User manual

UAD Powered Plug-Ins Manual - 70 - Using UAD Powered Plug-Ins
Multicard Use The UAD card that has the lowest resource usage will receive the next Pow-
ered Plug-In load. Note that an individual UAD plugin cannot be split across
two (or more) UAD cards.
For example, let’s say you have two UAD cards installed, the UAD Meter dis-
plays 90%, you load another UAD plugin that requires 6% CPU, yet you get
a “plugin unable to load” message. This would occur if both cards are al-
ready at 95% (the meter shows the total available CPU, not the per-card
CPU), so a 6% plugin can’t load.
The UAD-Xpander can be used as part of a UAD-1/UAD-1e multicard desk-
top system via the UAD-Xtenda ExpressCard to PCIe adapter card, which is
available at my.uaudio.com
System Info
Window
UAD CPU and memory resources used for each installed card, and the ability
to enable/disable individual cards, is displayed in the System Information
window (see page 41).
Disabling Cards Individual UAD cards can be disabled using the Card Enabled function (see
page 40). This can be useful, for example, if creating a session on a system
with multiple cards that will be transferred to a system with fewer cards.
Note: For optimum results, quit any applications using UAD plugins before
disabling/enabling cards.
If a Powered Plug-In is loaded on a card then that card is subsequently dis-
abled, an error message will be displayed. This occurs because a plugin is as-
signed to a card when it is first instantiated. It stays assigned to the same card
until it is de-instantiated (i.e. removed from the insert slot).
Host CPU Using more than one card can cause a slight increase in host CPU require-
ments, so disabling unused cards can help you squeeze in a bit more host per-
formance if you need it. Using additional devices on the PCI bus requires host
resources, so running 15 UAD plugins on three cards at five plugins per card
may require more host CPU than running the same 15 UAD plugins on one
card.
For example, if you are trying to minimize latency during tracking by using a
smaller buffer size (which will increase host CPU) and need a bit more host
CPU, disabling one or more UAD cards during tracking may give the extra
pinch of host CPU you need. The buffer size can then be increased and the
UAD card(s) re-enabled for mixing.