MOTUnation.com

I just picked up Ethno. It seemed to install fine and I can select and play instruments with no problems. However, on the right hand side of the control panel I am getting this white box where the image of the selected instrument should be. If I click around in the VST control panel it will sometimes fix itself. Is anyone else seeing this problem?

Haven't seen that. I'm running OSX 10.4.6. What OS are you on?

I am using Windows XP.

Try updating the drivers for your graphics card -- that can make a big difference. If you don't install the dedicated drivers for your video card, it'll default to the generic Windows graphics drivers which may have markedly lower performance than the card-specific drivers.

tokyojoe-

I had the same exact problem w/XP. I'm using a Matrox G450 video card, which only supports up to OpenGL1.2. MOTU says they need OpenGL2.0 for Ethno. Tech support sent me some sort of s/w dll to get around the issue but it kind of bypasses any h/w acceleration on the card and the graphics are excruciatingly slow now (but the white boxes disappeared)!

Oh, and by the way, the program will still not run in standalone mode on my system (only as a VSTi under Cubase)...

Hmmm....any recommendations for a 2D dual headed graphics card that does support OpenGL2.0? ATI All in Wonder?

tokyojoe2005 wrote:Hmmm....any recommendations for a 2D dual headed graphics card that does support OpenGL2.0? ATI All in Wonder?

Anything from nVidia does the trick and the drivers are much more stable than the competition too.

OK, looks like anything above a GeForce 6 should support OpenGL 2.0 just fine.

For the life of me; I can't comprehend why Ethno takes up so many graphic resources... I have a 128 Meg nVidia 7300GS card and the GUI is just horrible at how much processing juice it requires. I am running Ethno on my Win XP pc and MacBook PRO.

I think that MOTU has some very serious issues with how much power the GUI takes for what it does. I could expect this from a visual rich 3d game, but for a few blinking indicators and pictures of a map its pretty pathetic.

I have the latest drivers installed and and running this standalone and with cubase.

Hopefully this is addressed in the next update.

Thanks

Oliver, I was thinking the same thing. Why would their developers be using OpenGL 2.0 in their GUI other than because it`s the latest version and they weren`t concerned about compatibility issues? A lot of gaming level cards don`t have support for 2.0 yet or require driver updates to work. I, like many others, have avoided putting a 3D card in my DAW because of fan noise. FWIW, I did manage to find an AGP card with 2.0 support and no fan:
http://www.gigabyte.us/Products/VGA/Pro ... uctID=2334
After updating the Nvidia drivers, Ethno is working fine in Live 5. It is overkill for my DAW but did improve video handling and net streaming. Only major drawback is that it requires its own molex connector so I had to reroute power.

tokyojoe2005 wrote:Oliver, I was thinking the same thing. Why would their developers be using OpenGL 2.0 in their GUI other than because it`s the latest version and they weren`t concerned about compatibility issues? A lot of gaming level cards don`t have support for 2.0 yet or require driver updates to work.

To the extend of my (limited) knowledge, OpenGL 1.2 is required, not 2.0. Where have you read that 2.0 was needed? (2.0 isn't even available on the Mac so I certainely doubt it would be required as the main point of using OpenGL is multiplatform support and compatibility)

That`s what their tech support has told people, perhaps incorrectly. Is it working for earlier versions of OGL?

From http://www.motu.com/techsupport/technot ... instrument:

For Windows:
- An 800MHz Pentium III-based PC compatible or faster. Dual-processor machines are also highly recommended.
- Windows XP
- An Open GL-compatible video card with the latest graphics drivers (support for OpenGL 1.2 is required, with support for 1.5 or 2.0 preferred).
- A hard drive with enough space to hold the 8 GB sound files. The drive must be formatted as NTFS.
- An audio sequencer package that hosts DXi, VST, or RTAS/HTDM instrument plug-ins. As MSI has 34 outputs (stereo main outs + 16 stereo aux outputs), the host needs to support instruments with greater than 32 outputs. Alternately, Ethno Instrument can be used as a standalone application.

As you see, it is prefered. This is because a video card that supports 2.0 is much less likely to show performance and compatibility problems than an older card. It is in no way required.

I had a 1.2 card and it wasn`t working. Their tech support has been telling people 2.0. I was told that as well as one other person (read above). And that still raises the issue of using this API for the GUI. Why bother when they could use static images? There are many VSTi`s out there that look great and don`t need 3D acceleration.