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CUDA Looks Great!!!!!

marspe

Member
Hi All,

Check out this post by Aleksey on the Voxengo Forum:
http://www.voxengo.com/forum/ar/1522/?offset=10

From my investigation into CUDA his conclusions so far look correct. It is more of a \"Co-Processor\" than a Multi-Core CPU. It doesn't have enough of the support hardware to function as a true CPU. However, as a replacement for the UAD-1 IT IS ABSOULUTELY PERFECT!!!!

The UAD-1 is not running your computer and DAW it is just processing the specific UA plug-ins. This is the perfect scenario for CUDA. I mean DAMN, Aleksey was able to run 384 CHANNELS, each with 25 Bands of EQ, at FREAKIN 192kHz!!! And he has the SLOWER CARD (8800GTS vs. 8800GTX). And that's not even SLI! That is only ONE card.

What's even better about CUDA/NVidia is that the VIDEO Rendering part IS ON A TOTALLY SEPERATE CHIP! If you look at a 8800 Video card, you will see a smaller chip located closer to the DVI Connectors. That is the actual VIDEO Display chip, the main chip in the center of the card is the G80 GPU. You can OEM the card WITHOUT the Video Display chip and you have basically a UAD-1 type card.

Remember, this is NOT the same as BionicFX which was using an ATI Video card with the typical setup of Dedicated Pixel, Vertex, or Geometry shaders. All of your code had to be CONVERTED to OpenGL to be processed on one of the Shaders and then converted back in order to process anything. With NVidia/CUDA, the G80 is the total opposite. The G80 has 128 cores that are GENERAL PURPOSE STREAM PROCESSORS. Their processing function isn't predetermined. They can be programmed to process any type of IEEE-754 Floating Point instruction without conversion. NVidia has even released an API, SDK and compiler (C or otherwise) for developers. Can it get any easier?

Imagine, a processor with 128 individual cores running at 1.35GHz (the stream processors run faster than the rest of the chip @575MHz), with 768MB of GDDR4 Ram, a 384-bit Memory Interface, with a dedicated Thread Processor managing THOUSANDS of threads at once, just to run UA Plug-ins. And the BEST part of all of this? You can BUY an NVIDIA 8800GTX for $600.00!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Even if UA decided to sell if for $1,000.00 it would be a bargain for us and they would make a profit.

What about processing power? Well two of these cards in an SLI configuration are capable of a more than a TERAFLOP (that's one TRILLION INSTRUCTIONS PER SECOND). Anyone else ready to jump on this bandwagon? :)
 

Spacey

Active Member
Me too, only thing stopping me from running my vsti's at 88khz (yes they do sound better he he) is my uad-1's :)

I was looking into this a few weeks back. To stop people from say pirating the plugs you could have it so that you require 1 uad-1 card to act as a kind of dongle maybe?
 

marspe

Member
Spacey said:
Me too, only thing stopping me from running my vsti's at 88khz (yes they do sound better he he) is my uad-1's :)

I was looking into this a few weeks back. To stop people from say pirating the plugs you could have it so that you require 1 uad-1 card to act as a kind of dongle maybe?
Nah, it wouldn't be that difficult. Your UAD-1 card has an ID that UA uses to identify it to your account. The plug-ins you buy are authorized for that specific Card, and up to 3 other cards on your account. The same thing could be done with the NVidia cards. The plugs would be authorized, using the cards ID, for the specific card on your account.

Hell, the G80 is so powerful, I doubt that a second card would be necessary. UA could limit it to one card period. With 500 GigaFlops of processing power, which by the way is 1000 times more powerfull than the MPact-2 (500 MegaFlops) on the UAD-1, I doubt that anyone would need more than one. :)

Did I just say that? Let's see, if a UAD-1 can run 8 instances of the 1176LN plug-in, and the G80 is 1000 times more powerfull, wouldn't that mean that a SINGLE G80 card could theoretically run 8000 INSTANCES OF THE 1176LN? :D
 

Cabbage

Active Member
This does look like the way to go! But I also think that it will be difficult to get full performance out of these cards when doing audio processing with complex data flow. But even if we loose a magnitude in performance there is still planty left.

It would be really nice if UA sticks with standard HW, so that this can be a common platform for other vendors as well. If this catches on, companies like PSP, WaveArts and Voxengo will be all over this. Developing their own HW is not within their core competences.

Still, if this is the path UA are on, it will be a while until we see any products. Especially anything external.

Edit: I see that CUDA is currently not available for MacOS. If it will not be, I guess it is alot less tempting, at least for UA.

Petter
 

marspe

Member
Cabbage said:
This does look like the way to go! But I also think that it will be difficult to get full performance out of these cards when doing audio processing with complex data flow. But even if we loose a magnitude in performance there is still planty left.

It would be really nice if UA sticks with standard HW, so that this can be a common platform for other vendors as well. If this catches on, companies like PSP, WaveArts and Voxengo will be all over this. Developing their own HW is not within their core competences.

Still, if this is the path UA are on, it will be a while until we see any products. Especially anything external.
I really don't think an external unit is required. Most Motherboards out there have at LEAST 2 PCI-e x16 ports (mainly for SLI/Crossfire compatability). You could have your video card in one slot, and the UA card in the other. UA wouldn't have to waste time engineering an external solution when the existing hardware is more than sufficient.

Cabbage said:
Edit: I see that CUDA is currently not available for MacOS. If it will not be, I guess it is alot less tempting, at least for UA.

Petter
It is however, available for Linux which is what MacOS is based on. Also, the actual CARD (8800GTX) will definitely be available for the Mac so the hardware will be totally compatible.

Wait, check this out: http://www.macnn.com/articles/07/03/05/ ... mac.bound/

So it looks like CUDA is coming to the Mac. :) There's no stopping the train now!
 

Cabbage

Active Member
marspe said:
I really don't think an external unit is required. Most Motherboards out there have at LEAST 2 PCI-e x16 ports (mainly for SLI/Crossfire compatability). You could have your video card in one slot, and the UA card in the other. UA wouldn't have to waste time engineering an external solution when the existing hardware is more than sufficient.
I was thinking for laptopers.

Petter
 

daverich

Active Member
I know aleksey is looking seriously at cuda and about how it fits with the development platform he's written.

Later in the year it'll be 64bit float capable also.

Kind regards

Dave Rich
 
marspe said:
Did I just say that? Let's see, if a UAD-1 can run 8 instances of the 1176LN plug-in, and the G80 is 1000 times more powerfull, wouldn't that mean that a SINGLE G80 card could theoretically run 8000 INSTANCES OF THE 1176LN? :D
That means it could even run up to...... three 33609s!! :wink:

Kidding aside, this sounds incredibly cool. Hope this is either what UA's waiting for or will at least be a good enough solution to get things moving. Sure SOUNDS good enough.
 

marspe

Member
Paul Woodlock said:
[quote="Tony Ostinato":19beay0a]I am, soon as plugins are ready for it!
Tony are you feeling OK? ;)[/quote:19beay0a]

Hee, hee, hee... :D

On another note, I just thought of another benefit of the NVidia/CUDA platform. It is 1000% compatible with MULTI-CORE/PROCESSOR CPU'S!!! :)

With all the issues people are reporting with the UAD-1 in Multi-core/processor setups, this could definitely be a real plus with this platform. That's the advantage of using and leveraging MASS MARKET HARDWARE. It works with everything, because NVidia makes DAMN sure that it does. It's also going to be a lot less sensitive to the different motherboard's and chipsets out there because again, NVidia will make sure it works. And if some incompatability comes up out of no where, guess what? NVidia is still around to support and update the platform.

When the MPact-2 chip came out multi-core cpu's, Hypertransport chipsets, and PCI-e slots, were not even a blip on the radar yet. Not to mention 64 bit Operating Systems. And Chromatic Research isn't around to support or update the platform further. That means UA, who is NOT a developer of DSP hardware, has to do it themselves. That is the MAIN problem with continuing to use a 'DEAD' platform no matter how advanced it was when it came out. You are basically on your own (S.O.L). Does anyone remember the Synclavier? :)
 

Herbesh

Member
I think one of the problems is the issue of piracy.

At the moment the plugins are in proprietary DSP code so you have to own the hardware to run the plugs. If everyone's machine had the hardware required to run the plugs there would be more incentive to circumvent any security measures that were put in place.

Maybe this is why the plugs haven't been cracked to my knowledge.
 

daverich

Active Member
Herbesh said:
I think one of the problems is the issue of piracy.

At the moment the plugins are in proprietary DSP code so you have to own the hardware to run the plugs. If everyone's machine had the hardware required to run the plugs there would be more incentive to circumvent any security measures that were put in place.

Maybe this is why the plugs haven't been cracked to my knowledge.
it is exactly why UAD plugins haven't been cracked.

However, there's nothing to stop UA developing a card, using the Nvidia chip - and then adding their security chip that they use now on to it is there?

Of course, during this time native developers are going to be making plugins which are able to use massive amounts of processing to equal or surpass what UA has available today.

They have indeed missed the boat - unless of course they've been working on this for a while. One things for sure they'll need to beat everyone else to it.

UA plugs are excellent, but christ - can you imagine the quality of even the lowliest freebie with that kinda horsepower available! - let alone what native devs will come up with.

This is hugely exciting. I'm hugely excited :)

Tape emu anyone?

Kind regards

Dave Rich
 

Akis

Sadly, left this world before his time.
Moderator
Dave, I don't think that if someone did the R&D for an unmistakeably accurate emulation of a legendary hardware device, they'd then release it for free. No matter how much DSP you have available, research time and knowledge cost a lot.
 

daverich

Active Member
Akis said:
Dave, I don't think that if someone did the R&D for an unmistakeably accurate emulation of a legendary hardware device, they'd then release it for free. No matter how much DSP you have available, research time and knowledge cost a lot.
oh sure, UA have their market there.

I'm also interested in the new stuff, than re-creations of old stuff though.

Kind regards

Dave Rich
 

Spacey

Active Member
Herbesh said:
I think one of the problems is the issue of piracy.

At the moment the plugins are in proprietary DSP code so you have to own the hardware to run the plugs. If everyone's machine had the hardware required to run the plugs there would be more incentive to circumvent any security measures that were put in place.

Maybe this is why the plugs haven't been cracked to my knowledge.
As I said earlier, all Ua have to do is require that you have 1 of your old Uad-1 cards in the system at the same time as the new card. It would then act as a dongle (pretty much like it allways has done). If it wasn't cracked before then it won't be with this new card (if they use it).

I'd be totally happy to give up a pci slot for a uad-1 origional card as a dongle.
 

Akis

Sadly, left this world before his time.
Moderator
The UAD-1 is uncracked because it requires the plugs to be tied to and run on it. If it is reduced to being a simple dongle, it'll be cracked soon afterwards, I believe.
 

Eric Dahlberg

Purveyor of musical dreams fullfilled.
daverich said:
UA plugs are excellent, but christ - can you imagine the quality of even the lowliest freebie with that kinda horsepower available! - let alone what native devs will come up with.
That's true if the only thing holding them back really is power. In any case, it'll be dope if Aleksey ports R8 Brain Pro over to it.
 
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