Nforce and audio recording?

[FishTankX]

Via has huge PCI problems. ALi doesn't. SiS doesn't. Intel does on their 850 chipset. I'm wondering how an Nforce board would fare for audio recording, and how good it's onboard audio would be.

Edit:My biggest concern is audio dropout.

 

[NFS4]

<< Via has huge PCI problems. ALi doesn't. SiS doesn't. Intel does on their 850 chipset. I'm wondering how an Nforce board would fare for audio recording, and how good it's onboard audio would be. >>


VIA has HUGE PCI problems? I don't have a single PCI problem with my KT266A board and I have 5 PCI devices:

USB 2.0 Card
TV tuner
10/100 NIC
Santa Cruz
56k PCI modem

But to answer your question, the nForce should do just fine

 

[FishTankX]

Uh, NFS4, if you tried to record 5 realtime audio events on your board your board might choke. That's what i'm talking about with PCI problems.
We're talking about using a herculese ISIS to do recording. Recording 5 150KBPS audio streams can put a real strain on the PCI bus. Yes it can. And Via some Via chipsets just can't deal with it.

ALi can. SiS can. Intel can. Via can't...

 

[NFS4]

<< Uh, NFS4, if you tried to record 5 realtime audio events on your board your board might choke. That's what i'm talking about with PCI problems.
We're talking about using a herculese ISIS to do recording. Recording 5 150KBPS audio streams can put a real strain on the PCI bus. Yes it can. And Via some Via chipsets just can't deal with it.

ALi can. SiS can. Intel can. Via can't... >>


You want to talk about PCI bus strain??

How about ripping a 568MB MPEG to DIVX 5.01 (Tuesday's episode of Scrubs) on my 80GB, 7200 RPM, ATA-100 Western Digital hard drive, while downloading ten 80's cartoons from Kazaa at ~100 - 300KBps each, while playing MP3's in the background, while copying WMA files to my 256MB CompactFlash card with my USB CompactFlash reader, while my PDA is connected to the USB port along with my other USB devices:

SmartMedia/CompactFlash Reader
Planar 18.1" LCD (4-ports on back)
USB 2.0 PCI card (4 ports)
Logitech Optical Mouse
Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro
Gravis Xterminator Gamepad
Epson C60 Printer
HP Scanjet 3300C
USB Headset

Yes, I did this all at one time yesterday and didn't have a problem.

 

[FishTankX]

Well NFS4, what AT told me has contradictions.

Some people tell me Via chipsets cause audio drop out.

Some people tell me Via chipset PCI is fine.

Can someone tell me the truth?!

I'm talking about 5 or so events.

 

[NFS4]

<< Well NFS4, what AT told me has contradictions.

Some people tell me Via chipsets cause audio drop out.

Some people tell me Via chipset PCI is fine.

Can someone tell me the truth?!

I'm talking about 5 or so events. >>


That's the problem There is so much misinformation that is spread around that it is sickening. There are those that will bash VIA to no end b/c it's the popular thing to do. Personally, I go by experience and my Shuttle AK31 Rev 3.1 has been nothing but a stable platform for me since October.

I don't play games on my system but I do beat the hell out of it for normal desktop activity.

 

[FishTankX]

Well i'd like to get the opinion of a few more people. Thanks though, NSF4. I'll keep that in mind.

 

[nortexoid]

easy boys...the phenomena of "audio drop-out" you're referring to is associated with VIAs PCI Latency issues....which do exist in all 686x southbridges.

they may have been remedied in their recent updates, but I've no clue (since I've had no reason to update my southbridge drivers since winXP)....but i doubt it.

hence there's all those workarounds involving wpcr-edit.

 

[bluemax]

There's nothing wrong with simply going for a SiS board.
When you're choosing your pro-audio card (as I presume you are- recording 5 simultaneous tracks) check with the manufacturers of the audio card to see which boards/chipsets they recommend or dissuade.

If you're getting an M-audio card, check M-audio for FAQ's, Forums, troubleshooting info, or even just contacting the mfr. directly via email.
that'll be your best bet for sure.


And needless to say, get the fastest, bestest hard drive you can afford. For write speeds. 5 channels won't be too much strain, but more could really stress out a 5400RPM drive. The audio card MFR and recording software MFR will also have recommendations for hard drives.

 

[thirdlegstump]

Hey there,

I build PC DAWs and it's true that the VIA chipset is/somewhat was >a< cause of the audio dropouts, clicks, pops etc. when recording several channels of audio at once but, not all soundcards have these problems. The M-Audio stuff seems to work fine as well as Echo. RME and other companies firmly advise against VIA based boards but in my experience, I've found that the AMD 76x chipset boards like the Epox 8K7A works great with most cards. They have the VIA 686b Southbridge but I haven't encountered any major glitches. Try to avoid USB midi interfaces. During tracking and playback, I've found that active USB devices often cause the dropouts and glitches.

I personally have an M-audio Delta 44 along with an SB Live for midi interface on an Epox 8KHA+ board (VIA KT266a) and haven't experienced any serious glitches. I have all the latest drivers and BIOS running Win XP Pro. I do almost everything in Sonar 1.3.1 and I frequently record all 4 channels at once through the Delta.

The nForce boards work great for audio but there are occassional cards (ie: Motu PCI 324) that don't behave with AGP video installed that is remedied by using a PCI video card. The n415 is the chipset in question. Not sure about the 420 but the nForce indeed does smoke. Tested on an MSI board.

Generally speaking, VIA chipsets can work for you as long as you install everything carefully. Install the OS, then install the latest 4 in 1's then the rest. Try to install in Standard PC mode if you have problems with having all your devices on 1 IRQ. Sometimes you might have an IRQ being shared and that might be the cause of the audio glitches. ACPI mode can wreak havok on your system for audio but sometimes can work beautifully. If you want perfect audio performance, go with Intel. You wouldn't believe how much of a difference there is with realtime PCI DSP cards. (something like 16+ realtime reverbs on Intel versus 3 at most on the Via boards. AMD 761 handled about 6+ but choked on the first one.)

Most consumer cards won't have any problems with Via so most of you can't confirm this but in the DAW application, the problems are real but most of the time, it's user error. USB blows chunks for audio though. Try printing something while playing back audio on any card to a USB printer and you'll see the problem, accentuated.

 

[NFS4]

<< Try printing something while playing back audio on any card to a USB printer and you'll see the problem, accentuated. >>


Just tried it with my Shuttle AK31 Rev 3.1 + Santa Cruz + Epson C60 USB printer + Winamp and have NO problem. Not even one stutter. CPU utilization rang in at 4% - 11% as I printed with all of that going on.

I also don't have a problem when doing audio extraction in VirtualDub while printing.

 

[FishTankX]

this system will be for a total noob (runs his P166 without a fan on the heatsink... his current computer is a pentium 166 so i'm thinking Nforce+Duron1GHZ.) so I have to get it to work right *out of the box* and I was wondering if there are any cards that allow 5 or 6 simeltaneous events under the 150$ range..

 

[nortexoid]

check out terratec.

 

[thirdlegstump]

NSF4, this is not comedy central. I was talking about professional audio cards playing back tracks on a multitrack sequencer/DAW. Not a $60 soundcard with Winamp. Perhaps I should've stated that a little clearer but it was clear to me that we're talking about Pro audio here. No offense dude.

nForce + Duron is a little silly ain't it? Why not go for a cheaper mobo based on the AMD chipset like the Epox 8K7A and get a 266mhz fsb Thunderbird? That should land in the similiar price range but offer much better performance.

As for audio cards *recording 5-6 simultaneous channels for under $150, that ain't going to happen unless you find a real POS or something used. I like the Delta 1010 by M-audio. It has good WDM drivers and have good sounding converters. It's 10 i/o with a midi i/o. There's also the Delta 44 and 66 which I use. It's only 4/4 though. If you need mic pre's, check out the Aardvark Direct Pro 24/96 if you can get away with 4/6 i/o. These range from $400-$500. Aard. recently came out with new A/WDM drivers for super low latency and seem to be working great. Prior to this, they've been looked down at for not having any WDM drivers. There's also the Moto 2408 MKII interface with the PCI 324 card. It's an older system so you can probably get it for a little less but it's still going to be >$800.

Just stay away from Terratec and other super cheapies and consumer cards if you want serious production quality. If you don't need to *record multiple simultaneous channels, then you can get away with less i/o's. So if you're recording 1 or 2 tracks at a time by overdubbing over other pre-recorded/made material, then you can get away with just 2 ins and outs. In that sense, you can mixdown an unlimited amount of tracks internally in the software mixer. The M-Audiophile would be the best bet along with the Echo Mia. They're right around your price range and sound great with low latency and good driver support.

Hope this helps and doesn't confuse anyone.

 

[NFS4]

<< NSF4, this is not comedy central. I was talking about professional audio cards playing back tracks on a multitrack sequencer/DAW. Not a $60 soundcard with Winamp. Perhaps I should've stated that a little clearer but it was clear to me that we're talking about Pro audio here. No offense dude. >>


Who's joking?? You made a BLANKET statement and I answered accordingly:


<< USB blows chunks for audio though. Try printing something while playing back audio on any card to a USB printer and you'll see the problem, accentuated. >>


Sounds pretty clear to me and I answered it as such. I'm not a mind reader.

 

[thirdlegstump]

NSF4, that's totally unnecessary. Read the thread title and you should've already known what I was talking about. I'd like to end this senseless discussion right now. Thanks.

 

[FishTankX]

To deathkoba, this rig is gonna start out as ultra budget. As in using built in Video, audio, lan, the works! This is gonna start out super integrated. I'm going to be targeting a 280$ max price target, and that's *tough*! I'm gonna have to start out with 5400RPM 9.4 gig drive that's gonna be used for it's single/dual track lifecycle, then later flesh it out with a decent quad channel card, 7200RPM 80 gig IBM deskstar 120GXP or WD 7200RPM 80 gig drive, and upgrade the video. But this rig needs to start out ultra budget, and still be capable of doing *decent* recording. Thus my question, how does Nforce stock audio do on single channel recording?

 

[NFS4]

<< NSF4, that's totally unnecessary. Read the thread title and you should've already known what I was talking about. I'd like to end this senseless discussion right now. Thanks. >>


Considering that FishTankX is considering using the nForce audio for recording, how was my response inappropriate given that a Santa Cruz and nForce audio are in the same league.

As for being totally unnecessary, what have I said other than "who's joking?" I made a simple comment up above and you act as if someone slapped your mom




<< Thus my question, how does Nforce stock audio do on single channel recording? >>


FishTankX, you should be fine with single channel recording on an nForce.

 

[thirdlegstump]

Ok that's cool. I didn't think you'd be doing single channel at a time recording since you mentioned 'try recording 5 realtime audio events.' Well in that case, yea the onboard stuff should do. I'm also guessing you're recording a guitar or a bass and not using any midi or synths. Is that right?

 

[FishTankX]

The question about this platform is will it be able to handle the upgrade? I got this platform because it would have cost as much as a chaintech7sid/geforce2mx200/Sb live! combo, maybe slightly cheaper, but is easier for this guy to figure out. It's going to *start out* as a single channel rig, then *graduate* to multi channel 4 simeltaneous channel stuff.. and I was wondering how the NForce would handle the second part of it's lifecycle, the more rigerous part.

Second question is is the onboard decent quality.. and I think deathkoba and NSF4 cleared that up.

So anyone know where Nvidia stands in Audio recording as far as southbridges and profesional DSP's go?

 

[thirdlegstump]

The nForce boards are great for multichannel, multiclient and DSP audio cards. Is that clear enough? : ) Just watch out for the Motu PCI 324 core card for reasons stated above.