Hi Stéphane,

A 1gb switch connected to the freebox is a good solution, and be sure to disable airport on your macbook, it lowers the low latency performance.

It's true what your friend says: most routers are 10 or 100 base, not 1000 (ie gigabit).

However, Apples latest Airport (not the express) offers a couple of ethernet ports at 1000 base, as well as being a router. However, it does not route from ADSL, only DSL which is the standard in the US. A cheaper solution would be a gigabit switch, offering you the same result. This does not route, but optimises network flow - you have your router already.

Your setup would be (to be optimised):

Your ROUTER connects to the internet in its normal way (via ADSL filter/telephone line or whatever).
You then connect an ethernet cable form this to your SWITCH.
Connect another cable from Mac A to your SWITCH.
Connect your final (3rd) cable from Mac B to the SWITCH.
Most Gb switches come with about 8 ports. They can be noisy as they are fan cooled usually. I have mine on another location.

Both macs will be on the internet (at a theoretical 100 base speed) whilst connected to EACH OTHER at 1000 base.

Gigabit routers are surprisingly tricky to get hold of - try online, that's what I did. They're not outrageously expensive and well worth it to sort out your situation. If you can get one without a fan, fantastic. Mine is a linksys.

You could of course connect the two Macs together with a single cable (no switch) but not be online on either Mac. Unless one of these macs has two Ethernet ports, one of which could connect direct to the router (ie internet).

By the way - all Macs that are younger than about  6 years have Gigabit Ethernet ports - unlike most PC's which come pre-configured as 100 base.

Clear as Mud?

attention: AFAIK the iMac G5s have 100 Mbit only ... 10 base-T (10 Mbit devices) should be no longer in use i'd suppose since about 10 years .... 100 base-T is pretty old already ... if routers have 10 Mbit ports than probably on the WAN-side (Wide Area Network = internet)

connecting 2 ethernet ports directly (using a cable) works fine if at least one of them is gigabit (these are autodecting the type of connection) - connecting 2 100 Mbit ethernet devices directly needs a *cross-over cable*

christian

 Thanks to both of you for those answer and tips !

actualy i tried to connect both my mac together but it didn't work, not shure my cable is apropriate thought, i should make some further testing !

Both my mac offer me the option to switch to 1000 base T but then it doesn't work ! again i'm not shure my cables are apropriate...

As for switch o didn't found anything interestig yet...some old 5 port Giga switch working with PCI card !! i hope they exist in Ethernet only...have to check that to ;-)

So all is not working yet for me but they are some areas i have to get some more information about (switch, cables etc...) and i'll be ready to go i guess...

i'll keep you posted as it might be usefull for other user that, like me, are not pro on the network subject :-)

stephane. 

@Another User said:

some old 5 port Giga switch working with PCI card

gigabit ports are autosensing (speed and polarity of the cable) so any good cable will do the job ...

christian

 Hi Christian,

In system pref/network/ ethernet configuration / manual advanced mode i have 3 options : 10baseT/UTP  -  100 base TX  - and 1000 base T all with different duplex semi duplex etc...options.

i tried to force to 1000 base T but then Ethernet doesn't seems to work, basicaly it works in 100 base TX when connected to my router 4 port witch is connected to the freebox (witch is like another router as i understand it)

If  follow your explanation i could leave this in automatic mode as it find the apropriate connection speed, but i thought like for manual IP adress vs DHCP i should set it up manually so it is stable...

For the cable i'll see what happens when i'll connect a Giga switch into my network and then test VE3 and see if it works fine.

As for the switch i'll have to do further research because what i found is a : TRENDNET  TEG-S80TXE (8 port around 50 euros)and it was used on Mac G4 !! and need a PCI slot available !! i'm not getting this very clear i admit but as i said, need to be looked closer...

otherwise they are plenty of 24 or 26 port switch for around 100 euros and that's probably what you think i should get...right ? (even if i don't need so many ports)

cheers

stephane 

i see - if your network port is connected to a router which can only 100Mbit, than changing manually the speed to 1 Gbit will have no effect - except that communication stops between both devices .... you need either a direct cable between 1 Gbit ethernet ports or a gigabit switch between them.

be aware of the dumping strategy of too many suppliers and don't buy switches which are too cheap .... often their backplane cannot handle the traffic appropriately - stay with trademarks a cisco, 3com, netgear (t name a few) - i had bad experience with D-Link and LinkSys lately ...

8 ports for about 100 USD/EUR should be the range of good quality devices ... same goes for additional network cards btw, use intel, broadcom, 3Com even if they cost a few bucks more ...

the PCI-based switch you are referring to probably leaves the work to the computer - so i cannot recommend such a device ...

christian

 Hi Christian,

I made the followind testing with no more succes :

Connecting directly the 2 mac together through Ethernet (not cennected to internet) with a cross-over cable and once with automatic setings (DHCP / Autoselect speed) and second with manual setings (manual IP, no DNS, no Router, forced to 1000 base-T,  the mode "command+K" working fine so the see eatch other...) and i steel get audio drop out !

so i wonder if any of this will change with a switch between them as the setings should be the same (exept DNS & router adress) ?

What am i doing wrong here ? i thought i underdstand all you tald me but eather something is not working for my setup or I missed something you explained to me...sorry for being so slow ;-) 

 Any idea ? (see previous post)

 i'd like to be able to make this work...please ! why it doesn't work when i connect my two macs dirrectly ?

thanks

stephane 

Stephane,

When do the dropouts occur?

What are the cpu loads of your master / slave machines when you experience the dropouts?

Thanks,

Martin

 Hi martin,

the drop out occur randomly (from xx ms to 1 or 2 sec) and the CPU load of the slave is betwenn 10 and 20 % (with 5 VI inst open) the master is rather low because nothing else than the VE3 through network is opened in Cubase 4... 

stephane 

There is a situation that can occur with a few Apple laptop models (older Macbooks and MBP's), where an active Airport can cause timing interruptions in the traffic flowing on the Gigabit port. (probably when scanning for wireless networks). VE3 is very sensitive to such interruptions.

Please disable the airport on the laptop and see if this helps for you.

Thanks,

Martin

anything exept Ethernet is off !!

no Airport, No Bluetooth, no Appletalk or desktop remote, not even connected to the internet !!

I'm very surprised as this direct connection should be no trouble but unfortunatly it's not working and i don't know how to make it work...

regards

stephane 

 Hi Martin and Christian,

I wanted to thank you for your helps so far, even if we didn't found where the problem came from.

I'll be off my studio untill mai 12th and my demo version will come to and end so I don't know what to think know...

VE3 seem to be a good solution and 'ill be ok to spend the 95 euros for the definitive authorisation but i'll be in a much better

situation if i knew this is working fine on my system or knowing what's wrong in my system to make it work properly.

If you have further ideas please let me know and i'll check that when i'll come back.

regards

stephane 

Stephane,

which latency are you running inside DP?

Martin 

Martin,

you must have answered to the wrong thread :-)

I'm not running DP but Cubase (see my spec in the signature) and my latency is usualy 512 Mo for 11ms more or less.

Just dropping in to say I myself haven't been able to solve it myself (I posted the original post in this thread) .. and now my VE3 has just expired :(

I need to catch up with the last few posts here, too  - and wait to see if anyone cracks it before I spend money on VE3 (which I will if this issue can be resolved).

Am very grateful for all posts so far - and in the future - on this! [:)] 

BTW I have read in some forums - I think the NI forum and some general mac forums - that there is an issue with macbooks and ethernet drop outs generally..... can anyone comment on that?!

If VSL want to supply an additional time limited license I will keep looking for a solution myself - but I understand they may not want to do that! 

It's really annoying because apart from the drop outs my set up rocked ... c'est la vie(nna)! ;)

just got back from a small vacation.

i'll buy VE3 so i'll be able to continue this research and i'm suposed to be in contact with Martin to try solving this probleme, when we'll find a solution or an explanation i'm shure it will be posted here by myself or someone from VSL ;-)

I'm not so worried as i have friends that use VE3 with no trouble and i love the idea so much that i don't mind spending those 95 euros but i respect you point and i'm shure it is in the interest of Vienna to make it work on any set up.

will report soon.

stephane