I'm thinking of buying an extra Pulsar2/Scope Project card (6 DSPs) for my almost 8 years old pulsar 1 card with 4 DSPs.
Should that give any problems? The DSPs are the same I would think so i guess they should still work together?
As far as I know the only thing that's a bit annoying is that the pulsar 2 will adjust to the higher latency of the Pulsar 1 (10-14 ms). Is that correct?
no, it's the other way around
the SFP software will use the IO system (and hence smaller latency) of the newer card, if the latter is the 'main' (or master) card.
Usually the card which is found first according to slot information becomes 'master', you'll find it listed at the top position in the DSP usage window.
You will also need an S/TDM cable to connect the 2 cards.
Still, I'm wondering how the pulsar 1 can suddenly get lower latency. I've never been able to get less than 10 ms with that card. Is it because only the DSPs are used from that system?
So is it like the one with the lowest IRQ becomes the master?
your guess is right - only the DSPs of the card are used regarding system communication.
All physical in/outs are of course still available (as you can see in the respective hardware menu)
I have no idea if it's the Bios or Windows (slot position, IRQ) what defines the sequence of cards - check the notes in the manual, how to make an entry in the cset.ini file to overide the automatic setting if it doesn't match your preferences.
e.g. I'd plugin the card, connect the s/tdm cable and start scope - you have a 50% chance that the new card becomes master.
if not, you may either switch slots or edit the board id in cset.ini accordingly.
Once I added a Pulsar2 to my Pulsar1 my ASIO latency went from 13ms to 3ms (although most reliable without clicks at 6ms).
The Pulsar1 just becomes an 'entender' of 4xDSP's to the Pulsar2 via the STDM cable, so I don't think it's inferior PCI interface is really used at all.
kaoutchou wrote:I'm in the same process right now...
Does this mean that the slave card's physical I/O won't be working anymore?
there is not really such thing as master and slave, concerning I/O. there is (indeed) a card that gets initialized first, but all available I/O add up in the routing window (if you don't break it anyhow )
-greetings, markus-
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I'm sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.
My system consists of 2 legacy Pulsar cards (Pulsar Plus [4-DSP] + Pulsar SRB [4-DSP]) and a 2nd generation Pulsar card (PowerPulsar [15-DSP]). I haven't had any trouble with the computer recognizing the 'new' card as the primary. I still use my XLR & AES/EBU interfaces of the ol'Pulsar Plus and ULLI for the whole system's set to 7 ms @ 44.1 Khz.
At least on my MB (ASUS P4P800 Deluxe), PCI slots are labeled with numbers, and of course, I've put PowerPulsar in the slot with the lowest slot number and connect the others using a S/TDM cable.
As far as i can see it's clearly defined in the dropdowns which ins/outs belong to what card.
I have another question. I see that I have gotten a key for modular 2 with my new card. But it's not installed with the software since originally i didn't have the key.
Do i have to reinstall the drivers/software again or is there an easier way of adding the modular 2?
summer wrote:
Do i have to reinstall the drivers/software again or is there an easier way of adding the modular 2?
you should already have the modular2/3 directories in your scope install path. there are 2 dirs per modular, the modules and the device tree. they can be downloaded, if not, or simply copied from the scope 4.5 install kit directory. there is an oxe file for the modular2 in the nokey.oxe path on the ftp server that should be installed, once the directory structure is there. I did that procedure with other items before, and that worked. but these oxes contained the complete device. the modularX oxe seems to contain links only. if you are prompted for the key, the easiest way is to point the dialog to your new keyfile.
-greetings, markus-
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I'm sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.
