OT: Accelerated 3D GFX cards with Free drivers (was Re: [linux-audio-user] Re: The best distro for music creation)

[studio-64]

Paul Davis wrote:
>>>Currently, I am trying to decide between an RME
>>>Hammerfall and an M-Audio Delta 1010 audio card.  Just
>>>as the 3D provides video performance, the RME
>>>Hammerfall does the same for audio, off loading the
>>>audio processing away from the main cpu.  The alsa
>>>project also says both cards are supported.
> 
> 
> this is an unfortunate reading of BS marketing text.
> 
> the hammerfall series (digiXXXX and HDSP) do nothing of the sort, they
> never did, they don't on any other OS, etc etc etc.
> 
> all that RME is referring to here are 2 things:
> 
> 	a) direct monitoring without CPU involvement
> 	      - well yeah, except that even consumer analog
> 	        cards do that
> 
>         b) the card is a DMA busmaster, and so the CPU doesn't 
> 	   need to be involved in transferring data to the 
> 	   card, it just stuffs it into host-side RAM
> 	      - well yeah, except that almost every other
> 	        PCI card on the planet *except* RME's
> 	        earlier designs do this too. this is 
> 	        really just an apology for the incredibly
>                 stupid design of the digi96 series, which
> 	        require active participation by the host 
> 	        CPU to move data to the card.
> 
> --p
> 
> 
> 

That explains why this was cheaper at the time (over a year ago)
I thought I would get this as:

1 It was supported
2 I could add more cards as the system grew
3 The website seemed to infer Linux Support

I didnt really worry about monitoring and latency as I was using the DDX
and this controlled the monitors as in most analogue studios.

Apart from Word clock the HDSP card didnt seem that diffrerent.

It's a shame RME have allowed the marketing depatment to run the company!

Cheers
Bob





             Bearmusic
             hearmymusic.co.uk <http:www.hearmymusic.co.uk>