Hello there Tuccos

I'm sorry to hear about your frustration, frustration makes us suffer, we have all gone through it in a way or other with our systems.
About the XTC. Let me give you some history, as this is quite interesting so you can understand what had happend:
Creamware created XTC because many people were asking for a native way (inside the sequencer I mean) of working with the DSP plugins of Pulsar. There was a great exitment at the time, and it seemed to be a great idea, as computers were far away from the posibility of handling, in real time, the best VST plugins of the moment. But just about a year later, things started to change in a fast fashion as computers and its technology started to go up and up and up... in an incredible way. It came out Pentium IV and XP and everytyhing was a great revolution for the audio market. Reaktor 4 was a momentum revolution and this changed people's way of seen at computers and DSP cards.
All those guys so exited about the XTC mode, were no longer so exited, as your own PC could now handle quite a few BIG VST plugins, with little or no problems. Ok, we agree that the difference in sound quality is great between VST and SFP, but the plugins were available anyway.
Then again, before expected, computers grew up in technology and capacity, hard drives, CPU and RAM became much, much cheaper and powerful... The idea of XTC became even weaker... Not the concept itself, because the concept is great an very efficient if you maily work with MIDI, but weaker because it could no longer deal against the posible but expensive VST option.
When XTC came out, it was bezzare to see that about 80% of us, did not truly like the idea, we have always preffered working in the traditional mode, because it gives you much freedom and creativity than XTC. YOu can create some mad connections and of course, use the card at your maximum advantag, and also all the plugins available.
For Creamware, I am quite sure this luck of interest and even some level of rejection to the XTC mode, was a cold surprise... as they expected, all on the contrary, a great welcomed to the new way.
I remember that I switched to XTC for a few days, but did not like, I was somwere else, not in Pulsar anymore. Did not like XTC took out of my hands the CONTROL of everything.
Ok, I cannot think of any company, or even a single person that would continue doing efforts in such huge projects like the XTC, spending thousands and thousands of dollars and hours, to satisfy a couple of guys who found it nice. That would be a suicide economically, and a compaty is all about ECONOMY, no matter how nice the ideas and intentions may be.
Creamware Team is a team of truly inspired people, who loves music and technology sincerely, not a bunck of cold, ugly businessmen, they simply need some breed and butter too, just like you and me.
BUT, and this is a relevant "but", they improved the traditional mode, with the LiveBar, so everybody could feel in a more confortable, convensional envirnment, not the same as XTC, but at least, giving some automation to the most common tasks. And they did it for free, when they could very easily, have asked for 150 Euros, at that time and we would have payed it surely.
This is my understanding of the situation.
Now, for you, I have to say that not using HT is not a tragedy really. Have you messured which is the objective amount of performance difference with and without HT? If you were to mesure it carefully, you'll see that the difference is quite small. I see HT technology more as a marketing stratagy than a real advantage, certainly not as a new generation of procesors... there is still quite a long way to walk for it to work as expected. Do a search and you'll see.
You should take it easy, and get into the SFP normal mode envirnment to take full advantage of the cards. Otherwise, it would be good for you to get to the XTC forum and read all about it, as you will get help from all those who, like you, have chosen to work with XTC mode, so you can solve the most important issues, and enjoy making music.
This writintg has only one intention, and this is: I truly hope you feel better and solve your problems. Give us good news
Nestor
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Nestor on 2006-01-05 08:58 ]</font>