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-   -   UAD2 + Win 7-64 + ProTools 9 Reflections (https://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=294171)

vonglahnpg 02-08-2011 09:51 AM

UAD2 + Win 7-64 + ProTools 9 Reflections
 
As others have noted, the subject combination works poorly, at best. When I first tried the UAD2 card in my newly-installed PT9, even the simplest UAD plugin barely worked (popped and crackled and stuttered). I also observed that the Pro Tools CPU activity monitor showed a lot of action for RTAS plugins, even when nothing was going on. I also note that I had the Pro Tools processor count set to 8 rather than 6. Other postings have said that some of the processors need to be available for UAD and other uses.

I have been able to get things working, somewhat, by setting the Pro Tools playback engine as follows: 2048 Bit Buffer, Disk buffer setting: level 4; large, delay comp: long, CPU 95%, Processors: 6 (out of 8). This setting was suggested by Trep in the "Pt9 & uad2 :-/" thread.

This is on a Intel I7-960 cpu board with 12 GB RAM, one UAD-1 (which seems to work OK) and one UAD-2 DUO (plugged into a PCIE slot with a dedicated IRQ), and Pro Tools 9.0.1. Also, the UAD software is the current version.

With this setting, the UAD plugins usually work, although I see a lot of action in the Pro Tools CPU activity monitor that is not present when the UAD plugins are not used.

Note that the UAD plugins are VSTs that have to be wrapped into RTAS.

Looking over the many postings on the UAD and AVID forums, it seems that UAD2 works fine with other DAW programs under Win 7-64, but not with Pro Tools. Combining that info with the settings listed above leads me to wonder if the problem arises in conjunction with the RTAS wrappers and/or the Pro Tools buffering. The RTAS plugins must differ in their DAW interface in some way from their VST counterparts since the wrapping process is needed. It seems that all the other DAW programs use raw VST plugins.

I also observe that the UAD VST plugins differ from other VST plugins in that they refer to external hardware for execution rather than executing totally within Pro Tools. This external link probably requires some sort of buffering and handshaking between the VST software and the UAD2 board which involves Window 7 (since, as I understand it) all access to the computer hardware must flow through the OS (unlike earlier OS's where the software could directly get at the hardware). In turn, Pro Tools also probably has some handshaking and buffering with its internally-processed RTAS plugins (whether native or wrapped VSTs). I wonder if the problem lies in this double layer of handshaking / buffering.

There seems to be a lot of mutual finger pointing between the Pro Tools, VST wrapper, and UAD camps about this problem. Since I understand that UAD is now working on a true RTAS implementation of their plugins, perhaps they will talk to the folks at AVID and sort this out. One can only hope.

I am cross posting this to the UAD forums in an effort to get some dialogue started. In the meantime, I'm not using my UAD2 plugins - they are too much of a hastle.

MrJoshua 02-08-2011 10:38 AM

Re: UAD2 + Win 7-64 + ProTools 9 Reflections
 
I put my UAD2 Duo card back in my XP/PT8 system. I have an i7/Windows 7 system ready for Pro Tools 9 (although I'm going to have to check to see if the motherboard needs to be returned now that Intel has found that chipset problem), but when I tried it with the UAD2 for a couple of days I started getting bad problems with corrupted session files due to the UAD/Pro Tools incompatibility. It would be more annoying if I hadn't been planning on finishing up tracking and mixing this current project before fully moving over to the new computer anyway.

lennieh 02-09-2011 02:58 AM

Re: UAD2 + Win 7-64 + ProTools 9 Reflections
 
I've got a UAD2 Solo in with my HD2 system running PT 9.0.1 on Win 7 x64 and it works just fine. I haven't had to tweak any settings at all, I just installed as per instructions....

I've got an 8 core system, and only use 7 of those for RTAS, lots of recommendations to leave one core free for OS activity.

vonglahnpg 02-09-2011 06:12 AM

Re: UAD2 + Win 7-64 + ProTools 9 Reflections
 
Interesting. My UAD1 PCI card seems to work fine. The UAD2 solo has about 2.5x the capacity of the UAD1 while the UAD2 duo has 5x the capacity. The data bandwidth available to both the UAD1 PCI card and the UAD2 PCIE x1 card is approximately the same. So, based on what you report, the Win 7 (64 bit) Pro-tools 9.01 (32 bit) UAD wrapped VST (32 bit) combination seems viable at the single on-card processor level, but not the DUO level.

vonglahnpg 02-10-2011 06:26 AM

Re: UAD2 + Win 7-64 + ProTools 9 Reflections
 
Final update: I removed the UAD2 card and all related software and things seemed fine. Then Pro Tools started acting up - claiming I was running out of memory to the point that I couldn't exit the program and had to reboot the computer. This happened even with a fresh program start and no activity - I was on the phone at the time and had done nothing beyond opening a session. I'm taking out the UAD and all UA software, including anything left in the windows registry. I'll re-install after UA gets their RTAS interface working.

tdawgg 02-10-2011 07:57 PM

Re: UAD2 + Win 7-64 + ProTools 9 Reflections
 
I have a UAD-2 Duo card, running W7-64, with a quad core (older) Intel, and I have zero problems. I can typically run 24 tracks with the Neve 88R plug as a channel strip, but the UAD stuff is meant for mixing, NOT tracking ( I sent a e-mail to UAD to ask about this). As long as I run at 1024, I don't have any problems unless I am running too many UAD plugs (some of them use ALOT of the on-board processing, and the native processor will also be "strained"), but I have had fairly high track counts with a good amount of various UAD plugs going. I also have a SSL Duende PCIe card, and that card seems to do most of it's processing from the card. I like both, but prefer the UAD, as there are more and more manufactuerers getting on board with them,and the results are usually incredible.

Obe1 05-26-2011 07:55 AM

Re: UAD2 + Win 7-64 + ProTools 9 Reflections
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by vonglahnpg (Post 1750687)
Final update: I removed the UAD2 card and all related software and things seemed fine. Then Pro Tools started acting up - claiming I was running out of memory to the point that I couldn't exit the program and had to reboot the computer. This happened even with a fresh program start and no activity - I was on the phone at the time and had done nothing beyond opening a session. I'm taking out the UAD and all UA software, including anything left in the windows registry. I'll re-install after UA gets their RTAS interface working.

Not sure if this would make a difference, but what motherboard do you have? Before I built my PC for Pro Tools performance I studied this forum for weeks and found out that certain components of the build make huge differences in the systems performance. How about your bios settings? I remember I disabled some of the features that came with it and my performance increased immensely. Just something to think about.


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