Unexpected DSP overload

petal · Post by **petal** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 10:17 am

I'm getting a lot of these "unexpected DSP overload"'s all though I'm only using about 1/4 of my 23 DSP's. I get them running in both SFP-mode and XTC-moce at 44.1 Khz.

My guess is that it is the configuration of my cards that's the problem (14+6+3), but what does the experts in here think about it?

Is the solution to pull out the smaller boards, in order for the plugins to "stay" on one card?

I would really like to hear how people has solved this problem - even if it means to remove some of my cards from the system.

Cheers!
Thomas

[ This Message was edited by: petal on 2006-01-09 10:18 ]

petal · Post by **petal** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 4:48 am

Hey Stardust,

Thanks for your reply!
Now I'm sitting here studying the cset.ini-file, and it doesn't really reveal itself to me where I can control in what order the boards are loaded.
Could you please cut out the relevant pieces of info from you cset-file and post them here?

Cheers!
Thomas

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 12:35 pm

you already have ruled out heat as a source of the problem ?

bronYaur · Post by **bronYaur** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:51 pm

I have replace my pulsar2 with powerpulsar,now 3 scope cards,2x power pulasr and 1 x scopeSRB,the PCI reach problem dissolved,no more,I think mixed card cause PCI problem,in my old Scope proget with PCI reach now with 3 x scope cards no more error message,all fine ,I'm very happy

P.S. try to use all Stdm bus connect not only one

I have also modified cset.ini like this:
[HW]
numboards=3

[board0]
boardid=1

[board1]
boardid=0

[Host-Config]
board0=Host

[ This Message was edited by: bronYaur on 2006-01-11 15:05 ]

petal · Post by **petal** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 4:42 pm

Thank you people - It's very helpful. I'll try it out.

Cheers
Thomas

Marvin · Post by **Marvin** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 7:09 pm

Got the same situation here, and solved it! I have 15+6+6 DSPs, so a total of 27. Although my standard project needs only about 50% of these, I allways got several DSP overload messages and so it needs a lot of time for starting up a project because of the reorganisation of the DSP power.

And here the solution: The people at creamware told me allways to have the biggest board as the first one, but that shows allways the overloads.
BUT when I changed it via cset.ini as shown:

[board0]
boardid=1

[board1]
boardid=0

everything starts up fine!! No more DSP overloads!! Although the DSP Meter now reads 6+15+6 DSPs top down and not the recommended 15+6+6. Strange, but it works now!!!

petal · Post by **petal** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 7:37 am

Ok, I have now tried to mess with the cset-file and although I don't really understand what I'm now readung in the DSP meter, it now seems work better than before.

The DSP-meter now reads: Scope+Pulsar2+Electra, but the DSP-load is 6+14+3?

Strange but who cares?
Thomas

petal · Post by **petal** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 6:08 am

I believe so, I havn't seen the error after the change, but then again I havn't given the system full load yet, only about 60-65 % load. But it was a project that used to give me problems.

Another thing though. I the manual Creamware suggests to use 2 STDM-cables even thogh the second cable want connect all three boards. What are your experience on this? I've read that people have better experience using only 1 cable and I am only using one cable at the moment.
Could someone explain to me the theories behind why one should only use 1 cable?

And once again - thank you all very much for your help so far!
Thomas

Booster · Post by **Booster** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 4:15 am

Stange... I'm having the same kind of problems. My system consists of two Scope professional board plus a Pulsar II for a total of 15+15+6=36 DSP's.

If I try to load a couple of Pro-12 synths, all is going very well until I reach about 70% DSP load. At that stage I get the Unexpected DSP Overload warning, but the new synth loads and plays after hitting the Retry button. Saving this project is possible, but when I try to load it again, I get different kinds of warnings ("A capacity limit of your DSP cards has been reached..."). The project loads after a couple of ages, but no sound is produced unless "I lower the samplerate or polyphony or remove some devices form the project". Very strange, because this project seemed to work before I saved it.

Some further investigation brings up another strange behaviour: one Pro-12 loaded in the project with 16 voices polyphony will definately not load after I save my project. Setting back the voices to zero or one solves the problem and at that stage I can raise it again to 8 or even 16. In theory my DSP power should be able to load at least two instances of Pro-12 synths with 16 voices. I tried it with Minimax and it was the same here. With 15 voices all is fine, but as soon asI try to load the 16th voice I get the warnings. Maybe this is the point where the second Scope Professional board is addressed?

I tried to change the order of the boards like you suggested, but it only makes it worse. The best order for me is the two professional boards up front and the Pulsar II as board 3. At the moment I am using two STDM cables, because the Pulsar II only accepts two. Maybe I should use a third one just for my professional boards? Anyone experiences with that?

cannonball · Post by **cannonball** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 5:10 am

hi

i have 3+15+15 dsp here with 5 stdm
and i have same problems i can't
load all my dsp just 50 60 maximum
i have try with some mixin project
with a lot of vinco transient timeworks comp verb all seem smooth when i customize the project ,but when i try to reload for start a mix i have some dsp warning error is so annoying.

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 5:17 am

On 2006-01-30 04:15, Booster wrote:
...Some further investigation brings up another strange behaviour: one Pro-12 loaded in the project with 16 voices polyphony will definately not load after I save my project.
...
I tried it with Minimax and it was the same here. With 15 voices all is fine, but as soon asI try to load the 16th voice I get the warnings. Maybe this is the point where the second Scope Professional board is addressed?
...

I'd rather say it's a true bug based on the voice count, the device operates '1' based, so it allows 16 voices, while the loading process (whatever that is) seems '0' based, like indexing the voices in an array.
Someone may have overlooked this

You should be able to verify this by loading several instances with less than 16 voices.
It's just a guess, though.

cheers, Tom

[ This Message was edited by: astroman on 2006-01-30 05:18 ]

Booster · Post by **Booster** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 6:57 am

I really hoped Tom (Astroman) figured it out, but unfortunately he guessed wrong... I can't even reload a project with two Pro-12 devices 8 voices each without a couple of overload warnings. 7+8 voices is o.k. but 8+8 goes wrong. 5 Pro-12's at 3 voices (15 voices in total) is o.k. but the sixth Pro-12 doesn't load.

I really think it has to be something with the STDM, because it always occurs around the point where the second Scope card is addressed.

Cannonball: how did you connect your 5 STDM cables? One of your boards only has two connections.

[ This Message was edited by: Booster on 2006-01-30 07:05 ]

[ This Message was edited by: Booster on 2006-01-30 07:08 ]

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 8:46 am

look at your figures - any combination below 16 voices obviously works, but with #16 the error shows up.
Not in the same context as I originally wrote, but it still seems to be related to that number

...looks like CWA underestimated the gear of their customers

of course it could as well be just a coincidence when the system gets into trouble as it tries to distribute the device across the board boundary.

cheers, Tom

[ This Message was edited by: astroman on 2006-01-30 08:51 ]

Post by **garyb** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 10:07 am

the system doesn't like devices that share multiple dsps across the stdm bus...timing issues...so, it must optimize and reorganize the dsp load of your project. sorry, it's a physical limitation of the system. yes, more big cards and less small are less likely to have this problem

.....
either way, it's more an annoyance than a problem. i wouldn't trash any cards over it...

[ This Message was edited by: garyb on 2006-01-30 10:09 ]

Booster · Post by **Booster** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 12:39 pm

On 2006-01-30 10:07, garyb wrote:

either way, it's more an annoyance than a problem. i wouldn't trash any cards over it...

[ This Message was edited by: garyb on 2006-01-30 10:09 ]

I'm not throwing anything yet, but I don't agree with you that this bug is just 'an annoyance'. Projects that seemed to work fine won't load the next time you try to open them . That's more than an annoyance. I'd rather call it a waste of money and time. The real problem is that you don't know excactly in advance if your project will reload without any problems. If that was the case you could stick to a couple of rules in order to bypass this phenomenon.

Booster · Post by **Booster** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 12:51 pm

On 2006-01-30 08:46, astroman wrote:
look at your figures - any combination below 16 voices obviously works, but with #16 the error shows up.
[ This Message was edited by: astroman on 2006-01-30 08:51 ]

Yes tom, what you say is true, but only in case of a big synth like the Minimax or Pro-12. 16 or more voices with a couple of U Know 007's is no problem at all, so it has to be something with the DSP load, not just the amount of voices. In fact, I can load three of them with 16 voices while the fourth is causing overloads. The problem arises always at the same DSP-load and I guess it's the point where the second board is addressed.