Next question - How does software licensing work

[oldspeak]

By the subject title, I am asking; if Scope 4.5 for example is registered to a Luna II card but not a Pulsar I, are there computer groups like UAD, or is it that both cards must be together in order to use them with the latest software.

Thank you all for the most excellent answers thus far.

[garyb]

yes, both cards would need to be in the same machine for both to use 5.0(they would be like one big card with 5.0).

the card without 4.5 could continue to use the 4.0 or 4.5 software in a seperate machine though, and would work just fine.

ok, this is about it for me 2nite.

[oldspeak]

the card without 4.5 could continue to use the 4.0 or 4.5 software in a seperate machine though, and would work just fine.

OK, I must ask, how is this so?

[Mr Arkadin]

Hmmm, not too sure what you're asking. What i can tell you is that to use two (or three) cards in one computer you will need the special STDM cable to connect them together. Once you have done this, you will have a master card and the other will act as extra DSP, so if you have the three DSP card as master (in first slot say) this will give you second generation card low latency even though you have a Pulsar1 card. i think if you have it the other way round the Pulsar1 will be master and you will have the high latency of Pulsar1 again.

By using the STDM you will in effect have a 7 DSP system, although because they are spread over two cards the overall DSP usage efficiency may be less than having 6 DSPs on a single card (depending on devices used - Minimax is usually a factor here).

So if your 3 DSP card has Scope 5.0 that's what will run, and you will be able to run all devices that are available to both cards in one window. i would try and register all you can to one card though to keep it simple.

[oldspeak]

Most interesting and well put.

So even though there might be 3 + 6 DSP from new and old generations respectively, since there is an older gen. card in the mix in terms of scaling the absolute power would be equivalent to have 7 DSP's.

Then I suppose the question is, does the software show this?

Thanks again for answering.

[Mr Arkadin]

In your original post you said 3 DSP card plus a Pulsar1, Pulsar1 only has 4 DSPs hence 4+3= 7 DSPs. If you have a Pulsar2 (Scope Project) card then that has 6 DSPs plus the three DSP so you will have 9 DSPs. All Pulsar2 cards are second generation. There is a DSP meter in Scope which shows you how many DSPs you have and how much of them you're using.

[oldspeak]

Sorry, thanks for saying that.

I read somewhere that one of the cards even though it has 7 dsp's the co. says 6 as 1 is reserved or something, minor detail maybe.

[Mr Arkadin]

That's the Scope Pro card, which is now called the 14 DSP card. It has 15 DSPs visible if you count them and in the old days used to be called a 15 DSP card. However as one DSP was used for software management the DSP Meter i described earlier showed only 14 DSPs, leading some people to think their card was faulty. By renaming it a 14 DSP card they eliminated that confusion to some degree. The 3 DSP card (Scope Home) and 6 DSP card (Scope Project) have always been called 3 and 6 DSP cards from the beginning, and that's how many DSPs you'll see in the DSP Meter.

[kylie]

I read somewhere that one of the cards even though it has 7 dsp's the co. says 6 as 1 is reserved or something, minor detail maybe.

afair this is applicable for the big boards (14/15 dsp) only, where 15 dsps are shown in the summary but only 14 are listed separately in the meter.
I have a 14dsp card that has really 14 dsps on board, the place for the 15th is left empty. the summary will show 15, though, while only 14 are in the list
the 15th was necessary for administrative tasks in older sfp versions, but since it must have become obsolete it was not soldered to newer board generations anymore...

-greetings, markus-

ps. damn, didn't notice Mr.A's post, he already explained it...