I'm sure you guys get this a lot...

[katipea]

Hello I'll keep this short as I'm sure these type of questions are rampant, I've been reading for about 4 days regarding pro tools versions and hardware/equipment needed. So I've been using digital performer for years now, and I think I'm ready to move on, 8 isn't that great and I'm decently familiar with the PT9. So I've convinced myself that I'm going to move to PT9.

Now does PT9 require digidesign hardware or can it run on my Motu interface with just an ilok? Also, I'd really love to have DSP acceleration, Native seems about out of my extremely low budget. Do the HD2 and HD3 cards require one another to work? Do they work independently? Do they require a Digidesign interface to use the DSP processing? My computer is a hackintosh, I know it will run Pro tools pretty well as my friend has an identical computer but with all digidesign interfaces, he bought it whole and is also unsure if components can work separately.

So!... What I really want to know is summed up as: Do I need to buy an interface, and can I use the HD2 cards without an interface and can the DSP card work alone?

sorry again, I would really appreciate help here, there's so much to know with PT versions and someone who hasn't been around it for years it's a nightmare to sort through.

[guitardom]

You can use your motu or any asio or core audio based interface w PT 9 (or 10) this would be a completely host based system. You could get UAD card and plugs and have these plugs do there processing on the cars.

Moving to an HD system is a different story. First you need an HD core card, then can add more farm or accel cards from there. From here you must use either a digi (avid) interface or a compatible HD interface from a third party like lynx, apogee, mytek, etc. cannot run the HD based system w/o at least 1 of these interfaces. If you buy used you must also get the PT HD license you will need.