with my main machine, server machine, or laptop Why would you want to access those samples on your "host" DAW if you have the "server" dedicated for that? Another downside: you may need to run with at least 5 msec latency to compensate for LAN latency. That's probably less of an issue with Gigabit LAN; FX Teleport was designed to work with 'Fast Ethernet' -- 100 Mb/sec rather than 1000 Mb/sec. Will regular routers work for Gigabit LAN? I have a 54 wireless router with 100mbps when plugged in.
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/05/14 01:23:02
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Jim, Nathan, could you do me a favor and take the OT FX Teleport discussion to a new thread? I like to monitor this thread specifically for SATA and other audio glitch-related issues, just in case I may be of some help.
Don't get me wrong, I'm actually interested in the FX Teleport discussion, and Jim's well-researched answers are interesting for me to read. It's just, well, kinda off-topic. Thanks in advance!
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cooljazz58
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/05/14 07:58:46
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Hi all,
I've been following the "Reclaiming your Audio" thread with great interest (kudos to losguy). I have a Dell 8400 with a MAudio 2496 and 2 Sata drives. My initial experience were alot of pops using Sonar. I updated my MAudio driver (btw - new driver is out) and installed Intel's Matrix Storage Technology program to better manage sata drives. These changes helped alot but I still get an occassional pop, especially playing softsynths.
I downloaded Powerstrip and not sure how to use it. I've seen the example posted by losguy:
"RADEON 9000 Output 1: 248
RADEON 9000 Output 2: 32
Terratec EWS88D: 32
SiI 3112 SATA: 32"
How does everyone find and adjust these latency settings for video, audio and sata? Thanks in advance for the help! I'll report back on my success, assuming I can figure it out!?!
Rick
Cooljazz58
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/05/14 13:15:38
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ORIGINAL: cooljazz58
How does everyone find and adjust these latency settings for video, audio and sata? Thanks in advance for the help! I'll report back on my success, assuming I can figure it out!?! cooljazz, this image should help:  (Direct link) Scroll through Device Selection to find your various devices. The names aren't always obvious, so you might need to do a little sleuthing. Process of elimination usually gets you there. To change latency, make sure that the Read Only box is unchecked. The scroll box labeled "Latency", in the middle of the GUI, is where you conduct your real business. If it's higher than 200, bring it down to around 100 or slightly below. Besides that, don't change anything else unless you're sure about what you're doing. BTW, I just noticed that your Dell Dimension 8400 has PCI Express graphics. This may be bad news for you. I have yet to hear of a PCI-E adapter having a PCI latency that is adjustable with the current crop of PCI latency tools (like PowerStrip). For example, in Powerstrip, the Latency selector would be greyed out and set to zero. This is because PCI-E is a different I/O scheme entirely from PCI, being a point-to-point type of asynchronous bus, and probably has no such thing as a bus mastering timeouts (what PCI latency is all about). So if you find it greyed out to zero, then the only reason for you to keep PowerStrip would be to manage other PCI devices on your PCI bus. But it will do nothing to tame your hungry graphics card. If you do continue to get pops, you might be able to approach it by using a leaner PCI-E card. Scott at ADK (search for ADK DAW) might be able to point you toward such a graphics card. (But you might not like the result if you're interested in gaming too.) Unfortunately, us poor DAW folks are going to have to wait until chipset manufacturers, MOBO designers, and yes, even Microsoft get into proper alignment for PCI Express to be able to fulfill its intended vision. In the meantime, it's in a real mess that leaves DAW builders in the dust.
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Jim Wright
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/05/14 16:41:42
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losguy -- sorry about hijacking your thread; you're absolutely right.
Nathan -- please start up a thread in the Gear forum -- call it something like 'Double DAW Dilemma'. I'll answer you there.
losguy -- on USB 2 v. Firewire, I have to differ. Despite the nominal bitrate difference (480 Mb/sec for USB 2, 400 Mb/sec for Firewire), Firewire is just plain more efficient at moving bits around. My Seagate 160 external HD has both Firewire and USB 2; I've clocked file transfers with both USB 2 and Firewire (using SiSoft Sandra), and Firewire has about 3x the transfer rate, at least in my setup. It's true that Firewire is not as common in the PC world as USB 2 (especially with laptops), of course. There's also the CPU load factor -- in one study, USB 2.0 at full tilt ate about 15-20% of the CPU, while Firewire -- moving 3x more data -- only ate 2% of the CPU. I don't recall the system specs (CPU, RAM etc.) but it was something reasonably current as of 2004. USB drivers just have to do a lot more work; Firewire hardware can stream data to/from RAM directly, with minimal help from the CPU. That made Firewire more expensive, at least initially -- but makes a lot more sense from a high-performance-system viewpoint. (Plus, Firewire MIDI has much nicer timing performance than standard USB MIDI, but that's a different discussion -- and for many people USB MIDI seems to be acceptable.)
- Jim
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/05/14 16:53:59
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ORIGINAL: Jim Wright
losguy -- on USB 2 v. Firewire, I have to differ. ... Firewire is just plain more efficient at moving bits around. ... I've clocked file transfers with both USB 2 and Firewire (using SiSoft Sandra), and Firewire has about 3x the transfer rate, at least in my setup. ... There's also the CPU load factor -- in one study, USB 2.0 at full tilt ate about 15-20% of the CPU, while Firewire -- moving 3x more data -- only ate 2% of the CPU. ... Thanks for the finer points on this, Jim. In reality, I don't think we differ on the broader points (but you'd have to pick apart what we both said to notice). (Plus, Firewire MIDI has much nicer timing performance than standard USB MIDI, but that's a different discussion -- and for many people USB MIDI seems to be acceptable.) Yes, I've heard the same. And I do use USB MIDI on my keyboard controllers (USB1 no less) with no problems. But then again, it's been a long time since I've attempted to dump entire scores through MIDI cables.
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/05/14 16:58:44
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ORIGINAL: Jim Wright
losguy -- sorry about hijacking your thread; you're absolutely right. No problem, Jim. I've been guilty of the same thing a time or three. As someone greater than me once said, "Go in peace my son, your sins are forgiven."
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Lliam
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/05/15 08:42:31
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ORIGINAL: strom32
Hi Lliam
Yep, I was afraid of this happening, my 3112 SATA Gigabyte Pro 2 MB clicks and Pops with the SB Live and even on board sound. My future M-Audio card I suspect will do the same...
What I wanted to ask was whether you tried running IDE drives on the problem MB instead of SATA by disabling the SATA controller. If so did this fix the problem?
Sorry for pushing in guys and gals... I originally set an ABIT NF7 v2.0 board up with 2 IDE drives , with SATA disabled in BIOS with no problems with MAUDIO PCI cards. I just needed a larger HDD and bought the SATA Spinpoint, which is when the SATA troubles started. If you don't want to upgrade your MB then try the Startech.com IDE to SATA controller as a stop gap and buy a SATA drive. All the best Lliam
post edited by Lliam - 2005/05/15 08:44:06
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cooljazz58
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/05/15 09:36:43
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ORIGINAL: losguy
......BTW, I just noticed that your Dell Dimension 8400 has PCI Express graphics. This may be bad news for you. I have yet to hear of a PCI-E adapter having a PCI latency that is adjustable with the current crop of PCI latency tools (like PowerStrip). For example, in Powerstrip, the Latency selector would be greyed out and set to zero. This is because PCI-E is a different I/O scheme entirely from PCI, being a point-to-point type of asynchronous bus, and probably has no such thing as a bus mastering timeouts (what PCI latency is all about). So if you find it greyed out to zero, then the only reason for you to keep PowerStrip would be to manage other PCI devices on your PCI bus. But it will do nothing to tame your hungry graphics card.
Losguy, To start, mega thanks for your detailed explanation (with screenshot!!!) on how to use PowerStrip. Dell's award winning tech support should be so responsive and helpful!!!  I did confirm your concern regarding PowerStrip and the 8400's PCI Express graphics. I don't have the ability to control the latency. I also did check out the ADK website and found that in general PCI Express Graphics and DAWs don't play very well together. I think my next step is to pull the SATA drives and replace with 2 Seagate UATAs. As I understand it I have an IDE drive connector on my MOBO. It's also my understanding that UATA drives don't have the same issues with video cards (popping, noises, clicks, etc.) as SATA drives. Not the best solution but I don't have enough PCI slots (3) to swap out the PCI Express card. Thanks again for all your help, Rick
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/05/15 20:50:08
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ORIGINAL: cooljazz58
Losguy,
To start, mega thanks for your detailed explanation (with screenshot!!!) on how to use PowerStrip. Dell's award winning tech support should be so responsive and helpful!!! You're welcome! I did confirm your concern regarding PowerStrip and the 8400's PCI Express graphics. I don't have the ability to control the latency. I also did check out the ADK website and found that in general PCI Express Graphics and DAWs don't play very well together. Thanks for confirming this, and alas, yes it is true about the current crop of PCI-E not being good for DAWs. I think my next step is to pull the SATA drives and replace with 2 Seagate UATAs. As I understand it I have an IDE drive connector on my MOBO. It's also my understanding that UATA drives don't have the same issues with video cards (popping, noises, clicks, etc.) as SATA drives. This solution mostly helps if the SATA controller for the SATA drives hangs off of the PCI slot bus. IDE controllers have been integrated into CPU chipsets for a long time now, and so don't suffer from PCI bus contention like controllers that plug into the PCI bus. However, for over a year now, most MOBOs have featured SATA controllers that are also integrated into the chipset. Being a consumer MOBO, I don't know how your Dell MOBO is constructed in this regard. If you could get specs I could tell better. But if your SATA controller is indeed integrated into the chipset, then moving to IDE drives may not help and leave you in a frustrated condition. Not the best solution but I don't have enough PCI slots (3) to swap out the PCI Express card. I would first try a "lean" PCI-E card. But in lieu of that, (I never thought I'd ever recommend this) you may want to attempt using an old, lame, PCI graphics card. At least with that card, you would have a chance of adjusting the PCI latency. But that's a long shot...
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Saxon1066
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/05/16 02:56:36
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Hey, Losguy! I'm glad you're still guru of this thread. Has it been almost a year and a half, now? I never did get my Dell Dimension 8250 to where I wanted it. I've tried all the solutions mentioned here, and still get pops at any latency I can live with. Pops go away when I set my ASIO buffers higher, but that means latencies around 10 msec--with a noticeable delay in input monitoring. Right now I'm trying to function at 5.9 msec latency (with occasional, minor pops) using ASIO drivers with a Lynx AES 16 as interface for a Rosetta 800. I am tracking at 88.2, which is what I strongly prefer. I'm about ready to get a new DAW, however. Do you think the new 64-bit machines will help me reduce the latency a bit? I get a better groove with latencies around 3.0.
post edited by Saxon1066 - 2005/05/16 02:58:26
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/05/16 11:42:57
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ORIGINAL: Saxon1066
I'm about ready to get a new DAW, however. Do you think the new 64-bit machines will help me reduce the latency a bit? I get a better groove with latencies around 3.0. A fast AMD64 should be able to get you there. Take a look at Scott Reams' SonarTest page. That ought to tell you everything. I'm about to put one together myself. I'm using an AMD 64 3700+ with the new San Diego core (90nm process with a 1MB cache). Note: A big cache is great for low latency. Based on reports, a good MOBO to go with it is the MSI Neo2 Platinum. Hopefully my experience will be the same.
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Nathan Knight
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/05/16 19:59:51
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Nathan -- please start up a thread in the Gear forum -- call it something like 'Double DAW Dilemma'. I'll answer you there. OK Jim (and anybody else interested), I just started a new thread in the Gear forum and called it "FX Teleport & Double DAW'ing". Look forward to hearing from you there! Regards, Nathan
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strom32
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/05/16 23:45:12
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This problem with SATA, Sil3112 and sound cards is not isolated to m-audio cards, indeed it affects my on-board audio and SB Live card. I'm wanting to buy a m-audio card 24/96 but have a Gigabyte 7N400 Pro 2 NF2 MB, steer way clear of this MB for Audio, sorry Gigabyte but you haven't done your homework and now I have to do more homework to afford another MB.
Lliam how are things going with the ASUS board? It looks like I might be buying it also.
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Lliam
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/05/18 07:04:44
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This ASUS board seems to have allowed me to reclaim SATA since the controller is integrated into the VT8237 south bridge so no PCI hogging. I have got rid of the pops and crackles, and so far don't seem to have returned! For me, changing to this MB was the most cost effective solution for my current circumstances. I am a bit of a technology junkie at the best of times, but because this is my own studio, and it’s just my (all-consuming) hobby (isn't that called obsession?), I can't justify spending on AMD64 just to get a lower CPU @1.5ms..... The pros on this forum obviously record with a lot of plug ins & 96k/24 bit tracks so need to have DAWs capable of anything their clients need. As an interesting note have you seen this Steve Albini talk?... 
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/05/19 12:28:58
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ORIGINAL: Lliam
This ASUS board seems to have allowed me to reclaim SATA since the controller is integrated into the VT8237 south bridge so no PCI hogging. I have got rid of the pops and crackles, and so far don't seem to have returned! For this achievement, you get... ..\D a hat-tip from the losguy. You have increased the options by one for anyone stuck in the quagmire of M-Audio / SiI SATA. While a MOBO swap is not as easy as changing an audio interface, this particular MOBO swap is certainly cheaper (especially if you're talking about a better M-Audio interface). Also, this provides a separate option for folks not wanting to switch to external SATA drives. Well done! (Edited for emphasis)
post edited by losguy - 2005/05/19 15:29:26
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DigiDis
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/05/19 14:54:44
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ORIGINAL: BillW
This thread has been an eye-opener! As I begin looking into replacing my 4 year old ABIT K7/AMD2400+ system, I am also considering at least one SATA drive. Can anybody comment on this configuration?
Asus A8V Deluxe
AMD64 3200
Two IDE drives: Maxtor Ultra16/250GB (system) and 60GB (backups)
One SATA-150: Maxtor Ultra16/250GB (using the integrated VIA controller, not the Promise controller) for audio & samples
Delta-66
Windows XP Pro (32-bit)
Thanks,
Bill
I just built a very similar system with the Audiophile and Maxtor SATA drives. My system drive is an 80gb SATA and the 2 sample/audio drives are a 200gb Maxtor SATA and an old IBM Deskstar 120gb IDE. No clicks and pops, the system is robust and responsive and is trouble free. So, I think with this board the SATA and VIA nightmares don't exist.
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/05/19 15:45:11
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ORIGINAL: DigiDis
ORIGINAL: BillW
This thread has been an eye-opener! As I begin looking into replacing my 4 year old ABIT K7/AMD2400+ system, I am also considering at least one SATA drive. Can anybody comment on this configuration?
Asus A8V Deluxe ... AMD64 3200
Two IDE drives: Maxtor Ultra16/250GB (system) and 60GB (backups)
One SATA-150: Maxtor Ultra16/250GB (using the integrated VIA controller, not the Promise controller) for audio & samples
Delta-66 ... Windows XP Pro (32-bit)
I just built a very similar system with the Audiophile and Maxtor SATA drives. My system drive is an 80gb SATA and the 2 sample/audio drives are a 200gb Maxtor SATA and an old IBM Deskstar 120gb IDE. No clicks and pops, the system is robust and responsive and is trouble free. ... So, I think with this board the SATA and VIA nightmares don't exist.
Thanks for weighing in. I was very close to getting this board myself, since I have liked the way Asus implemented my A7N8X (that is, now that I have all of the SATA warts ironed out), and sticking with Asus would provide some degree of continuity. Also, the chipset cooler being fanless was a huge plus. However, I was steered way from this board by a system integrator who happened to experience a bad run of these boards (nothing against Asus, he actually liked Asus in general, just this particular board), having to do with the onboard NIC. Also, some reviews seemed to indicate nVidia nForce3 edging out Via in certain performance benchmarks. It's probably nothing much to worry about, soup to nuts, and it's good to know that your boards are working well for you.
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chdude3
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/06/14 08:57:43
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Is it too late to chime in with my experience?
I had been using a separate dedicated machine as a DAW; Intel 845 (non-PE) chipset based with normal IDE drives. And Sonar 1.3.1, because I couldn't afford an upgrade (and it was working just fine). Unfortunately, my wife finally put her foot down and I had to consolidate my "regular" machine, and the DAW.
My normal machine was Athlon XP based. Since our 3rd computer was also Socket A, I decided to ditch the Intel rig (plus, my 2500+ was faster than the 2GHz P4). Here's where I made the mistake - I had been using an old Western Digital hard drive that did not have fluid dynamic bearings, was getting old, and approaching the end of warranty. Not being aware of this thread (or the issues which it discussed), I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to take advantage of the SATA ports on my Abit NF7-S motherboard.
I picked up a new Seagate 7200.8 SATA drive, and it became my system disc. I managed to get all hardware installed (only plug in cards are my AGP video and my Delta66 in PCI slot 4). Imagine my dismay when I loaded up the last project I'd been working on, only to find that it was popping and clicking like crazy upon playback!
I frantically Googled and came upon this thread (and similar ones at other forums), which nailed exactly what I was experiencing. I further confirmed the problem by moving all of my audio data to my secondary drive (which is IDE, not SATA), and the problem disappeared.
I've attempted to reclaim SATA for audio, but without a full success. No IRQs are shared, I made sure of that first. I've mucked around with my PCI lantencies - this has helped, but did not completely eliminate the pops and clicks. The only way to get clean playback (I have not tried recording yet, the PC has only been up and running for a couple days) was to use the second IDE based drive as the working audio drive. It's not that big of a hardship, since I already had the drive and intended to put it exactly where it is, but it is very disconcerting that the SATA did not cut it!
I plan on purchasing an add-in PCI controller when I can find a suitable reasonably priced one that will take advantage of the Native Command Queuing of my SATA drive. For now, though, I've at least got myself up and running again. I appreciate all the help the members have provided in this thread; it's simply unfortunate that it couldn't cure all my ailments.
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losguy
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RE: Reclaiming SATA for audio
2005/06/14 10:20:37
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ORIGINAL: chdude3
Is it too late to chime in with my experience? Nope, never too late (unless Cakewalk someday decides to take down the forum... hopefully they'll always be alive and well). Is your audio card M-Audio by chance? If so, there's little that can be done, short of using IDE for audio as you are doing now, or using an external USB2/FW drive for audio. You can also do what Lliam did (see his posts on the last couple pages) and swap out your MOBO to the ASUS A7V880. This board uses the (relatively) new VIA KT880 chipset for AMD Socket A processors. On that chipset, the VT8237 southbridge actually integrates SATA. It's the only one that does this, TTBOMK. Swapping the MOBO would be a hassle, of course, but it's a relatively cheap swap. If your audio card is PCI, then I would not recommend a PCI card-based SATA adapter for you, since any PCI slot-bus solution could contend with the audio card. It really comes down to the adapter hardware and how the driver for the adapter is written. You may get lucky, but then again, you may not. Instead, as a sort of stop-gap, you could use this IDE-to-SATA adapter from StarTech that Lliam pointed out above. IMO it would be a better solution, as it would provide SATA ports that also bypass the PCI slot bus. I frantically Googled and came upon this thread (and similar ones at other forums), which nailed exactly what I was experiencing. Curious... did you find other forum threads that provided alternate solutions, or did they just further point out the problem?
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