23 Sep
2003
23 Sep
'03
12:23 p.m.
Mark, Thomas etc.: If there is now a driver
for HDSP 9652, rev 101,
There is.
we would really like to
know if this has been tested running continuously
for a day or more, with a CPU-intensive application
such as PD with a big patch.
Not by me, but I'd be very interested in trying out something like this for
you if it would help advance things.
The experience we have had, trying to make this work
for about half a year now with previous drivers and
versions of firmware, is that the whole machine
freezes totally after a few hours of operation, which
is disastrous for us. All kinds of kernels, drivers,
motherboards, BIOS settings etc. give the same problem -
believe me we have tried absolutely everything.
So, has long-term stability at relatively high CPU
loads (30-40%) and substantial disk activity been tested
for the new driver and 101 firmware? We are happy to
accept xruns and whatever, as long as the machine doesn't
crash!
My Linux system that uses the HDSP 9652 has turned out to be a much
different usage model than what I thought it was going to be when I bought
the card. Like you, I envisioned that I would be using lots of Linux apps
and using lots of compute cycles. For me this hasn't been the case as the
apps cannot yet replace the Windows apps I use today. (I remain vigilant and
will pounce when they can!) In my project studio environment the card is
primarily an audio router hooking together a number other computers and
hardware:
(Please excuse my remedial ASCSI art, and I hope I made the lines small
enough not to break.)
-->Spkrs/phones out
| |Synths/drums in
-------------- ----------------- ------------------
| Pro Tools |--ADAT-->| |--ADAT-->| Alesis AI-3 |
| Win XP |<-ADAT---| |<-ADAT---| 8-ch D/A - A/D |
-------------- | Gentoo | ------------------
| HDSP 9652 |
-------------- | Audio & | ------------
| GigaStudio |--ADAT-->| MIDI Router |<-spdif----| Pod Pro |
| Win ME |<-ADAT---| |-Word Clk->| |
-------------- ----------------- ------------
| |
| |
--------------------
| Jack & Jack Apps |
| |
--------------------
Sometimes the GigaStudio machine runs Planet CCRMA Redhat and I use Linux
apps there.
In the above configuration the primary job of the HDSP 9652 is to route
audio from machine to machine. All of this can be done in the HDSP card
itself. I do not even have to run Jack to make this part work. At this point
the machine is very stable. This has been up for about a month (since Thomas
got the driver operating) and has run for many hours at a time without a
crash I would associate with anything audio oriented. However, this only
uses about 1% of the CPU and requires no disk access.
I do, however, run Jack and some Jack apps mostly as processors for audio
coming from the other PCs and hardware, as well as a couple of Linux soft
synths. (ZynAdSubFX and amSynth) I want very much to do some work with AMS
and SSM but haven't had the time.
I'd be very interested in trying PD with whatever patches you might want to
use as a test. I know very little about PD and would be interested in
learning more, as well as seeing what reliability issues might arise. I'm
good at debugging hardware related stuff, but not so good at Linux software,
so there would likely be considerable interaction if we did this.
Thanks, and in desperate hope,
Cheers,
Mark
Oyvind Hammer
University of Oslo
Thomas - please verify:
* Alsa 0.9.6 + Aug. 27th patch
MultiFace & DigiFace work, except for rev 0x32 pci cards
HDSP 9652 works for rev 101 (0x65)
HDSP 9632 is broken
The group requires hdspmixer rev 1.3