I need some upgrade advice. please!

[ddehrlich67]

ok, the short of it. in '06, i did the exchange from mix+ to HD2. soon was stuck in the whole PCI-PCIe situation. but my rig was (and still is) rock solid, so I said screw it and kept it. its been very good to me. rarely ever crashes. my sessions usually have around 30-40 tracks with lots of plugs. rarely runs out of dsp. its ancient, but its been very good to me. but the time has come to finally try to get somewhat up to date but on a budget.
if I were to go from my early G5 dual 1.2 running OSX4.9, pt7.1, HD accel2
to a '08 or '09 mac pro quad 2.8, HD naitive and pt10, will I be happy? I can do that for under 3k total. any other ideas? thanks

[Fooks]

Really its up to you, all those TDM plugs are gonna be useless with a Native card. You will have to buy all new plugins, which you might want too....as far as stability, I've heard the native card is solid as hell and sounds fantastic (bunches of crunch) but sad to say that the HD Native card does not have any DSP processing and even if you got your TDMs ported to AAX they still won't work

[Chris Lambrechts]

Originally Posted by Fooks

but sad to say that the HD Native card does not have any DSP processing and even if you got your TDMs ported to AAX they still won't work

There's a slight nuance to be made there I think ... this would depend entirely on which plugin and plugin manufacturer.

I personally would like to see most plugins to be ported to AAX to support both native and DSP simultaneously but in all honesty ... there will be plugins that will support either native or DSP as well.

But that doesn't mean your RDM plugins could not be ported or upgraded to a format in which you can use them with a HD Native system.

Chris

[Fooks]

Originally Posted by Chris Lambrechts

There's a slight nuance to be made there I think ... this would depend entirely on which plugin and plugin manufacturer.

I personally would like to see most plugins to be ported to AAX to support both native and DSP simultaneously but in all honesty ... there will be plugins that will support either native or DSP as well.

But that doesn't mean your RDM plugins could not be ported or upgraded to a format in which you can use them with a HD Native system.

Chris

True, but where I think if you go from say an HD2 TDM to HDX AAX DSP your plugins will be ported, if you go from the same TDM to a native, I'm not so sure a TDM based plug will get ported to a non "DSP" powered format, I could be very wrong, God knows my wife tells me I am all the time, dumber things are going on here at Avid it seems, though.

[kazuomik]

Originally Posted by ddehrlich67

ok, the short of it. in '06, i did the exchange from mix+ to HD2. soon was stuck in the whole PCI-PCIe situation. but my rig was (and still is) rock solid, so I said screw it and kept it. its been very good to me. rarely ever crashes. my sessions usually have around 30-40 tracks with lots of plugs. rarely runs out of dsp. its ancient, but its been very good to me. but the time has come to finally try to get somewhat up to date but on a budget.
if I were to go from my early G5 dual 1.2 running OSX4.9, pt7.1, HD accel2
to a '08 or '09 mac pro quad 2.8, HD naitive and pt10, will I be happy? I can do that for under 3k total. any other ideas? thanks

Seeing "Pro Tools|HD Native Systems on Mac OS" forum
http://duc.avid.com/forumdisplay.php?f=86
there are several threads about 2008 Mac Pro and HD Native.
It seems there are some issues, but I am not so sure.

I got a HD Native card yesterday, exchanging from HD Core card, but I have not tried it yet.
I will try it on 2010 Mac Pro next weekend (or later).

[ddehrlich67]

thanks guys. whats the major advantage of pt10HD naitive over pt10 non HD naitive? is it less latency?

[Chris Lambrechts]

Have a look at the following document. It has a comparative listing of PT 10 and PT 10 HD.

http://www.avid.com/static/resources...2011_09_30.pdf


Latency is dependent on a whole range of factors but not primarily on differences between PT 10 and PT10HD.

Chris

[lennieh]

I'm in similar situation, albeit on a PC where you can still find motherboards with PCI slots that support latest generation CPUs.

I thought long and hard about this - in the light of not being able to justify forking out for ridiculous upgrade price to 10, and the attendant disappointment - and I reckon you are better off waiting for the next major release before trading in your HD2 for HD Native.

If your system is working fine for you now then you don't gain a lot by trading now, and it will cost you more in the long run.

For the sake of convenience assume next truly 64-bit version of Protools is 11. If you upgrade now you will get wacked for an upgrade fee when 11 comes along - no idea what that will be but if 10 was $999 I can't see 11 being less???

The other key thing is that if you switch to native you will pretty much be relying on your computer CPU for all processing, the Native card manages the I/O for you is all. So when you make that switch you want to do so with the fastest most powerful computer you can afford.

This is a bit like chasing your tail obviously because there is always a new processor just around the corner, but taken with likely charge to upgrade to 11 - which in my opinion will be the game changer - 64-bit makes such a difference if you use VIs - you are just better off waiting.

If you are comitted to Mac, then use the time to investigate the art of build your own, reckon you can build a brand new Hackintosh with latest processors and tons of memory for less than a s/h 2008 Mac Pro....

Also the situation with AAX uptake by developers should be clearer and you will be better able to work out what to do about any TDM-only plugins you use...