Topic: Problem between Plogue Bidule VST host and WaveCenter PCI

Wanda wrote:

I have tried this on several machines with a WaveCenter card and I get freezes and very slow response. Plogue Bidule uses ASIO drivers and works well with other cards such as Gina3G.
Any help would be great!

Marcos wrote:

I have same problem when using WC/PCI with ASIO, in Samplitude or Logic Audio...

CS: Hello Wanda and Marcos,

not sure why you would have difficulty using your Wavecenter cards with ASIO apps but we can take a look at it here. I have used Wavecenter with all of the above listed programs. Can you tell us a bit more about your systems, applications, and driver versions?

Have you checked IRQ assignments on your computers? Try moving the Wavecenter to another PCI slot if it is sharing with graphics, networking or another audio device.

Let us know any details you can and we'll try to help.

Regards,

CS

Wanda wrote:

Hello CS, I have tried this on several machines.

Intel 3.2
Intel 925 x motherboard
WinXP SP2.

Also: Intel core2 2.4 E6600
Intel DG965WH Mobo
onboard video
2 gigs 667
WaveCenter is on IRQ22 and shares with no other device.
No other audio devices are turned on in the bios.

I have seen other posts at Plogue and others have this issue.

Please help resolve this.
Thank you

CS: Hello Wanda,

We are in Germany at the Music Messe for the rest of this week. I'll look in to it further when I return.

CS

CS: Hello Wanda,

Yup, we are back, and I am guilty as charged. Totally forgot to check this out when I got back.

So I spent some time playing with this today. It appears to be true that the Wavecenter creates a CPU loading issue. Much more so than even the bigger Dakota card does. This is due to a combination of factors. First, the Wavecenter does more of its processing in the computer's CPU than the larger Dakota does by design (the Wavecenter is an older, less efficient, design).

And secondly, and probably more importantly, Bidule does not appear to offer the user a way to enable only specific hardware channels for use. This is a big deal because unlike WDM audio, the ASIO spec calls for all enabled channels to be active ALL OF THE TIME. Even if they aren't actually playing audio at the time. This means that all 20 Wavecenter channels (10 in + 10 out) are loading the CPU the moment you add it, even if you only have a single VSTi output assigned. Most programs, like SONAR or Cubase allow you to enable only the channels that you are actually using, thus eliminating the problem.

In the next few days we will look to see if there is anything we can do to ease the problem. I just don't know yet if we can do too much.

However, by using the Wavecenter as a Windows Direct device instead of ASIO it seems to work fine.

CS