Re: [Flexradio] Repost - Multiple SDRS one CPU
Larry Loen wrote: Serious thought should be given to this for the SDR 2000. [...] The SDR-2000 seems to be a name commercially already taken Look here : http://www.spectralaudio.com/sdr-2000.htm 73 Alberto I2PHD
Re: [Flexradio] Repost - Multiple SDRS one CPU
Whatever scheme the USB approach uses, it should accomodate the pervasive use of USB hubs (I think you'd need this anyway, because most PCs actually have a hub inside the box anyway). Windows assigns a Device Instance ID for every USB device you plug in. Even for the same device the ID is different depending on which port it's connected to. For the SDR-1000 USB adapter the ID looks something like this: USB\VID_0547PID_2235\51E3499EF01 Plugged into another port: USB\VID_0547PID_2235\51E3499EF02 In both examples the device was connected to the same USB host controller / root hub, so only the last number has changed to indicate the different port. I don't have any external USB hubs to test with, but I assume the same principle applies, and you get a unique identifier for every port in your computer and USB hubs. You can use Windows Device Manager to see ID's for different devices: http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ahti/sdr-1000/DeviceInstanceId.png Do USB devices have internal serial numbers? There's no serial number in this case. The Cypress EZ-USB is an EEPROM-less device, and we decided not to put in an external EEPROM either. Having a unique serial number for an adapter-type device is generally not very useful. We're usually interested only in the hardware the adapter is connected to - not the identity of the adapter itself. If the USB interface were built in the SDR-1000, then it would be a good idea to have an EEPROM to store information. Not only a serial number, but also configuration and calibration data for that particular unit. 73, Sami OH2BFO
Re: [Flexradio] Repost - Multiple SDRS one CPU
Sami Aintila wrote: If the USB interface were built in the SDR-1000, then it would be a good idea to have an EEPROM to store information. Not only a serial number, but also configuration and calibration data for that particular unit. 73, Sami OH2BFO Serious thought should be given to this for the SDR 2000. Bringing (especially) the PA data along is a major headache when upgrading. It also caused trouble for us in Belize where we switched rigs and had to recalibrate everything (and, there are multiple SDR owners in the world, too, so it isn't just the not-so-common DXpeditioning or contesting). The PA data actually goes with the hardware, so it ultimately ought to be stored with it. In lieu of that, serious thought should be given to breaking out some of the more serious data separately. This data base import function seems eternally fragile. Perhaps the really critical data, especially including the PA amplifier settings, should be exported into XML or something. Maybe the critical voltage value for the sound card, too (especially useful for those that set it manually). I've had enough trouble with the whole what happens to the DB when I upgrade thing that I never reuse one anyway. It always seems safest and best to re-run the wizard, but that means all the PA settings go in by hand (and, also, I suppose, equalizer settings and so on). One cookie jar has always been a problem in software design. Too many eggs in one basket. But, the stuff that's directly tied to the hardware (but variable, such as also the postive/negative indicator on the 144 MHz card) probably ought to be exported/imported separately, at least optionally, because it almost never would be changed once set and there's no point in organizing the world so that people end up doing so. Stuff that's more like personal taste (e.g. equalizer settings) might be left off of this, since the idea would be that this would be read in separately at upgrade time, not any old time. Larry WO0Z
Re: [Flexradio] Repost - Multiple SDRS one CPU
Eric Blossom [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You *really* want to use something other than the default Cypress EZ-USB VendorID/ProductID/DeviceID. I agree using the default Cypress ID's is not very elegant, because it may conflict with other experimental devices some people may be playing with. No problems have been reported though. If you need a PID, let me know. I'll allocate one for you under the Free Software Folks Vendor ID. The SDR-1000 USB adapter was developed more or less as a byproduct of a research project we're involved in. The USB firmware and driver software are currently shared with this project, which isn't (and probably never will be) open source. If FlexRadio someday starts making radios with a built-in USB interface, it would then be appropriate to rewrite the USB software in a GPL-compatible way. But until that happens, we probably don't qualify for a PID under the FSF Vendor ID. 73, Sami OH2BFO
Re: [Flexradio] Repost - Multiple SDRS one CPU
Could you not just set the port addresses in each instance of PowerSDR...no USB confusion. [Eric] Absolutely. This should work fine. This solution could work with USB as well without (much) confusion. Multiple SDR-1000 USB devices can be used simultaneously on a single computer. I may be slightly biased here, but I think this is much easier than adding parallel ports to your computer (especially laptops). Although USB is supposed to be plug-and-play and not bother people with technical stuff like port numbers or I/O addresses, we can make the USB driver detect which physical USB port the adapter is connected to. We simply need a setting in PowerSDR software to select the USB port we want to use with radio 1,2,...,N. I will look into this after the weekend. 73, Sami OH2BFO
Re: [Flexradio] Repost - Multiple SDRS one CPU
At 01:33 AM 2/4/2006, Sami Aintila wrote: Could you not just set the port addresses in each instance of PowerSDR...no USB confusion. [Eric] Absolutely. This should work fine. This solution could work with USB as well without (much) confusion. Multiple SDR-1000 USB devices can be used simultaneously on a single computer. I may be slightly biased here, but I think this is much easier than adding parallel ports to your computer (especially laptops). Although USB is supposed to be plug-and-play and not bother people with technical stuff like port numbers or I/O addresses, we can make the USB driver detect which physical USB port the adapter is connected to. We simply need a setting in PowerSDR software to select the USB port we want to use with radio 1,2,...,N. Whatever scheme the USB approach uses, it should accomodate the pervasive use of USB hubs (I think you'd need this anyway, because most PCs actually have a hub inside the box anyway). Do USB devices have internal serial numbers? Jim
Re: [Flexradio] Repost - Multiple SDRS one CPU
I think most USB devices have a S/N - whether or not the vendors implement it is potentially another story. I know in building some of my own USB gizmos the programming software I use allows me to set the VendorID, ProductID and device S/N for the device in an EEPROM on the device. Cheers, Bill (kd5tfd) At 08:37 AM 2/4/2006, Jim Lux wrote: ...edited ... Do USB devices have internal serial numbers? Jim
Re: [Flexradio] Repost - Multiple SDRS one CPU
Jim Lux wrote: Whatever scheme the USB approach uses, it should accomodate the pervasive use of USB hubs (I think you'd need this anyway, because most PCs actually have a hub inside the box anyway). Do USB devices have internal serial numbers? Jim This is a technology I don't fully understand, but I can report that for the SDR, hubs (at least the external kind) simply don't work. Whether we should or not is a matter I leave to those better attuned. That they don't work is a matter of (in my case) actual experience. Many have told me that hubs are the spawn of Satan and, on my experience with them to date, I have to agree. That's how I ended up buying the PCMCIA card to provide extra full up USB ports which has its own problems, but which I was ultimately able to make work as long as the SDR wasn't plugged into it. I would regard that as a more serious problem than not supporting hubs. As long as we're still using what is, at core, the parallel port interface, I presume that we will have more restrictions than usual. Larry WO0Z
Re: [Flexradio] Repost - Multiple SDRS one CPU
Hey guys, very intresting indeed. But if you used for instance an additional parrallel port card. Could you not just set the port addresses in each instance of PowerSDR...no USB confusion. That would take care of the control. How would one install say two Delta 44 cards and make them look at the appropriate instance in software? Would there be a way to hard set this in software, or would it be a matter of the first instance of PowerSDR you booted went to Delta 44 #1...second boot of PowerSDR would go to Delta 44 #2. It would seem that there would have to be some hardware indentifier in the card, that when when you run the setup menu and select Delta 44, it should ask which one Then it would seem that alls theres too it? I would think you would want a way to seperate the databases for both instances of PowerSDR? Say one needs two SDRs...connected to one machine and running the upcoming 1.6 release. If you run both, does it not use the same database, cause all your doing is running the same program again. If for instance I want one SDR to be an HF machince and the other SDR one dedicated for using the UCB and my transverter interface, I would think you need a seperate database to keep all the goofy setting seperate. Or would one simply install PowerSDR a 2nd time and choose a seperate directory? That way it would have a seperate database? Boy, this would be great for real estate space. A Pent 4 3.4 GHz with a gig of ram should have no problems...especially a HyperThread chip, PowerSDR on each thread? Hope you can look into this Eric! 73 Mike- KM0T www.km0t.com
Re: [Flexradio] Repost - Multiple SDRS one CPU
Yes, it should be possible to use two parallel ports without conflict. Our production test stand at one time used one SDR-1000 as a signal generator and another as the device under test. Both were controlled by the same software in that case. I think you would need to have two installations of PowerSDR software, each with its own database. The database is located in the folder with the application. You might have to give them a different name but Eric would have to answer that one. I know that you can plug multiple Delta 44s but I am not sure how they appear in the pick list. I would bet that it would work if you had both a Delta 44 and a Firebox. You could certainly pick the respective card for each then. The bottom line is that with two parallel ports, two sound cards and two instances of PowerSDR with their own database, this should work. Someone just needs to try it. Its another round tuit problem here. ;) 73, Gerald Gerald Youngblood, K5SDR President FlexRadio Systems 8900 Marybank Drive Austin, TX 78750 Ph: 512-250-8595 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: www.flex-radio.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mike King - KM0T Sent: Friday, February 03, 2006 2:04 PM To: 'FlexRadio Mailing List' Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Repost - Multiple SDRS one CPU Hey guys, very intresting indeed. But if you used for instance an additional parrallel port card. Could you not just set the port addresses in each instance of PowerSDR...no USB confusion. That would take care of the control. How would one install say two Delta 44 cards and make them look at the appropriate instance in software? Would there be a way to hard set this in software, or would it be a matter of the first instance of PowerSDR you booted went to Delta 44 #1...second boot of PowerSDR would go to Delta 44 #2. It would seem that there would have to be some hardware indentifier in the card, that when when you run the setup menu and select Delta 44, it should ask which one Then it would seem that alls theres too it? I would think you would want a way to seperate the databases for both instances of PowerSDR? Say one needs two SDRs...connected to one machine and running the upcoming 1.6 release. If you run both, does it not use the same database, cause all your doing is running the same program again. If for instance I want one SDR to be an HF machince and the other SDR one dedicated for using the UCB and my transverter interface, I would think you need a seperate database to keep all the goofy setting seperate. Or would one simply install PowerSDR a 2nd time and choose a seperate directory? That way it would have a seperate database? Boy, this would be great for real estate space. A Pent 4 3.4 GHz with a gig of ram should have no problems...especially a HyperThread chip, PowerSDR on each thread? Hope you can look into this Eric! 73 Mike- KM0T www.km0t.com ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/pipermail/flexradio_flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] Repost - Multiple SDRS one CPU
I'm 100% with Mike on this one. It would be very useful to run at least two instances of PowerSDR on 1 machine if possible. With the level of CPU usage that I've seeing on recent builds of PowerSDR on my AMD XP3000+ I think that there is plenty of horsepower left to run a second PowerSDR session. Obviously as noted the trick will be keeping the hardware straight. Perhaps even farther down the road even more that two sessions assuming that enough sound cards of the same type can be made to play nicely together on one machine. Duane N9DG --- Mike King - KM0T [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hey guys, very intresting indeed. But if you used for instance an additional parrallel port card. Could you not just set the port addresses in each instance of PowerSDR...no USB confusion. That would take care of the control. How would one install say two Delta 44 cards and make them look at the appropriate instance in software? Would there be a way to hard set this in software, or would it be a matter of the first instance of PowerSDR you booted went to Delta 44 #1...second boot of PowerSDR would go to Delta 44 #2. It would seem that there would have to be some hardware indentifier in the card, that when when you run the setup menu and select Delta 44, it should ask which one Then it would seem that alls theres too it? I would think you would want a way to seperate the databases for both instances of PowerSDR? Say one needs two SDRs...connected to one machine and running the upcoming 1.6 release. If you run both, does it not use the same database, cause all your doing is running the same program again. If for instance I want one SDR to be an HF machince and the other SDR one dedicated for using the UCB and my transverter interface, I would think you need a seperate database to keep all the goofy setting seperate. Or would one simply install PowerSDR a 2nd time and choose a seperate directory? That way it would have a seperate database? Boy, this would be great for real estate space. A Pent 4 3.4 GHz with a gig of ram should have no problems...especially a HyperThread chip, PowerSDR on each thread? Hope you can look into this Eric! 73 Mike- KM0T www.km0t.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Re: [Flexradio] Repost - Multiple SDRS one CPU
Mike, See my comments below. Eric Wachsmann FlexRadio Systems -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] radio.biz] On Behalf Of Mike King - KM0T Sent: Friday, February 03, 2006 2:04 PM To: 'FlexRadio Mailing List' Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Repost - Multiple SDRS one CPU Could you not just set the port addresses in each instance of PowerSDR...no USB confusion. [Eric] Absolutely. This should work fine. How would one install say two Delta 44 cards and make them look at the appropriate instance in software? [Eric] This is a good question. Apparently, the Delta Control Panel is setup to support up to 4 physical devices (as shown in the H/W Installed groupbox on the right side of the panel). I'm not sure how they handle multiple cards, but I'm sure it could be done predictably (i.e. you shouldn't have to worry about starting one instance before the other). I would think you would want a way to seperate the databases for both instances of PowerSDR? [Eric] This is a really good point that I hadn't thought about. The suggestion to run it out of a different directory is a good one. Running from the same directory MAY work, but whichever instance you closed last would overwrite the database and would likely cause database errors if any memories were added/removed. Separate databases would be ideal here. Boy, this would be great for real estate space. A Pent 4 3.4 GHz with a gig of ram should have no problems...especially a HyperThread chip, PowerSDR on each thread? Hope you can look into this Eric! [Eric] I will definitely check into this in the lab. I can use Parallel + USB Adapter and the Delta 44 + FireBox that are already setup.
Re: [Flexradio] Repost - Multiple SDRS one CPU
Eric and all, thanks for the comments. I think as discussed below, if your ultimate setup is using two Delta44 cards...(as I would like to have) the control panel handling two cards...I remember seeing that it could handle 4 devices. I guess one would not have to install the software again for the Delta 44! How would one install say two Delta 44 cards and make them look at the appropriate instance in software? [Eric] This is a good question. Apparently, the Delta Control Panel is setup to support up to 4 physical devices (as shown in the H/W Installed groupbox on the right side of the panel). I'm not sure how they handle multiple cards, but I'm sure it could be done predictably (i.e. you shouldn't have to worry about starting one instance before the other). For those using all the other great software hooks, like VAC and such, this may complicate things, but I have not dived into all that...(not yet anyway :) If anyone installs two D44 cards and has two SDRs going, please post the results. I dont have a spare card right now to try. 73 Mike - KM0T www.km0t.com PS - Duane, have you benched the AMD processor with PowerSDR against an Intel P4 3.4 650 processor or similar? Is your AMD the dual core unit? I would think even the new Intel dual core processors would be excellent at this, as then there are 4 virtual processors. (Hyperthread X2)
Re: [Flexradio] Repost - Multiple SDRS one CPU
I would suspect that the Delta1010 would work nicely, too. It uses a single PCI card and an external, all-metal rackmount box with enough ports for four SDRs (TX RX). In fact, the external box houses all of the A/D D/A converters, so it's even quieter than the Delta44. It also appears to use the same exact M-Audio driver software as the Delta44. I bought one in mint condx off of E-Bay for a decent price and am looking forward to trying it with my SDR-1000. I haven't kept up with the max allowable parallel ports in current PCs, but I'd bet a high bit-count DIO card could be substituted that would handle four SDRs(with appropriate replacement software in PowerSDR and the card's low-level driver). You could use any extra bits in the DIO for all sorts of things Just more food for thought BTW - I now have my new SDR-1000 setup as follows: SDR-10001W version Internal 2m xvter not used in this setup DEM 144-28HP144 MHz transverter, no internal GaAs FET LNA Technology CAV144EME Cavity preamp (23 dB gain, ~0.2 dB NF) Lunar-Link LA-22 2x 3CPX800A7 at 1500W out N6CASequencer Homebuilt M2 4x 2m9SSB This setup hears nicely, has plenty of dynamic range, and has excellent out-of-band rejection. The 200MHz VF oscillator was initially on freq, but it now appears to have permanently settled so far off frequency that it is outside of PowerSDR's allowable compensation range. The SDR-1000 frequency is all over the map at HF. I need to install the external reference kit and attach to my HP Z3801 GPS reference. I'm thinking of replacing the 200 MHz VF with an external GPS-locked 100 MHz OCVCXO driving a 2x 2N5109 push-push doubler - unless someone has a schematic handy for a 200 MHz push-push, or even a differential, oscillator that uses a 100 MHz crystal. I've seen a reference to a 200 MHz push-push oscillator done by JPL, but can't seem to get to the schematic - says it used 2x 2N5108's (yep - that was 5108). 73, Dan KB5MY/6 Yes, it should be possible to use two parallel ports without conflict. Our production test stand at one time used one SDR-1000 as a signal generator and another as the device under test. Both were controlled by the same software in that case. I think you would need to have two installations of PowerSDR software, each with its own database. The database is located in the folder with the application. You might have to give them a different name but Eric would have to answer that one. I know that you can plug multiple Delta 44s but I am not sure how they appear in the pick list. I would bet that it would work if you had both a Delta 44 and a Firebox. You could certainly pick the respective card for each then. The bottom line is that with two parallel ports, two sound cards and two instances of PowerSDR with their own database, this should work. Someone just needs to try it. Its another round tuit problem here. ;) 73, Gerald Gerald Youngblood, K5SDR President FlexRadio Systems 8900 Marybank Drive Austin, TX 78750 Ph: 512-250-8595 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: www.flex-radio.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mike King - KM0T Sent: Friday, February 03, 2006 2:04 PM To: 'FlexRadio Mailing List' Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Repost - Multiple SDRS one CPU Hey guys, very intresting indeed. But if you used for instance an additional parrallel port card. Could you not just set the port addresses in each instance of PowerSDR...no USB confusion. That would take care of the control. How would one install say two Delta 44 cards and make them look at the appropriate instance in software? Would there be a way to hard set this in software, or would it be a matter of the first instance of PowerSDR you booted went to Delta 44 #1...second boot of PowerSDR would go to Delta 44 #2. It would seem that there would have to be some hardware indentifier in the card, that when when you run the setup menu and select Delta 44, it should ask which one Then it would seem that alls theres too it? I would think you would want a way to seperate the databases for both instances of PowerSDR? Say one needs two SDRs...connected to one machine and running the upcoming 1.6 release. If you run both, does it not use the same database, cause all your doing is running the same program again. If for instance I want one SDR to be an HF machince and the other SDR one dedicated for using the UCB and my transverter interface, I would think you need a seperate database to keep all the goofy setting seperate. Or would one simply install PowerSDR a 2nd time and choose a seperate directory? That way it would have a seperate database? Boy, this would be great for real estate space. A Pent 4 3.4 GHz with a gig of ram should have no problems...especially a HyperThread chip, PowerSDR on each thread? Hope you can
Re: [Flexradio] Repost - Multiple SDRS one CPU
I'm 100% with Mike on this one. It would be very useful to run at least two instances of PowerSDR on 1 machine if possible. With the level of CPU usage that I've seeing on recent builds of PowerSDR on my AMD XP3000+ I think that there is plenty of horsepower left to run a second PowerSDR session. Obviously as noted the trick will be keeping the hardware straight. Two separate databases in two separate directories ought to be sufficient and, in my view, necessary. One small feature might be added: Quietly put the title bar text into the data base, even if we don't allow it to be modified on the forms. For the population that do this, hand patching the title bar text under Excell or something is a small, but useful cue as to which radio you are using if it is not otherwise obvious. It would do until we get to skinnable rigs where making which is which obvious would be trivial. Larry WO0Z
Re: [Flexradio] Repost - Multiple SDRS one CPU
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: One small feature might be added: Quietly put the title bar text into the data base, even if we don't allow it to be modified on the forms. For the population that do this, hand patching the title bar text under Excell or something is a small, but useful cue as to which radio you are using if it is not otherwise obvious. It would do until we get to skinnable rigs where making which is which obvious would be trivial. Larry WO0Z Maybe make the frequency and other display colors different between the two instances of PowerSDR?? 73, Don AE5K
Re: [Flexradio] Repost - Multiple SDRS one CPU
At 12:04 PM 2/3/2006, Mike King - KM0T wrote: Boy, this would be great for real estate space. A Pent 4 3.4 GHz with a gig of ram should have no problems...especially a HyperThread chip, PowerSDR on each thread? HT doesn't necessarily give you twice the throughput. In many systems, it's the memory bandwidth that limits you. I believe that both CPU cores share the same Level 1 cache, so if your application is anywhere near 50% utilization, HT might not buy you much. Makes context switches real fast though, and allows clever pipelining schemes (speculative execution of both branches, for instance). You can go hit the beowulf archives (http://www.beowulf.org/) for a lot of discussion about the value (or not) of HT in highly compute bound applications. James Lux, P.E. Spacecraft Radio Frequency Subsystems Group Flight Communications Systems Section Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Mail Stop 161-213 4800 Oak Grove Drive Pasadena CA 91109 tel: (818)354-2075 fax: (818)393-6875
Re: [Flexradio] Repost - Multiple SDRS one CPU
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Maybe make the frequency and other display colors different between the two instances of PowerSDR?? 73, Don AE5K I believe that can already be done, which is a virtue in your suggestion. It is also less subtle. However, getting that done decently may require something more than changing one or two colors, though. Windows shows its equivalent for all Windows as themes for a reason. Meanwhile, as one upgrades, whatever we pick has to be done all over again. Larry WO0Z
Re: [Flexradio] Repost - Multiple SDRS one CPU
Roger that, its not double, however its probably good enough I do believe that the new dual core processors have seperate 2MB cachesso all the better. The P4 I run with the 2MB cache and the refresh of the pan adapter window over 30 FPS only makes the unit sit around 15% cpu utilization. So Im guessing these machines could handle it. 73 Mike - KM0T www.km0t.com - Original Message - From: Jim Lux [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Mike King - KM0T [EMAIL PROTECTED]; 'FlexRadio Mailing List' FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Sent: Friday, February 03, 2006 4:44 PM Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Repost - Multiple SDRS one CPU At 12:04 PM 2/3/2006, Mike King - KM0T wrote: Boy, this would be great for real estate space. A Pent 4 3.4 GHz with a gig of ram should have no problems...especially a HyperThread chip, PowerSDR on each thread? HT doesn't necessarily give you twice the throughput. In many systems, it's the memory bandwidth that limits you. I believe that both CPU cores share the same Level 1 cache, so if your application is anywhere near 50% utilization, HT might not buy you much. Makes context switches real fast though, and allows clever pipelining schemes (speculative execution of both branches, for instance). You can go hit the beowulf archives (http://www.beowulf.org/) for a lot of discussion about the value (or not) of HT in highly compute bound applications. James Lux, P.E. Spacecraft Radio Frequency Subsystems Group Flight Communications Systems Section Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Mail Stop 161-213 4800 Oak Grove Drive Pasadena CA 91109 tel: (818)354-2075 fax: (818)393-6875
Re: [Flexradio] Repost - Multiple SDRS one CPU
Comments in line below: --- Mike King - KM0T [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Eric and all, thanks for the comments. I think as discussed below, if your ultimate setup is using two Delta44 cards...(as I would like to have) the control panel handling two cards...I remember seeing that it could handle 4 devices. I guess one would not have to install the software again for the Delta 44! I'm still rooting for official company (and software) support for the Audiophile 192 running at its 80kHz sampling bandwidth here :)... (I *really* want that 160kHz panadapter). As I recall the two 192's showed up separately in both the M-Audio control panel and in PowerSDR such that you could select the one you wanted to use. If anyone installs two D44 cards and has two SDRs going, please post the results. I dont have a spare card right now to try. I did have two 192's installed at one point but never actually tried running two sessions of PowerSDR with them. May just have to try that this weekend. PS - Duane, have you benched the AMD processor with PowerSDR against an Intel P4 3.4 650 processor or similar? Is your AMD the dual core unit? I would think even the new Intel dual core processors would be excellent at this, as then there are 4 virtual processors. (Hyperthread X2) I have not done any benchmarking against anything else. It is a plain Jane AMD Athlon XP 3000+ and is not dual core. This AMD based machine has 1MB of RAM and is definitely not near the top for performance heap by today's standards, - even when I bought it wasn't. I always buy based on the best horsepower/$ point on the pricing curve. Even so in recent (last 8 month or so) versions of PowerSDR it has only been running at 15% CPU time total (driving it with VNC only bumps up the CPU usage a few percentage points. The RAM usage is very modest as well. Based on these observations and I my gut instinct tells me that running two sessions of PowerSDR the machine will not be CPU or RAM limited. Until of course that 160 kHz panadapter version comes out :)... If I don't have the horsepower at that point then I'll just buy more CPU horsepower ;) - after all it's the least expensive part of this radio. Duane N9DG __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Re: [Flexradio] Repost - Multiple SDRS one CPU
My $0.02 worth on the AMD vs. Intel processor debate. I have not compared my AMD directly to a Pentium IV dual core, but I am using an AMD Athlon 64 2X Dual Core 4400+ (running @ 2.2 GHz - L1 cache 128KB/cpu. L2 cache - 1MB/cpu (not shared), FSB 200Mhz, SSE3) on an Asus MB with 1 GB of RAM, and an AGP 8X NVIDIA GeForce 6200 video controller. I chose AMD over a Pentium because it utilizes a crossbar switch for inter-core communication and the on-chip integrated memory controller rather than the front-side bus architecture to relay both memory and I/O traffic from the cores to the memory controller. In RX mode (v1.4.5p12) with Firefox, Citrix client, VCOM and VAC 3.11 running using the Delta 44 (PCI), my average processor utilization ranges from (a whopping) 2.1% to 7.8% (avg = 4.2%) I have seen it as low as 0.8% with nothing else running. In RX mode (v1.4.5p12) with Firefox, Citrix client, VCOM and VAC 3.11 running using the FireBox (Firewire), my average processor utilization ranges from 14.5% to 23.8% (avg = 17.5%) Both configurations were run on Win2003 (32-bit) and consume about 262 MB RAM. At these loads, I think you could run several instances of PowerSDR if you had the parallel ports and sound cards (and of course the DSR-1000s) at your disposal. Processing power is getting cheaper. And like Duane said, if I run out of CPU horsepower, I'll drop in a faster processor. Personally, the new features I am looking forward to are 96000 Hz sampling rates, GUI skins, Better DDS spur elimination routines, splitting the DSP and GUI functions (running on multiple threads), multiple receivers (in the passband), native digital voice modes, and any wiz bang audio processing goodies (VST plug-in support maybe) Eric and the group can think of. I throw down the gauntlet and challenge you to make my processor weep :-) -Tim --- Tim Ellison ( [EMAIL PROTECTED] ) Integrated Technical Services ( http://www.itsco.com ) -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Duane - N9DG Sent: Friday, February 03, 2006 10:23 PM To: 'FlexRadio Mailing List' Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Repost - Multiple SDRS one CPU Comments in line below: --- Mike King - KM0T [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Eric and all, thanks for the comments. I think as discussed below, if your ultimate setup is using two Delta44 cards...(as I would like to have) the control panel handling two cards...I remember seeing that it could handle 4 devices. I guess one would not have to install the software again for the Delta 44! I'm still rooting for official company (and software) support for the Audiophile 192 running at its 80kHz sampling bandwidth here :)... (I *really* want that 160kHz panadapter). As I recall the two 192's showed up separately in both the M-Audio control panel and in PowerSDR such that you could select the one you wanted to use. If anyone installs two D44 cards and has two SDRs going, please post the results. I dont have a spare card right now to try. I did have two 192's installed at one point but never actually tried running two sessions of PowerSDR with them. May just have to try that this weekend. PS - Duane, have you benched the AMD processor with PowerSDR against an Intel P4 3.4 650 processor or similar? Is your AMD the dual core unit? I would think even the new Intel dual core processors would be excellent at this, as then there are 4 virtual processors. (Hyperthread X2) I have not done any benchmarking against anything else. It is a plain Jane AMD Athlon XP 3000+ and is not dual core. This AMD based machine has 1MB of RAM and is definitely not near the top for performance heap by today's standards, - even when I bought it wasn't. I always buy based on the best horsepower/$ point on the pricing curve. Even so in recent (last 8 month or so) versions of PowerSDR it has only been running at 15% CPU time total (driving it with VNC only bumps up the CPU usage a few percentage points. The RAM usage is very modest as well. Based on these observations and I my gut instinct tells me that running two sessions of PowerSDR the machine will not be CPU or RAM limited. Until of course that 160 kHz panadapter version comes out :)... If I don't have the horsepower at that point then I'll just buy more CPU horsepower ;) - after all it's the least expensive part of this radio. Duane N9DG __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/pipermail/flexradio_flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
