Sorry, no, and no plans, either...

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

No need to post essentially the same thing in three separate threads.

The original Hammerfall cards are ten years old now...
All HDSP cards support 64-bit Windows versions, BTW, and some of these have been in the market for quite some time, too.

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Then make one, it would be quite easy and you know it. The lame excuses are really getting old and non of us are buying into them, they are quite, transparent. The goal here is "no we won't make the drivers, yeah we can, but why should we, we would rather force you to buy one of our new products". Lame , and you should be ashamed.

fryingpan

It would be really lame indeed if the absence of drivers for older cards were the only argument we had to promote new products... fryingpan :roll
If you take a moment to compare the feature lists of a Hammerfall 9636 and a Raydat, I am sure you will not fail to notice a technological difference.

Please tell me what other 10-year-plus old hardware you expect to use in a current system with Windows 7. AGP graphics cards, maybe? Or a Pentium III based system?
As for the Digi96 series, which is technically limited to 6 ms of latency, the use in a software sampler system (which can profit most from a 64 bit OS) would make very little sense, would it?

Fact is that you can use the 9636/52 and Digi 96 cards with modern PC hardware, the only limitation being that they will only run on 32 bit Windows versions. Macs are a different matter, we had no influence on their decision to drop PCI entirely.
I've quoted an example on this forum of one of our esteemed competitors, some of whose audio cards from 1999 or so don't even have XP drivers past their beta stage.

We certainly don't force anyone to buy our products.  You have several alternatives:

* Buy another audio card. Please make sure to track down each manufacturer's history in terms of support for obsolete products exactly. If there are any unsupported products of similar age, you'd need to look elsewhere, regardless of whether their current products have the features you need.

* Use the current card in an existing or new system with W7 32 as long as PCI exists on PC mainboards.

* Upgrade the entire system, including a new RME card, and sell the old system as a tested and trusted audio PC - or use it as a backup machine.

And lastly, our HDSP series is now almost 9 years old, too. Even the first cards are fully supported to this day (thanks to user-upgradeable firmware) and will share an ASIO driver even with the latest HDSPe cards. Multiface I next to an AIO? HDSP 9652 expanded with a Raydat? No problem...

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Are you crazy or what?

It was a Seinfeld reference as in "the soup Nazi". So no I'm not crazy just used to using obscure references.

may be can you look at linux operating system with alsa drivers ? Ardour is a really good software and Free by gpl license !

You can also use Sun VirtualBox to install a 32 bit virtual system to use you soundcard and go back to 64 bits opeating system to dio your work (editing, mixing, and so)...

It always exists a way to realize things

I'll give RME a second chance because I kind of see their point. It still is kind of lame. The m-audio delta series is still supported. OK? Are you happy with that example? I am comparing apples to apples - not some car or horse comparison.

Now for the meat of the question:

How long will RME support their new cards? I'm not familiar with the HDSP technology. There is this HDSP chip, I suppose, which allows the card to have it's firmware updated. When I hear that, I can say, "OK, maybe they are a bit lazy and don't want to support their old hardware because the HDSP stuff is really awesome... But... Um... Hmm... Kind of lame..." The reason I'd still consider buying an RME product is because of the lack of PCI/PCIe cards on the market. I have an excellent firewire interface, but it's latency is not good enough for software synths and samplers. (BTW, the digi96 card I have can achieve 3ms or so latency - not 5ms as is always quoted by a certain RME employee. IIRC, it was advertised as being able to achieve 2 ms - maybe less.)

So, with the fantastic HDSP technology, how long will RME support the cards? Can I look at owning one for over 10 years? I'd really like to buy an RME card, because IMO they are very stable, but I cannot justify spending over a thousand dollars on a card that I will not be able to use because the engineers do not want to support it anymore.

From the engineers point of view, can the HDSP cards be supported "indefinitely" as long as the interfaces (PCIe, FW, etc) exist? Is that something you had in mind when you developed HDSP technology? Did you have the future in mind?

With OpenCL and the like, I for see a boom in software synths. Low latency will be the selling point. But, no drivers would make any card expensive museum piece. Unless of course you use in with Linux. Oh, FOSS - all this proprietary crap is really a burden. Ideas are free. Implementation costs. I don't buy ideas. Do you? Perhaps the windows driver source code can be released for non-supported cards to allow an open source windows driver to be created much like the ALSA drivers.

I hope you understand my possition. I am seriously evaluating another RME purchase. It can only be done with the knowledge that I can count on RME to take care of it's customers.

Feel free to ignore reality
You may be referring to a 9636/52. The Digi 96 series (PST, PAD, etc.) won't go below 6.

Maybe - maybe not. But seriously, what other PC peripherals do you expect to use for 10 years? Can't compare it to a car, because cars don't interact with other hardware the way computer stuff does.
I just had a quick look at price lists in a PC magazine from 2003. AGP graphics cards with a stunning 256MB of RAM for up to ? 850,-.... Try to use one of these with any modern mainboard... Can you name a PC mainboard with AGP that will support even an early Dual Core CPU? So how long did these cards last?

You can use the card. It will not stop operating. It just needs suitable surroundings. Can't use it on a current Mac (ask Apple)... Can't use it with 64-bit Windows (sorry). But you can use it with any modern PC mainboard with a PCI slot.
And regarding the price... You did not mention how long you've had that card you are referring to. Have you calculated what it cost you per year? And did you also take into account that you actually used it (professionally) during this period? Don't know how it is where you are, but here, PC peripherals get written off in well under ten years. So from an economical point of view, the card's remaining book value may already be zero (or ?1 in Germany). And you could still keep using it as long as W7 is supported. If Windows 8 comes without a 32-bit version, then that may be the point where you can't use it on a brand-new PC any more.... But even then, you could still keep a secondary PC running 7...

By the way, if deleting a forum posting is "fascist", what kind of vocabulary would you have left for war atrocities, torture, genocide, "ethnic cleansing", etc...? HeadScratch

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

It certainly does... And it can do so for many years to come, in suitable surroundings, which happen to exclude 64-bit OS versions.

Same here. My main office and audio PC is almost 8 years old, running XP...

There is no need whatsoever to throw anything away.

It's always been like that. That does not refer to the 9636/52, only to Digi 96 PST, PAD, etc. No secrets or lies here...

Some do, some don't. Did you see the example I quoted about Echo?

"I see you deleted my post from only hours ago regarding this. Quite rude and honestly fascist." in posting # 9 above.

You keep implying that the 9636/52 etc. will simply stop working or can't be used with modern PC hardware any longer. This is simpy not the case. Both Vista 32 and W7 32 will be supported by MS for many years to come and the cards will happily work with both systems. If you absolutely need 64-bit support or wish to use an Intel Mac, that's where these cards won't go - sorry. You'll have to make a choice at this point.

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

tbo, I'm sure that Lynx make very fine products. But IMHO this is a case of double standards...

This is from their website, about the original LynxONE:
"Introduced in 1998" (about a year before the original 9652)
"The LynxONE was discontinued July 2008." (lived a bit longer, then...)
"Does not support 64-bit or Vista." :-O :roll rant

Now if you had purchased a LynxONE in, say, 2003, maybe you'd now be telling them you were considering to switch to RME? Or would you demand the same "simple driver tweak" (which may not be what it would amount to)?

I respect your decision, but I believe you should apply the same strict standards to other manufacturers, too, for credibility's sake.

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Hello,

Be so kind as to allow us to make our own decisions concerning how we use our resources in terms of driver development. Our developers are currently busy with e.g. the new Babyface, besides working on drivers for current products (HDSP, Firefaces).

The subject has been discussed here before and reasons have been given. Development of 64-bit drivers for these cards is not entirely trivial (partly due to the lack of user-updateable firmware). For the Digi96 series, the use of a card with a minimum latency of 6 ms (which is not even PCI busmaster) in high performance 64-bit systems makes little sense. Driver development would therefore simply take away too much time from other important projects.
Again, let me point out that these cards will work with modern PC hardware even under Windows 7, with the only exception of 64-bit systems.

I will let this statement stand as it is - I believe it speaks for itself in terms of blowing an issue out of proportion. IMHO there are more severe issues in this world that would deserve such vocabulary.

Seems you've not spent much time on web fora...

Please refrain from taking quotes out of context. If you post in public fora, do give us an opportunity to react accordingly by letting us know where such discussions may be going on, especially if you C&P our statements.

Also, please comment on the fact that as I have shown both Echo (which you have chosen as an alternative) and Lynx have a number of products of a similar age as the 9652, which either don't support 64-bit OS versions (LynxONE) or don't even have XP drivers beyond beta stage (early Echo products). Have you asked our respected competitors for the reason? If not, may I ask why you so fiercely question our decisions, but not theirs? Can we expect to see a similar campaign from you against Echo, considering that you are now also their paying customer, while there are cards with no 64-bit support in their range of (discontinued) products? Can you accept this fact? If you do, how credible are your comments on RME? This does not seem to make sense. If you find it unacceptable that a company will not provide 64-bit support for ten-year-old products, you can not possibly buy Echo or Lynx cards, either. Sorry...

[EDIT] And not only have you purchased an Echo card, which you really ought not to, but the current list of equipment on your website also mentions Steinberg's Midex 8, for which according to Steinberg, there are no 64-bit drivers, either. This thread on Cubase.net has some interesting similarities.
Will you now be dumping Cubase as well in protest? Considering what you've said here, you actually have little choice IMH(personal)O.

Sincerely,
Daniel Fuchs
RME

I agree with pUs :

Very strange thread.

I also bought RME for similar reasons and am perfectly happy with the 'before the purchase", "out of the box" and "online" information and support.

No manufacturer can offer perfect (if such a thing exists) customer service and remain solvent in today's cut-throat business environment. Perfect service and products just do not exist.

As a customer all you can do is support those manufacturers that have "better" customer service than their competitors.

RME gets my vote.