• Registered: 2021-12-09
  • Posts: 14

Topic: HDSPe RayDat with AMD Ryzen on Linux - do or don't?

Hi there,

my old Lenovo Thinkstation died recently. It was slow but good and it ran the RME Digi9636 very well.

Now I got myself this AMD Ryzen 5 3600 just because it was readily available. I had projects to finish. It doesn't have PCI for the RME Digi9636 any more. An adapter to PCIe with the ASM1083 chipset causes the PC to freeze when starting jackd (even though ALSA does find the card). I could do with 8 channels less and hook up my Yamaha 01V96i to the PC via USB, but it turns out that the USB of the Ryzen is too bad. It works with my half dead Thinkpad x230t, but not with the Ryzen.

Is the HDSPe RayDat, albeit expensive, an option to get low latency and 24 channels of ADAT IO with a Ryzen box? Or was it just a terrible mistake to buy this AMD garbage?

I really like to have 64samples of latency when playing software instruments. The Ryzen won't do it via USB with my Focusrite gear, even though it does work at such low latencies with the Thinkpad. So the Digiface USB will probably also not work properly wih the Ryzen trash.

Is anyone out there running the HDSPe RayDat on such a Ryzen system flawlessly?

Best
Schwob

2 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2021-12-23 09:40:11)

  • ramses
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Re: HDSPe RayDat with AMD Ryzen on Linux - do or don't?

I would expect PCIe to be more standardized and easier to be implemented compared to USB with a lot of transport modes and backward compatibility.

The RayDAT is an extremely well full digital card with everything you might need on top of the 4 ADAT i/o:
2x MIDI, AES, optical and coax SPDIF and optional WC.

The Windows ASIO drivers allow settings down to 32 samples.

Here an overview about RTL that you can reach with different RME products / recording interfaces:

https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/index.php/Attachment/2343-UFX-UFX-RayDAT-Latencies-v2-jpg/

Please note, as this picture tells: you need to add time for AD/DA for the exernal converters as the RayDAT has not analog ports of its own. Time for transport over ADAT you can ignore.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14
  • Registered: 2021-12-09
  • Posts: 14

Re: HDSPe RayDat with AMD Ryzen on Linux - do or don't?

Thanks for your reply, Ramses. I'm well aware that RME gear is well-built, I'm a long-term RME user. My concern is however that the AMD Ryzen architecture is not equally well-built. :-/

That's why I'm asking if people in practice manage to run the HDSPe RayDat with an AMD Ryzen system at low latency, say 64 samples. (On Linux, to be precise, with a low-latency kernel.)

I'm aware that my DA/AD, which in fact is a Yamaha 01V96i most of the time, does add latency, but I'm OK with that. I measured the round-trip latency and it is within a range that is OK with me.

4 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2021-12-23 09:59:50)

  • ramses
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Re: HDSPe RayDat with AMD Ryzen on Linux - do or don't?

BTW .. the table was for Windows with RME ASIO drivers, I posted it, so that you can see that its a good card.
I can't tell you whether this is supported by any Linux / ALSA driver.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14

5 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2021-12-23 10:15:49)

  • ramses
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Re: HDSPe RayDat with AMD Ryzen on Linux - do or don't?

RayDAT seems to work on Linux since quite long (2012):
https://discourse.ardour.org/t/rme-hdspe-raydat/85295
https://linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?t=17150
https://www.forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.php?id=20386
https://linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?t=17355
https://linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.ph … p;start=45

Might require some fiddeling around depening on distribution and you should take care not to do smth (maybe stupid) to remove required packages.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14
  • Registered: 2021-12-09
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Re: HDSPe RayDat with AMD Ryzen on Linux - do or don't?

I'm not talking about Linux actually, more about AMD Ryzen.

I don't get the RME Digi9636 to work via the ASM1083 (rev 4) PCI/PCIe bridge.

Furthermore, I don't get the FireFace 400 to work with an VIA VT6315 (rev 01) Firewire PCIe card.

USB Audio interfaces only work with terrible latency settings (Focusrite) or disturbing clicks (Yamaha 01V96i).

I'm now wondering whether I should get the RayDat or rather another new PC because I was sold crap that simply never will work with audio. So I was just wondering if someone acutally was using such a system successfully. Namely the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core Processor on an Asus board with AMD chipset.

  • Registered: 2021-12-09
  • Posts: 14

Re: HDSPe RayDat with AMD Ryzen on Linux - do or don't?

Adding to this, I gave up on this very AMD Ryzen and got myself a Dell workstation  with a Intel Xeon inside. Now that wasn't exactly cheap. But it had this PCI slot for my old-fart RME9636 that is 15 years old now and still operational like on day 1. With the right PC. Also my other gear works well with the expensive workstation and the Xeon stuff.

So no need for getting the RayDat. But I will do so should the Digi9636 ever die.