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Dual core UAD card...

rdolmat

Member
Just dreaming,

but all this talk lately about dual core CPUs and 64 bit blah blah...

would it ever be possible to make a dual core UAD-2 card for PCI express?
:-k


cheers
rich
 

csl

Active Member
i'd have thought just plain ol' dual cpu would be more likely, seeing as though UA have a stockpile of UAD-1s to get through (whole cards or just the processors? that'd clear up whether or not we'll ever see PCIE UAD-1s).

a PCIE card with a couple (or more? heh) of UAD-1 processors on it with a quiet Arctic Cooling style cooler would be nice though, as we know how hot they get.
 

billybk1

Shareholder
csl said:
a PCIE card with a couple (or more? heh) of UAD-1 processors on it with a quiet Arctic Cooling style cooler would be nice though, as we know how hot they get.

From a cost and engineering standpoint, that seems the easiest route to take, for a next generation UAD-1. I would be extremely surprised if we don't see something like that in the next 6-12 months. Just a few important enahncements/improvements would keep the UAD-1 relevant and give us the most bang for the buck, for another 5 years:

UAD-2 features

2-4 Mpact chips on a single card instead of the current one to double and even quadruple the processing power

New PCI-E connecter instead of the current PCI for the latest generation of motherboards.

64-bit drivers for use in the latest Win OS's (WinXP 64 & the forthcoming Vista)

64-bit versions of all the existing plugin algorithms.


This would not require UA to re-invent the wheel or create some new breakthrough technology, creating a UAD-2, from the exisitng UAD-1 would probably be the cost efficient way to go.


*Of course, current UAD-1 owners would have a hardware/software upgrade path. I am thinking that maybe UA could provide an inexpensive PCI->PCI-E adapter for current UAD-1 users, so we could continue to use our old cards and just have the need of a software upgrade to use in the latest PCI-E MB's and 64bit OS's.

That way, UA can continue to sell us more and more great plugins :lol:
 

csl

Active Member
Sounds good to me.

If UA have a stockpile of Mpact chips, and not whole cards, then perhaps they could create PCI-E cards with little bridge chips, like some of the graphics cards manafacturers have done to support AGP with newer native PCI-E cards (eg AGP 6600GT). I don't know how much the chip itself is geared towards a particular type of bus interface - pretty closely I'd guess.
 

daverich

Active Member
you know I never thought I'd say it but. . . .

I personally think UAD should start looking at the card as a dongle and just go native.

I'm fed up with hardware niggles that rear their head with every next generation of chips/chipsets, and it seems to me with quad-core just around the corner computers have more than enough power to process the info themselves.

Marquis shows that you don't need to bring a cpu to it's knees to have gorgeous compression - I really think external DSP is becoming irrelevant.

Kind regards

Dave Rich
 

ed_mcg

Member
I really think external DSP is becoming irrelevant
I agree with you, Dave. With all the dual cores, and moving up from there, cpu cycles are \"free\", getting on and off the mobo is costly and brings headaches.

If they come up with a PCIe interface, great, now I have to get a new mobo, since I just got a new DAW that I chose specifically because it doesn't have PCIe and all of the UAD-1 / PCI compatibility issues.
 

geekeye

Member
the emergence of dual core cpus is the industry's answer to the clockspeed wall that they are facing. yes they are faster, and yes, cpu makers will continue to try to find ways to make them faster, but they are fighting for every inch, and i don' t think that dsp power will become irrelevant any time soon.
 

Tony Ostinato

Active Member
PLEASE keep em on the dsp card, i need my cpu for OTHER things, and theres never enough.
 

Akis

Sadly, left this world before his time.
Moderator
I have to agree with Tony on this one. 2xUAD-1 and 2xPoCo here @ 44.1K and I was forced to upgrade for the second time this year due to running out of CPU power. Hope this X2 4400 will keep me a bit longer.
 

daverich

Active Member
if you've got a spare 15mins at some time try replacing all your DSP plugs with native ones and see what happens cpu-wise.



Kind regards

Dave Rich.
 

Akis

Sadly, left this world before his time.
Moderator
Just did (took less than 15 min.) and maxed out my X2 4400: went from 40% (using DSP) to 100% (all native) - and that was with simpler plugs than I normally use - i.e. Oxford Dynamics was replaced by Sonalksis SV-315 etc. Apparently, crackles dominated the audio output.

No go for me.

PS: That was only with the DSP FX replaced by native ones. Imagine if I replaced my Virus and few Powercore 01 instances... :wink:
 

daverich

Active Member
heh - ok no worries :)

I just found on my system that native vs UAD is around about the same. The UAD has never *really* played nice for me though.

Kind regards

Dave Rich
 
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