Possible new Luna II user, please help...

acabreira · Post by **acabreira** » Fri Apr 11, 2003 1:26 am

Hi buds. I´m about to buy a Luna II, but before putting my hands on this little child, I need some answers to exactly determine how little is this child, so here they go (sorry for the many).

1) It´s very important to me to use Gigastudio with Cubase SX, so at this point my question is: let´s suppose I route 8 stereo GSIF outputs to 8 stereo ASIO inputs, will this routing procedure itself produce some load in the DSPs or the CPU apart from the Giga + VST engines load? If so, will it be too much for a 3 DSP system? And will it have some undesirable latency?

2) Can I put an effect between the analog input of the card and an ASIO input so that it will record my track wet with the effect and then disable the effect to release some DSP power?

3) I heard (in Nemesys site) of occurrences of high latency with GSIF drivers (around 35ms), did someone experience this behavior? Cause that would really keep me from Creamware cards (my work relies a lot on Giga).

4) Did someone understand clearly my questions, for I´m a brazillian trying to express in english?

Any help will be much appreciated. Thank you.

acabreira · Post by **acabreira** » Fri Apr 11, 2003 1:36 am

Ah, I forgot to mention that Luna II is the ONLY card of the line my budget allows for now, since I´ve bought lots of other stuff for a home studio, so there´s nothing I can do about getting more DSP power for the next months probably. Thanks.

caleb · Post by **caleb** » Fri Apr 11, 2003 1:53 am

I can answer question 2.

Yes you can put effects between an analogue signal coming in and an ASIO signal going out. However, it would have to be effects actually on the LUNA card. You couldn't put a VST effect between these points. Does that make sense?

As for question 1, having multiple ASIO channels does increase general load on the DSP itself. I'm not sure how much though, and I don't really know how much it would impact what you're trying to do.

Ashkenazy · Post by **Ashkenazy** » Fri Apr 11, 2003 2:02 am

I use Luna II ex, GigaStudio 160, Cubase SX. Everything works fine. So you can certainly do this.

Only the Creamware sofware in the SFP uses the DSP's, the more Creamware software you load (Creamware Synths, Creamware Effects, etc.), the more of the DSP's will be used. So that doesn't count for Giga and VST Engines (They're not loaded into the SFP).

About the Latency. The things you read on the Nemesys site are rather old, they are about older cards. So the latency story doesn't count for the current cards.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Ashkenazy on 2003-04-11 03:05 ]</font>

acabreira · Post by **acabreira** » Fri Apr 11, 2003 2:55 am

caleb <- Yes, that makes sense, I was only thinking about the Luna effects.

Ashkenazy <- Well, since you use the same combination as I will with no problems, looks like Luna is the perfect card for me (at least for a while, till I send my father to get 15 more DSPs, lol).

Thank you both very much for your help, I guess I made up my mind.

Just two more little questions: if I use the XTC mode, then I won´t be able to use a Luna effect the way I described before, in between the analog IN and the ASIO input? And can I use XTC effects as send or master effects in SX?

That´s it. Thanks again!

eliam · Post by **eliam** » Fri Apr 11, 2003 9:09 am

Adding drivers and connections to a project slightly adds to the dsp load, but not that much. I have a luna and I use it without the mixer to have as much processing power as possible. I think that one could route all the 64 gsif source into the asio dest and still have enough dsp for a few effects, that is, on a luna, and no noticeable latency. I've been running my system at 4 ms and it rolls smoooth!