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PCIe - it's going to happen!

mikeyb

Active Member
Bullet points

What I'm doing/ What I want!
UAD-1 bandwidth
Why it's going to be PCIe
DSP or Native
UAD chassis! - UAD chassis! - UAD chassis! - UAD chassis! - UAD chassis!!!!!!!!!!
WHAT WE ALL NEED TO DO NOW!

What I'm doing/ What I want!
I'll try to keep it short! - Currently using a lowly G4 867DP with DP and logic and 2 UAD-1 cards. At another premise I have access to 1st generation G5 Dual 2Ghz with 2 UAD cards,logic and DP. Recently ventured into surround for DVD video and
also DVD-A on the cards. Started recording at 96k/24 using MOTU 24I/O and 896HD. Also using PC/Emu1212 card for soft synths/soft drums and for DVD-A.
Was about to take plunge for a G5 Dual 2.7 and a 2408Mk3 with PCI-X card. MOTU we need a PCIe 424 or 624 or 824! etc.
Got a sniff that apple were touting new machines - expected PCIe for graphics - not all PCIe! - and maybe the hope of the older line being reduced in price by a considerable amount!
Going to go for Apple Final Cut Studio - I'll have to use on G5 when I can get access to it. I WILL BE GETTING A NEW MAC SOON - I CAN'T HANG ON FOR MACTEL - I THINK IT MAY BE TOO LONG HAUL. I'm reluctant to go PCI-X Dual 2.7 when for a couple of hundred quid more you can get about TWICE the OINK! Only trouble is- what about my UAD's?!?

UAD-1 bandwidth
Slap me down if I'm wrong - I know the UAD's work PCI/PCI-X - I'm presuming then, they need a 33Mhz bus - so there's enough bandwidth for 4 UAD's on a PCI-X 133Mhz bus? From what I can see of the PCIe spec. - a 4X slot is equivalent to a PCI-X 133Mhz bus? - mmmmmmm!

Why it's going to be PCIe
Well - it looks like these macs are the pre-runners to MACTEL machines. It also looks that PCIe is INTELS preferred route for expansion - so for MAC and PC users - GET USED TO IT! - it's going to happen!
I'm in the camp for it and good on the ones that can see the way it's going.
Think of the available bandwidth and the implementation - it's a serial protocol and looking at various white papers - you're going to see it on DESKTOPS and NOTEBOOKS - nice!

DSP or Native
I'm not too sure that Native is good - software DAW releases tend to use more and more of the computers power. I'd much sooner keep DSP - it's probably in the interest of the manufacturer as well!

UAD chassis! - UAD chassis! - UAD chassis! - UAD chassis! - UAD chassis!!!!!!!!!!
UAD - please-please!-Please!-PLEASE!-PRETTY PLEASE!-PRETTY PLEASE WITH BELLS AND WHISTLES!!!!-make all your thousands of loyal UAD1 users an expansion chassis that will future proof their investments!
Make it so that it only takes UAD1 cards! - we don't care!!
Just make it affordable
Make it so that it can take 4 UAD1 cards!
If you can make it in a 1U rack or even better in a box(with detachable rack ears) that will sit nicely under a MACTEL notebook with PCIe connectors with detachable rack ears.

Why an expansion chassis - no need to develop UAD-2 PCIe card and you'll get both the desktop and the EVER EXPANDING NOTEBOOK market. THIS IS IN THE INTEREST OF ALL USERS - MACTEL AND PC INTEL!!

WHAT WE ALL NEED TO DO NOW!
We all need to email the likes of UAD/MOTU/APPLE/PC manufacturers.
If you think this thread is of any importance, please feel free to copy and post it on as many forums as possible! I'll be putting to unicornation and apple.
If you email apple/pc manufacturers - request 2 PCIe ports - you'll need one for you're UAD expansion chassis and another for your audio interface!

DSPower to the people!!
 

.mr chris

Active Member
mikeyb said:
[...] WHAT WE ALL NEED TO DO NOW! [...]
... great 1st post. respect! :-({|= ________________________________________________________________________________________________ . :wink: .c
 

Ben Logan

Active Member
Tony Ostinato said:
You havent read the webzine?
Hey Tony,

Does the webzine say anything regarding the idea of a magma-style chassis designed specifically for UA cards? I couldn't find the article, if so...

And yes, I agree - a totally stellar first post - brimming with enthusiasm! A harbinger of good things to come!

:lol:
 

Paul Woodlock

Established Member
I've been asking UA for a UA Magma type solution at decent cost for a long time.

There's certainly a market for one.
 

csl

Active Member
Ben Logan said:
[quote="Tony Ostinato":2w4ajp3t]You havent read the webzine?
Hey Tony,

Does the webzine say anything regarding the idea of a magma-style chassis designed specifically for UA cards? I couldn't find the article, if so...

And yes, I agree - a totally stellar first post - brimming with enthusiasm! A harbinger of good things to come!

:lol:[/quote:2w4ajp3t]

From the webzine news bit:

"Apple has announced the release of new G5 computers. We want our customers to know that UA is committed to supporting the Apple Macintosh platform, and any developments in our UAD product line will reflect that commitment.

UA is committed to the Apple Macintosh platform and any developments in the UAD product line will reflect that. We are constantly monitoring trends in computer technology, DSP and developments in bus/interface formats and therefore UA is already well-aware of PCI-Express (also known as PCIe) and ExpressCard. For those customers that are not certain, PCIe is a new and completely different form factor from PCI and PCI-X, and PCIe is not backwards compatible with any PCI/PCI-X cards. The UAD-1 will ONLY work in PCI and PCI-X slots.

We have no new UAD product announcements at the current time, but will of course keep our customers informed of planned developments for the UAD product line as soon as we have any major news. In the meantime, we recommend that any customers wanting to use a UAD-1 PCI card with a current Apple G5 machine select their still available PCI-X model G5: Power Mac G5 2.7GHz (PCI-X)
Part Number: M9749LL/A

If current UAD-1 users absolutely need to interface to PCIe, there are a number of third party products available including those below.

* Magma PCI Express® to PCI Expansion Link
* SBS Seven-slot PCI Express to PCI-X Expansion System"

So no new UAD-1 cards, no special UA PCI>PCIechassis, just a pricey 'go get these for your PCIe PC' suggestions.
 

ed_mcg

Member
Of course PCIe is going to happen, and soon too.

I just bought a new DAW and made sure that it didn't have PCIe slots, due to all the compatibility issues I've be ready about. So, this would be the perfect time for UA to introduce a PCIe version. :wink:
 

Dan Duskin

Established Member
Remeber.... UA doesn't make computer hardware. The UAD-1 is an old graphics card. If they move to a future solution, I suspect it's more likely going to be firewire, usb, or ethernet... and I don't suspect that to happen soon.
 

.mr chris

Active Member
Dan Duskin said:
Remeber.... UA doesn't make computer hardware. The UAD-1 is an old graphics card. If they move to a future solution, I suspect it's more likely going to be firewire, usb, or ethernet... and I don't suspect that to happen soon.
I "suspect" it to be more PCIe style... :idea:
 

Tony Ostinato

Active Member
actually i think dan is closer, in a recent sos review UA said firewire is \"just getting to the point where its doable\".
 

.mr chris

Active Member
time will tell... ;)
 
I´d slap you but you gotta stand still. :?

I think a UAD chassis could be an option,.
Also considering the power of modern laptops, something like USB or FW makes sense to me.
 

daverich

Active Member
... and all of this is perfect argument for native plugs.

Personally I hope UA spend the money porting the plugs to native and go for a dongle instead- even I -the \"big hater of dongles\" would put up with it for the UAD plugs.

I simply don't buy all this \"they're too cpu hungry to run native\" crap - of course they are if you do a quick and dirty port straight over from DSP code!

My dual athlon WILL happen next year and whatever UA do I definately don't want something so damn picky about the hardware it's run on.

Kind regards

Dave Rich.
 

Dan Duskin

Established Member
card slots are phasing out... even the new ones... i.e., even though new standards are comming out, new computers have less and less slots, some have none... soon MANY will have none. this is why it makes no sense to go to a new PCI standard instead of firewire/usb/ethernet/native (4 solutions that won't be going away any time soon!)

though i could be proven wrong if UA gets a hold of a cheap dsp card in mass quantity at low cost... it might be hard for them to say no to that.
 

Dan Duskin

Established Member
daverich said:
I simply don't buy all this "they're too cpu hungry to run native" crap - of course they are if you do a quick and dirty port straight over from DSP code!
I completely agree with you. I've seen this agrument about dsp plugins running on mortorola chips for years now. Those chips aren't more powerfull or well-designed for audio processing... it's bull.
 

Giles117 DP

Active Member
iLok Native would be fine with me......

Of course the PC cracker are forever cracking Native.

UA, TC and Digi are the only comanies with the Ultimate Dongle.

No one has Successfully cracked Digi, cuz if you aint got the Hardware it aint gonna work.....


SO what good is a pirated version of PT TDM and you dont have TDM hardware. They still have your cash.....

IF UA came out with a PCIe Dongle I'd be happy.....I am sure there are ways to stop the crackers.....
 

Tony Ostinato

Active Member
those motorolas are older than the mpacts, and slower.
 

secretworld

Active Member
A box with up to 4 UAD1´s and connectable through either pci, PCIe, pcmcia and firewire. No new cards just a magma like (but cheaper..) box. Maybe they can strike a deal with magma...
 

Trace

Active Member
The actual Mpact 2 DSP is just fine. I see no need to actually REPLACE it, but perhaps just double the number of DSP's you can run on a single computer. 8 or more UAD's would be excellent. The hard part would be the new form factor for such a product. They'd have to have the PCB extended and of course make it PCIe. Add 2x the memory of a standard card, cuz I think they have too little ram anyway. They should have 16mb of ram on a Duoble DSP card. That would be nice. Then to top it all off, just give us a rackmount chassis to hold the cards. I don't know why Digi never did this themselves. TC did their own thing with FW and I think UA could do a PCIe rackmount chassis for their own products. It makes absolutely NO SENSE that an expansion chassis should cost more than a computer :( I mean come on. You can get cheap rackmount chassis for very little and the circuitry inside can't cost that much to produce, even in limited quantities. We don't need for the chassis to have harddrive capacity. Just make it big enough and with enough power to handle the darned cards and that should cut down on costs.

TRACE :)
 
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