E-MU 1616M / 1820M owners: Do these use system resources like the 0404 USB?

[infinitesymphony]

Some people have noticed that the 0404 USB is a bit of a resource hog, like many USB devices. The 1616M and 1820M (discontinued) each use a special digital connector between the card and the MicroDock. I wonder, is this more like S/PDIF where lag is negligible, or does it have latency and resource issues like USB?

 

[Ahriman4891]

Bump since I would like to know as well.

 

[sejarzo]

When you say "resource hog", what are you concerned about?

Do you notice that other apps are slowed up or anything if you use them concurrently with the 0404 USB and a player app?

 

[infinitesymphony]

No, I don't personally own the 0404 USB, and my computer's new enough that the lag probably wouldn't be noticeable. But, every bit of CPU utilization and RAM counts, and I've heard that the 0404's drivers and the fact that it's USB mean that it has a high system priority and can induce some lag.

Basically, I'm wondering if upgrading from a 1212M to a 1616M will have any kind of negative effect for gaming or CPU-intensive applications.

 

[lan]

If they're not USB based, they should offer good CPU performance.

Do you feel 1616m will be upgrade for 1212m? I'm not sure of this.

 

[infinitesymphony]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lan /img/forum/go_quote.gif Do you feel 1616m will be upgrade for 1212m? I'm not sure of this.

No, not in terms of sound quality. I'm just looking for the microphone preamps and headphone amplification section.

 

[JSTpt1022]

The patchmix dsp, which I'm sure you are familiar with, uses 18,152k of memory and :02 CPU time on my system with 1820M. I wouldn't define this as a resource hog but YMMV. I can't seem to find any other running process associated with the E-MU. As for the connection between the dock and the card, it appears to be more like a digital music protocol and less like usb in that it doesn't seem to require specific drivers or resources. As for latency, when playing Oblivion the words don't quite match up with the mouth movements, but this is something this card should never be asked to handle anyway.

I neglected to mention that the above memory figure is a best case scenario with no music playing and no processing. With music playing routed through ASIO out sent directly to analog outs with all else muted, the numbers are 18,628k and :06 CPU time.

 

[infinitesymphony]

Thanks for the info, JSTpt1022! I don't have my main computer setup right now, so I can't compare RAM numbers, but I was able to play games without a hitch with the 1212M. Hopefully the 1616M won't be a downgrade in that regard.

How fast/equipped is your system? When you say :06 CPU time, do you mean that it takes 6 seconds for the music to play, or did you mean 6% CPU utilization?

 

[MikeyII]

I think he means the "CPU Time" column in Windows Task Manager.

 

[infinitesymphony]

Gotcha... I was worried for a second. Waiting 6 seconds for audio would be pretty unacceptable in a DAW application.

 

[JSTpt1022]

Mikey is right about the cpu time thing. I wasn't sure exactly what you might be looking for so I gave something that everyone can easily tell. I am running a Pentium D940 at (mostly) stock speeds and 2 gigs of pc2 6400 ram.