SX will put me in a mental clinic!...
It just doesn't make sense to me that the Gigastudio would only have one pair of stereo outs and not let you record them unless you have a CW card. I will have to look into this further. I think I'm going with the Terratec because they have an affordable one with ADAT i/o which I can connect to my Pulsar.
Ok, just to keep you in track of the process and to ask you for some help (again!) 
I started my DAW from scratch. Installed XP, SP1, drivers, DirectX 9.0a, did the necessary tweaks and installed programs (but not VST or DX plugins and left the Services un-touched this time...oh, I disabled the System Cache too as it is somehow difficult to max 1GB of RDRAM!).
Everything was PERFECT! My PC was flying! No pops/no clicks! So, it was not SX to blame after all!
*BUT* I then installed all DX and VST plugins (rebooting only when I was asked to)... Now, whenever I go to run a DX plug-in I get the messages application X "eccountered an error and needs to close" etc etc....
So, it seems that I have to do it again. I suspect that what caused it might be one (or more) of the following:
1) SP1
2) DirectX 9.0a
3) The way I installed DX plugins (without rebooting after EACH installation)
I need your experience regarding these. Should I avoid SP1? Should I stick to DX 8.1? Should I reboot after EACH plugin installation (even if I am not asked to?)?
Thank you for your help!
P.S. The rest of the system uses the latest non-beta drivers (BIOS, Graphics card, Motherboard chipset)
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: rodos1979 on 2003-07-05 23:35 ]</font>
I started my DAW from scratch. Installed XP, SP1, drivers, DirectX 9.0a, did the necessary tweaks and installed programs (but not VST or DX plugins and left the Services un-touched this time...oh, I disabled the System Cache too as it is somehow difficult to max 1GB of RDRAM!).
Everything was PERFECT! My PC was flying! No pops/no clicks! So, it was not SX to blame after all!
*BUT* I then installed all DX and VST plugins (rebooting only when I was asked to)... Now, whenever I go to run a DX plug-in I get the messages application X "eccountered an error and needs to close" etc etc....
So, it seems that I have to do it again. I suspect that what caused it might be one (or more) of the following:
1) SP1
2) DirectX 9.0a
3) The way I installed DX plugins (without rebooting after EACH installation)
I need your experience regarding these. Should I avoid SP1? Should I stick to DX 8.1? Should I reboot after EACH plugin installation (even if I am not asked to?)?
Thank you for your help!
P.S. The rest of the system uses the latest non-beta drivers (BIOS, Graphics card, Motherboard chipset)
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: rodos1979 on 2003-07-05 23:35 ]</font>
I don't believe it should be necessary to reboot after a plugin install unless you already had the plugin on the system and it was in use (the dll would be locked and reboot would let it be overwritten--windows logs tasks like this and does them when teh file is free).
So, what I would recommend:
1 See if you can uninstall all vst & directx plugins from the control panel > add/remove
2 use a regcleaners (not regclean.exe--we all know it messes with asio in the registry)
[if you are able to remove everything safely great go to 3! If not reinstall just the basic install + cubase (nothing else) and then...]
3 create a test folder & project for cubase with an audio file you can loop (preferably something not obnoxious)
4 use DriveImage (or ghost if that's all you have) and make a complete image of your system disk.
5 install your plugins 1 by 1 starting with the directx ones as they're the most difficult to remove and make a note of how stable each one is.
For bonus points: Use the looped waveform (only 1 so it remains cached) or midi for a vsti and try to load several instances (a lot) and watch for cpu spiking etc..note this so you can work with your resources as efficiently as possible later.
So, what I would recommend:
1 See if you can uninstall all vst & directx plugins from the control panel > add/remove
2 use a regcleaners (not regclean.exe--we all know it messes with asio in the registry)
[if you are able to remove everything safely great go to 3! If not reinstall just the basic install + cubase (nothing else) and then...]
3 create a test folder & project for cubase with an audio file you can loop (preferably something not obnoxious)
4 use DriveImage (or ghost if that's all you have) and make a complete image of your system disk.
5 install your plugins 1 by 1 starting with the directx ones as they're the most difficult to remove and make a note of how stable each one is.
For bonus points: Use the looped waveform (only 1 so it remains cached) or midi for a vsti and try to load several instances (a lot) and watch for cpu spiking etc..note this so you can work with your resources as efficiently as possible later.