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Advices about buying PC+soundcard and otheer questions

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anduins

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Advices about buying PC+soundcard and otheer questions

PostSun Sep 26, 2004 5:59 pm

Hello.

I just discovered hauptwerk today and I'm really happy that something like that exists!

I'm interested in it since I'd like to upgrade the sound of my church's old digital organ (a Viscount from late 80's).

First question is: which hardware do you suggest me to buy? (if it's possible write more choices)
- processor
- motherboard
- memory
- soundcard (and their costs?)

Since I use it for live playing my first need is LOW LATENCY, anyway I'm planning to buy loudspeakers and put them near the roof, to obtain a "real organ" feel, so latency will come naturally, but it's better to reduce hardware latency.

Second question: What is a really good latency value? 10ms? Is it possible to obtain something around 5ms with TOP hardware?

Third question: does anyone uses hauptwerk with a MIDI organ (with 2/3 keyboards and a pedalboard)?

Fourth question: what do you think about a Creative 7.1 speaker system for my organ? I remember you I will place it in a church (a small sized one).

THANKS!!!
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GDay

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PostMon Sep 27, 2004 10:18 am

Hello Anduins,
There are a lot of posts in this forum concerning hardware requirements, and Martin discusses them briefly in the hauptwerk readme. There is no secret or magic to this; obtain as large a CPU as you can afford, and as much RAM as possible. Buy a motherboard that allows you to do this. Most people I talk to prefer AMD processers, and I recommend them. As you are playing live, 2 GB Ram is an essential minimum. You can in fact get away with far less, and at home, most people probably do, but why risk a less than maximum performance response from Hauptwerk, as you are playing in realtime?
As to sound cards, this forum clearly prefers the Audiophile 2496. If you have lots of money, read the Hauptwerk dream machine threads in this forum. I use an Audigy 1, and OB sound, and am just as happy with either. A note of caution; sound cards seem to demand a bit of fiddling and tweeking when using hauptwerk, but after the initial setup exploration, everything is fine.
Good Latency cannot be reduced to a numeric value, it is a combination of Hauptwerk volume, block size, latency setting, tweeking your sound card, your ear, and the acoustics of your church. Again, this forum discusses all this in depth, you have your very best chance by firstly buying as fast a CPU as possible, and as much Ram as possible - that is your foundation.
Others can discuss midi organs and speakers . . .great luck!
GDay!
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anduins

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PostMon Sep 27, 2004 10:33 am

Hi GDay and thanks for the answer.

I had a e-mail communication with Martin and he suggested me the following:

"(quoting Martin)

- 2 x AMD Opteron 250 processors

- Tyan K8W motherboard

- 4 GB of appropriate registered DDR memory (or 2 GB now with room to expand).

(speaking about hauptwerk 2) I would estimate a system of that speed to give a polyphony of about 600 simultaneous pipes with v2, which should be sufficient if dry samples are used (since less polyphony is used keeping the reverb tails playing).

A single P4 3.4 GHz processor would probably give about half of that - 300 pipes - which is likely to be too little.

Sound/audio card: Hauptwerk v2 allows multiple audio outputs (so that
different stops can be routed through different amplifiers etc.) and 24-bit, 96 kHz output. The current version only supports stereo output at 16-bi, 44.1 kHz (CD quality).

I would always recommend a professional audio card above the Creative Labs or other 'consumer' cards, since the difference in quality is very noticeable.
An excellent and reasonably-priced stereo 24/96 card which performs well with Hauptwerk is the M-Audio 2496. M-Audio also make multi-output cards, such as the 1010.

(end quote)"

Now, the AMD Opteron are REALLY Expensive (1400 euro for 2 processors), the TYAN motherboard is about 450 euro.

I was thinking to a dual AMD 3800+ (2 of these cost less than one Opteron), so about 1500 euro I could have a 4GB pc with dual 3800+ processor. What do you think?

Thanks.
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GDay

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PostMon Sep 27, 2004 9:52 pm

Hello again Anduin,
I get the impression that Hauptwerk 2 is aimed at a far larger and more demanding group than Hauptwerk 1, which is very suitable for home playing. Hauptwerk 2 will, I think, be able to compete very handily with any electronic and sampling church organ manufacturer, and give pretty stiff competition to pipe organ manufacturers as well. But this professional ability comes with a price tag, mainly in respect to hardware, speakers etc. Considering the prices of other dealers like Viscount etc, at $10,000, $25,000 and up, Martin's program is practically a steal, but not free after all. If your church can afford it, buy the best Hauptwerk system possible, it will still be cheap by comparison. Price break-downs are posted in "dream machine' thread.
Good luck!
GDay
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bwwolfe

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PostMon Sep 27, 2004 10:18 pm

Anduins,

> ... I'd like to upgrade the sound of my church's old digital organ ....

Not to throw cold water on your idea, but some sample vendors do not allow their samples to be used in public. Check the sample licenses restrictions before you buy.

> ... which hardware do you suggest me to buy ....

Being a software developer I'm cautious of 1.x releases. With 64 bit XP not coming out until the 1st half of 2005 -- possibly June 30, 2005 -- I would prefer to want until after the 1st service pack has been released. Waiting will also give you more hardware options at lower prices.

> ... for live playing ... I'm planning to buy loudspeakers and put them near the roof, to obtain a "real organ" feel ....

Check out Mackie - http://www.mackie.com/products/hr824 - and SVS - http://www.svsubwoofers.com/subwoofers.htm - speakers. For my setup I went with M-Audio BX8’s

http://midiman.com/index.php?do=product ... 8ac27abac8

because they were much cheaper than Mackie. If money's not an issue go with Mackie because they sound better. For 2.x you'll probably want at least 2 speakers per keyboard.

> ... does anyone uses hauptwerk with a MIDI organ (with 2/3 keyboards and a pedalboard)? ....

Yes: http://home.austin.rr.com/losdos/Hauptw ... nPlan.html
http://midiorgan.com - Your MIDI Organ Resource
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NeilCraig

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PostTue Sep 28, 2004 4:21 am

[quote="anduins"]Hi GDay and thanks for the answer.

I was thinking to a dual AMD 3800+ (2 of these cost less than one Opteron), so about 1500 euro I could have a 4GB pc with dual 3800+ processor. What do you think?

Thanks.[/quote

Can this be done? AFAIK the Athlon XP64 doesn't have the extra hypertransport required for SMP.

I may be wrong but the Athlon FX certainly doesn't and the 3800+ is based on this.

The XP3800+ also only has 512KB of L2 cache as opposed to the Socket 754-based XP3700+ with 1MB L2.

Best wishes//Neil
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anduins

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PostTue Sep 28, 2004 8:05 am

NeilCraig wrote:
anduins wrote:Hi GDay and thanks for the answer.

I was thinking to a dual AMD 3800+ (2 of these cost less than one Opteron), so about 1500 euro I could have a 4GB pc with dual 3800+ processor. What do you think?

Thanks.[/quote

Can this be done? AFAIK the Athlon XP64 doesn't have the extra hypertransport required for SMP.

I may be wrong but the Athlon FX certainly doesn't and the 3800+ is based on this.

The XP3800+ also only has 512KB of L2 cache as opposed to the Socket 754-based XP3700+ with 1MB L2.

Best wishes//Neil


Yes, you are right. The pc I use has the AMD Athlon MP series of processors, that now (if I understood it well) are "discontinued", it's not clearly said on the AMD website but their price is low and the benchmarks are made with Windows 2000 and not with XP, so now they are making Opterons only for the multiprocessor world.
Last edited by anduins on Wed Oct 06, 2004 11:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
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NeilCraig

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PostTue Sep 28, 2004 4:23 pm

anduins wrote:
Yes, you are right. The pc I use has the AMD Athlon MP series of processors, that now (if I understood it well) are "discontinued", it's not clearly said on the AMD website but their price is low and the benchmarks are made with Windows 2000 and not with XP, so now they are making Opterons only for the multiprocessor world.


Unfortunately for AMD the MP products were too little, too late and pitched at the wrong market. They very nearly blew it with the Clawhammers/Opterons by putting out a roadmap in early 2001 which they couldn't possibly deliver on.

Having said that, the one and ONLY time I bought Intel was a Celeron back in 1998 and my mistake won't be repeated. Intel do not do "budget" well.
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anduins

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PostWed Sep 29, 2004 3:11 am

I had the same experience that you had with Intel, AMD is just better, not 300% better, but better.

Since I'm not a chip expert I was speaking with Jim in another post about the single vs dual processor stuff. Now I think a good single is what I need. I think that buying a 64 bit processor is better. One thing that I'm not sure about is:

- a 3Ghz 32 bit processor and a 3Ghz 64 bit processor will behave the same way in WinXP 32 bit (ok, there are may be different instruction in the processor but I'd like to uinderstand this)? I mean now a 64 bit processor is not used by WinXP, so you cannot benefit from it, am I right?

Anyway if I have to buy an AMD 64 bit do you think an Opteron is better or also an AMD 64 (3800+ or similar) is the same?

Do you think that such a processor will hae problems in handling 3GB of RAM?

Thanks!
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NeilCraig

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PostWed Sep 29, 2004 9:03 am

anduins wrote:
- a 3Ghz 32 bit processor and a 3Ghz 64 bit processor will behave the same way in WinXP 32 bit (ok, there are may be different instruction in the processor but I'd like to uinderstand this)? I mean now a 64 bit processor is not used by WinXP, so you cannot benefit from it, am I right?

Do you think that such a processor will hae problems in handling 3GB of RAM?

Thanks!


The internal architecture of the 64-bit chips is different. They execute 32-bit code more efficiently than earlier-generation chips. Period. AMD has also leaped aeons ahead of Intel in the efficiency of their chips over a clock-cycle. Initially people said - and I include myself in this - that the low clock speeds were a problem, that AMD was having great problems with its SOI [Silicon On Insulator] processes, which was probably true.

We've been conditioned to expect high clock speeds because this is how Intel has "spun" its products - as raw clock speed = raw power.

As demonstrated by the P4E "Prescott" what Intel has shown with the P4 since its inception is raw clock speed (and long pipelines) = excessive heat + worse performance.

It is no surprise that the mobile Pentium M is based on later P3 cores as these were very efficient designs and ran cool.

Intel has of course realised this and decided to base future CPUs on the Pentium M core. I'm probably over-simplifying but don't expect high Prescott clock speeds from Intel without elaborate cooling - it won't happen.
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Rudolf_Schwartz

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PostWed Sep 29, 2004 10:53 am

Hi there,

"Do you think that such a processor will hae problems in handling 3GB of RAM?"

I am also currently searching arround for a well-designed Hauptwerk system. I think that an Athlon64 will be a good solution for the presence and for the near future (i don't want to pay extra money in advance for computing power that i will not be able to use within maybe the next twelth months).

But what i read these days: There seems to be an issue with Athlon64 (or maybe with the suitable mainboards) managing more than 2 GB of RAM?! Does someone have exact information about this?

As for myself, I did not manage so far to find Athlon64 mainboards (socket 754) with more than 3 DIMM slots, and in a german mainboard review from last April i read that even with 3 slots, it is no good idea to use all three of them...?!
Cheers
Rudolf
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anduins

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PostWed Sep 29, 2004 11:21 am

"
But what i read these days: There seems to be an issue with Athlon64 (or maybe with the suitable mainboards) managing more than 2 GB of RAM?! Does someone have exact information about this?
"

From this site I understood that single 64bit processors can handle up to 3GB of memory with WinXP (2GB is the maximum, but with some "hacking" it's possible to reach 3GB). But there are people that bought a dual Opteron with 4GB of RAM, but probably sual processors have different rules and the 3GB limit doesn't apply to them.

With Win XP-64 the 2/3GB limit will disappear and so AMD 64 chips will handle more memory.

What I understand is that now a 1500 euro/$ pc (AMD 64, 2GB of RAM, M-audio board) can run hauptwerk 1 very very well, while to run hauptwerk 2 very well you need to buy an expensive pc.

Probably in a couple of years Win XP-64 will be on lots of machines, hauptwerk 2 will be working well and the cost for a good machine will be again 1500 euro. So I think that it's better to use 1500 euro now and then another 1500 euro in 2 years (selling the first pc while buying the second), instead of spending 3000 euro now.

You cannot use all the power you buy, if you buy a dual opteron now, because hauptwerk 1 doesn'use the ASIO 2.0 drivers and so the latency cannot be too slow, even with the fastest pc.

Am I right? This is just what I learned here on the forum.

Anyway it would be nice to reuse at least the RAM, so buying 2 GB now and 2 GB in the future... I don't know... May be roday's best RAM will be too old in 2 years.
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Rudolf_Schwartz

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PostThu Sep 30, 2004 4:55 am

Hi anduins,

we should not mix up two different issues concerning RAM limits, i think:
1. Operating system capabilities and
2. hardware capabilities.

Concerning point 1:
According to http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/pl ... AEmem.mspx , Windows2000 Professional and WindowsXP Professional are able to handle up to 4 GB of total physical RAM. By design, up to 2 GB can be used by the system itself, the other 2 GB can be used by applications. The "/3GB switch" makes Windows using only 1 GB for itself and 3 GB for applications (max values - as far as the applications are designed for it).

Concerning point 2:
That's a question of mainboard hardware design (as i already mentioned in my previous post).
I am still searching for a Athlon64 /socket 754 mainboard that is designed for supporting 4 GB of physical RAM - i did not find one so far...

"Anyway it would be nice to reuse at least the RAM, so buying 2 GB now and 2 GB in the future... I don't know... May be roday's best RAM will be too old in 2 years."
I myself have made bad experience concerning incompatibility with mixing old and new RAM!

So I do very much feel (last but not least with regard to financial limits) like it is a good idea to confine oneself today on an Athlon64 system with 2 GB of RAM. This system will surely be able to serve for playing a reasonable amount of stops, as far as i understand even with Hauptwerk 2....

Besides all that computing power considerations, I would like to recommend also to consider the installation effort needed - and the restrictions - to get a reasonable fast booting Windows system (which I would want for playing in a church even more than at home). The "bigger" your hardware is, the longer it will take from switching the computer on to get it into a "playable mode"...
Cheers
Rudolf
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anduins

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PostThu Sep 30, 2004 5:13 am

Fast booting Windows system? This is surely interesting, (even because I'm always late and so when I play on sundays at the mass I'd prefer not to wait hours before the organ is ready).

How long does it take from pressing the switch on the pc until the organ (let's say the stereo 1.2 GB of St.Anne's Mosesley) is loaded in memory and ready to play on an average system? And which is a reasonable fast booting time (booting and organ loading)?

What is a fast booting system? Is there something with hardware?

About mixing RAM: it's not good for sure, but I mean buying in 2 years the same RAM that I can buy now.

Anyway I'm not a RAM expert please let me understand:

The fastest RAM around is the DDR2 400Mhz that costs ~200euro for 512 MB, is it true?

Does the AMD 64 (not FX) processor use this DDR2 memory? Or only the AMD 64 FX can? I read somewhere about this but I don't remember correctly.

Thanks!
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Calcant

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PostThu Sep 30, 2004 10:03 am

Hello anduin,


anduins wrote:What is a fast booting system? Is there something with hardware?


Booting normally means the time needed to load the operating system. This is relatively short and can be further optimized when the PC is used for HW only. But before a HW organ can be played the sample set has to be loaded from HD into the RAM. This takes much longer, depending on the data throughput of the HD and of course on the size of the organ itself.
The average sustained read data rate of even a fast single, non-SCSI HD is way below 30MByte/sec. Professional systems improve the loading time using an RAID array of multiple discs to double, triple or quadruple the data stream. Question is whether it is more efficient to arrive some minutes earlier in the church than spending a considerable lot of money for a RAID set (which again introduces some unreliablity factor) :-))
anduins wrote:About mixing RAM: it's not good for sure, but I mean buying in 2 years the same RAM that I can buy now.

Looking at the present situtation it is v e r y unlikely when you buy some RAM modules today an identical RAM chip type will be on the market after two years. You are running a high risk of incompatibilty.
I personally use a 2.8GHz P4 with 2GByte RAM and I had no trouble playing Prof. Maier's CC organ or the large Moerdijk instrument. I think buying a similar PC will allow you to bridge the time until HW2, XP64, PCs and - not to forget - 64 bit device drivers for the audio side are in full harmony.
It´s a virtue to be well-tempered.
German speaking readers are invited to visit http://www.orgelbits.de for info about HW subjects.
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