The Definitive TDM hardware recycling thread for Mac OSX

[tdmwizard]

I have been a PTHD user for many years, and, I am also old school, so I do not spend a lot of time posting on user forums. My first post…….and its a long one. Now that the HDX/AAX era is firmly upon us, I felt it time to contribute something to help others……since I myself have used many helpful tips from this forum. There are other similar threads around this topic, but, many contain incorrect information, and are missing other key details.

I would not call myself a "green" type, but, I also like to avoid putting things in landfills un-necessarily. With that said, the basic intent here is to provide/clarify information around building "Hackintosh" OSX computers for the purpose of economically salvaging/reusing pci based (not pcie) TDM hardware.

Since I migrated my main control room to HDX/PT11 late last year, and my Mac Pro is getting long in the tooth, I have been looking for some options. I am also non-plussed by the design of the new Mac Pro, and I still have TDM plugs to contend with + my project room, and home studio. Over this past winter, I have built three TDM "Hackintosh" systems that are solid performers and rock solid stable. No over-clocking, no crazy tweaking, etc…..the goal was to built production grade systems for real work.

My main HDX system is a beast with a 10-core Xeon E5 CPU and 64gb of ram booting from an 8gb/sec san array running Mountain Lion without so much as a burp for 6 months. But the intent here is for building useful TDM systems for secondary rooms, or up and coming users with a budget. So……..

The current typical street/ebay price for TDM pci core cards is $150-250 with Accel cards going for $300-$400. 192 I/O's are less than $500, so one can build a a cost effective HD3 Accel and larger TDM system these days….except for one problem…Mac-Pro's and later have no standard pci slots….only pcie. But pcie TDM cards are still fairly pricy, and at this point in the Avid product cycle, probably does not make sense to spend that much money into an End-Of-Life system when HDX can be had for not much more.

I have read a lot of conflicting information about what can and can't be done with pci based TDM cards….especially the limits of using Apple hardware. OSX EULA issues aside, building(or having built) your own "Hackintosh" machine opens up a LOT of flexibility that Apple hardware does not provide. The below information is based on my own actual hands-on testing…..not third hand information I read somewhere else.

IMHO http://www.tonymacx86.com is the easiest place to find what you need to get a OSX machine up and running easily on commodity hardware. My builds don't use custom kext editing, DSDT's, or other modifications beyond using I-Boot, UniBeast, and MultiBeast. As such, I use hardware that boots default installs without complicated efforts to make functional.

Graphics cards: I use 2 that have native OSX support, Nvidia 8600GT fan-less (Asus or Gigabyte models with dual DVI) for normal DAW use, Sapphire ATI 6870 (Using the Chameleon boot parameters: AtiPorts=4 AtiConfig=duckweed) for something that needs graphics performance. Native QE support on both, and no hassles. Both can be found used on ebay for dirt cheap. These are DAW's we are talking about, not gaming/rendering machines and 90% of the issues building OSX on commodity hardware is gamer types trying to use the latest $750 graphics card.....stick to older cards and save a lot of money and problems.

Motherboards: I've tested 2 for pci TDM applications, JetWay NAF93-Q77 and SuperMicro X8SAX. Both work out of the box and are rock solid with no need for custom DSDT's.

NAF93-Q77 - Industrial class board with proper pci slot voltage supply (unlike Asus and other desktop type boards). Supports Sandy/Ivy Bridge cpu's and 4 native 32-bit pci slots (not bridged) via the Q77 chipset. 64-bit TDM cards overhang the 32-bit slots on all 4 slots without interference. Disable all of the on-board serial ports. Solid motherboard for OSX and runs Snow Leopard and later on Sandy Bridge flawlessly.

X8SAX - Nice X58 board with 64-bit pci-X slots. On-board intel gig-e, TI firewire. Solid motherboard for OSX up to Mavericks running I7-990X 6-core cpu. 2 PCI-X slots support tdm cards directly and also support Magma 01-04610-00 pci-64 or 01-04626-01 pci-32 host cards.

Set disk controller modes to AHCI, disable unused motherboard hardware and i/o, and avoid using motherboard audio. TI/LSI/Agere firewire is the best along with NEC/Renesas USB3 cards. The TC Electronic Desktop Konnekt-6 is a great little $150 firewire audio interface with OSX support for non TDM use.

Expansion Chassis: Here is a good topic. Magma. I have read on many sites the older Magma 64-bit chassis do not work with Intel Mac Pro's. The issue is Magma host interface card is pci 32/64 and Mac Pro's have only pcie slots…..NOT because of driver compatibility or interop issues with OSX. I have read all of the available information on Pericom chipset working with OSX vs the older Intel chipset not working……wrong. The Intel chip is the 21154BE 64-bit pci bridge….which is the exact same chip used on every Digidesign TDM PCI card ever made. The Intel 21154BE is natively supported by all versions of OSX including Mavericks.

The issue for using older Magma P7R series chassis was not OSX compatibility, it is a Magma design problem with pcie/pci bridging requiring an updated chassis or board swap to the tune of $1500.....not worth it IMHO.

In any case, I flogged the SuperMicro X8SAX motherboard mercilessly with huge 192 Khz HD7 Accel test sessions and it works flawlessly with the Magma 01-04610-00 pci-64 host card, P7R464 chassis, and ebay VHDCI scsi cables running any version of OSX up to PT10HD.

The JetWay NAF93-Q77 was rock solid as well with all 4 pci-32 slots filled to a HD4 Accel config. PCI utilization was a bit scary on large 48Khz test sessions with the 32-bit bus, but, it was solid with no errors. 96 Khz tests starting causing DAE errors and connecting the P7R464 chassis via the 01-04626-01 pci-32 card also caused DAE errors on HD7 Accel test sessions at high sample rate. Again, there is a LARGE difference in running these cards in 64-bit vs 32-bit pci slots if you do large track counts or high sample rates.

If you buy a Magma pci chassis, make sure you get the above pci host cards included. The 64-bit cards are hard to find alone, the 32-bit cards are plentiful on bay for $50 or so. The Magma "Hi-Fi" cables are nothing more than vhdci scsi cables, so save yourself some money and find 1-meter vhdci on bay for less than $20.00. The key here is cable length….no more than 1-meter max.

PCI TDM cards: I have read a lot of posts, including a recent one here: http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=324149 stating that there is no difference running pci-tdm cards in 32-bit slots vs 64-bit slots……that the 64-bit portion of the tdm card is either unused or not connected…..wrong. TDM cards are absolutely a pci-64 bit card running at 33 Mhz, which provides 266 mb/sec……double that of 32-bit pci. The 64-bit tdm cards are backwards compatible with 32-bit slots, but, track count, voices, and plug configs are significantly lower with HD3+ Accel in 32-bit slots vs running the cards in a 64-bit slot above 96Khz sampling rate. Smaller card configs may not be as much of an issue.

I just bought a pci Accel card for $225 and a Magma P7R464 chassis with 64-bit host card for $75.00……the tdm gear is cheap and still very useful. If your computer is running Windows 7 and later, some of these issues don't apply, but, if you want to run OSX and build a TDM system on the cheap, I hope this thread provides some options to up and coming recordists, studios with tight budgets, and anyone else looking to keep this equipment from being scrapped.

I also posted this on GearSlutz.

Peace.

[arche3]

So my question would be if using the 32 bit card with a 13 slot 32 bit chassis would it work on these motherboards. I assume it would as the 32 bit pci card is compatible the chassis would not matter. Yeah it is true you cant find the 64 bit pci cards anywhere. I did a quick search. Im still debating if I should hold on to hd6 accel or go hdx.

[tdmwizard]

I see no technical reason why the 13-slot chassis would not work with reasonable sized tdm card configurations taking into account 32-bit bus limitations. The functionality of pci bridging is not driver/os based.....it's asics talking to other asics using the PCI specification.

Each tdm card uses a 21154BE bridge chip and each DSP on the tdm card is its own pci bus/bus master connected to that bridge chip. Each DSP uses busmastering and DMA to talk to other DSP's on that card as well as other cards in the system without cpu involvement.

Using an HD7 config is 7 cards x 9 DSP's each = 63 DSP pci busses + the systems busses in the computer.

[arche3]

I just might build one and see what happens. Which of motherboard is the easiest to setup between the two you posted? Or is one better? I would try to upgrade this hd6accell rig using a 13 slot 32 bit chassis to pthd 10.

[tdmwizard]

They both work out of the box for any version of OSX Snow Leopard and later.

One of my secondary systems is PT8.1 HD and I am running HD4 Accel and Snow Leopard 10.6.8 using the JetWay board with i7-2600K on that machine. Intel Sandy Bridge is the newest supported proc on SL. Ivy Bridge is no go until Lion.

So if your needs are HD4, stick with the Jetway. If you need something bigger, the X8SAX + cheap ebay Magma chassis is the ticket. X58 is getting old, but, is well supported since the Mac Pro's were X58 + the I7 6-core Gulftown cpu is still close in performance to the newest Intel procs and can be had for cheap prices on ebay. Mine is i7-990x and runs a ton of rtas reverb plugs without breaking a sweat.

[fakejosh]

Hi Guys,

I have an X8SAX board with an i7-960 cpu, 12gb of RAM, HD2 PCIx cards and a 192 interface... Can't seem to get pro tools 8.1 nor 10.3 to start successfully in either Snow Leopard 10.6.8 nor Mountain Lion 10.8.5. It begins loading PT HD, loads the plugins and then stalls at "Creating DAE objects" before causing a kernel panic.

Any ideas? Thanks!

[Osterhase]

Wow! Thanks for that interesting thread!

I also want to build an oldschool pci-x hd rig, but not as an sequencer. I want to use it as an "ultra low latency fx box", madi-lightpiped to my main computer, equipped with Asio Software and SSL/Soundscape MX4.

Now my Question:
If I only work with aux tracks, then the performance differences between 32bit and 64bit pci slots play a role?

In my case audio goes this route:

Madi -> Madi-HD-Converter -> HD Card/TDM-Mixer/TDM-Plugins -> Madi-HD-Converter -> Madi

Since I dont play/record audio from protools to dsp-cards, the pci performance should be negligible, because audio streams inside the tdm mixer (incl. tdm plugins) are flowing only thru the flex cables and not over pci, is that right?

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by Osterhase

If I only work with aux tracks, then the performance differences between 32bit and 64bit pci slots play a role? (...) Since I dont play/record audio from protools to dsp-cards, the pci performance should be negligible, because audio streams inside the tdm mixer (incl. tdm plugins) are flowing only thru the flex cables and not over pci, is that right?

There is zero difference between 32bit and 64bit pci slots. Whatever mixer you build uses DSP chips on single or multiple cards, but you're right in thinking TDM goes between the cards and interfaces, not that much over PCI.

I'm assuming you're talking about HD hardware and not the very old MIX hardware. In that case, I have never ever seen a session where PCI would have been a problem.

Btw. Only difference between Aux track and Audio track is that you can record audio on Audio track but Aux track does not store anything. Whether you have Audio tracks or Aux tracks makes no difference as far as the Mixer is concerned. Using only Aux tracks just makes your life easier because you don't have to think about record arming or input monitoring.

Just be sure you're using ONLY TDM PLUGINS in that "ultra low latency fx box" because as soon as you insert your first RTAS (native) plugin, your mixer will have the very same playback buffer that exists on all native systems.

[John_Toolbox]

Originally Posted by tdmwizard

I see no technical reason why the 13-slot chassis would not work with reasonable sized tdm card configurations taking into account 32-bit bus limitations. The functionality of pci bridging is not driver/os based.....it's asics talking to other asics using the PCI specification.

While this may be more true on windows machines, macs are much more finicky about compatibility with PCI expansion chassis. I would caution anyone thinking of trying this, there are very few PCIe to PCI expansion chassis that will work with a mac pro and pro tools HD cards in this configuration. Your best bet is the magma PE6R4-I, which is a 6 slot chassis. It's the only chassis that was officially supported with PCIe macs. AFAIK, while there is a PCIe host card available for the 13 slot magma chassis, it WILL NOT work with a mac pro, it will only work with PT8 on a G5 or earlier.

Be very careful when buying used PCI expansion chassis. Most people selling used chassis on ebay do not have everything the chassis will need to work. Most chassis will need 4 components:
1. The chassis itself
2. The host interface card (which goes in the computer)
3. The cable (which goes between the chassis and computer)
4. The backplane card (which usually occupies a special slot inside the chassis, in some models, the backplane is part of the motherboard of the chassis).

There are also usually different revisions of the same chassis model. You should always research the serial number of the chassis to see if it's going to work with your setup before buying.

Beware of the digidesign "Expansion|HD" chassis. This chassis was made by an obscure company(not magma) and replacement parts are not available for it. The used ones I've seen on ebay almost never include a host card, and the host card is not available anywhere. It used a standard ethernet cable between the chassis and computer, so the host card usually gets thrown away... When these systems are taken out of service I think the host card gets mistaken for a network card, and is tossed out with the assumption that it has no value.

[tdmwizard]

Originally Posted by John_Toolbox

While this may be more true on windows machines, macs are much more finicky about compatibility with PCI expansion chassis. I would caution anyone thinking of trying this, there are very few PCIe to PCI expansion chassis that will work with a mac pro and pro tools HD cards in this configuration. Your best bet is the magma PE6R4-I, which is a 6 slot chassis. It's the only chassis that was officially supported with PCIe macs. AFAIK, while there is a PCIe host card available for the 13 slot magma chassis, it WILL NOT work with a mac pro, it will only work with PT8 on a G5 or earlier.

Be very careful when buying used PCI expansion chassis. Most people selling used chassis on ebay do not have everything the chassis will need to work. Most chassis will need 4 components:
1. The chassis itself
2. The host interface card (which goes in the computer)
3. The cable (which goes between the chassis and computer)
4. The backplane card (which usually occupies a special slot inside the chassis, in some models, the backplane is part of the motherboard of the chassis).

There are also usually different revisions of the same chassis model. You should always research the serial number of the chassis to see if it's going to work with your setup before buying.

Beware of the digidesign "Expansion|HD" chassis. This chassis was made by an obscure company(not magma) and replacement parts are not available for it. The used ones I've seen on ebay almost never include a host card, and the host card is not available anywhere. It used a standard ethernet cable between the chassis and computer, so the host card usually gets thrown away... When these systems are taken out of service I think the host card gets mistaken for a network card, and is tossed out with the assumption that it has no value.

Mac's are no more finicky about pci/pcie hardware than a PC running windows.......because they are also a PC......just running OSX.

If Apple would have included a standard PCI slot in the Mac Pro (easily done since the X58 chipset includes support for native PCI), any of the older Magma chassis with a VHDCI connector would have worked perfectly well.

Since the Mac Pro only included PCIE slots, a different host card was required to bridge PCIE with a P7R series PCI chassis. The ONLY reason the P7R series chassis were/are incompatible running on Mac Pro hardware is due to an arbitrary design decision by Magma to use the Pericom chipset.....which does not work natively with the Intel 21154 used in the older chassis. An interesting choice of chipset since Intel also offers a PCIE/PCI bridge chipset that does work with the older 21154. Intel chipsets are industry standards, not Pericom.....but.....then Magma would not be able to re-sell all those $1600 "upgrade" board sets or the "new" P6 series chassis. Planned Obsolescence, partly Apple's fault, mostly Magma's fault.......and the customer loses in the end.

The purpose of this and other similar threads is to run OSX on a non-Apple motherboard. By ditching Apple hardware these restrictions evaporate. The customer avoids the Apple "hardware tax" and Apple ecosystem lock-in...and can then configure a machine with much improved specifications and flexibility for half the cost or less.

BTW.....I have spent $25K+ on Apple hardware in the past 10 years. I have no issue paying for innovation. In an x86 computer, Intel does the innovating with CPU and Thunderbolt.....everyone else just integrates components, including Apple. In this age of commoditized prices of x86 computers, the pricing on the new Mac Pro is absurd....not to mention the added cost of Thunderbolt pcie chassis and various peripherals. The term in business is TCO (Total Cost of Ownership)....and the Apple ecosystem is completely (and arbitrarily) a high TCO....have to keep that stock above $500. A cute cylinder design with Thunderbolt as the only external expansion option to drive up revenue and prices for Magma type peripheral vendors who arbitrarily introduce "incompatibility" whenever they need to boost sales?........no thanks, time to step off the treadmill.

My dual Xeon E5-2687W-V2 (16 physical, 32 logical cores, 25mb L3 cache per proc), Asrock x79 server motherboard, Ati 6870 graphics, 64gb ram with Atto 8gb fibre-channel card, Chelsio 10gbe nic card, HDX card, firewire card, AND a native PCI slot with a Magma host card (only connected to the P7R464 HD7 Accel chassis for legacy projects) dual boots Windows 7/OSX (from a HP san array) and runs Mountain Lion with PT 10/11HD flawlessly. I bought the graphics and i/o expansion cards off ebay used for pennies on the dollar.

My "Hackintosh" is Pro-Grade, workstation/server class hardware in a Huge Lian Li aluminum case with 140mm cooling fans spinning at 800rpm. You can barely hear it from 5 feet away. Time Machine backups to my NAS server exceed 600mbytes/sec. I was not looking to cut corners or sacrifice performance on this build.

TCO is half of a Mac Pro with nearly twice the specs. Geekbench score is 51,000 with a 90,300 score on Floating Point......ummm, price/performance ratio vs the new Mac Pro......ridiculous in my favor. I win for a change.