GM5 Driver for Windows

T.K · November 22, 2008, 4:24pm

Ploytec released the GM5 Windows driver for midibox.org as an early christmas present for you:

http://www.ucapps.de/mbhp_usb_gm5.html

(if you don’t find it at this page, click the refresh button of your webbrowser)

It helps to overcome many flaws of the Microsoft legacy driver - it’s multi client capable (you can run MIOS Studio and your DAW/MIDI Programs in parallel), transfers large SysEx bulks correctly, has much less latency when events are sent over multiple ports, and allows you to name the IO ports.

Have fun!

Best Regards, Thorsten.

SLP · November 22, 2008, 7:32pm

Awesome!

Thank you (and Ploytec)!

stryd_one · November 22, 2008, 9:49pm

Sweet as, thanks to you and ploytec

monokinetic · November 23, 2008, 5:16pm

Whahoo, Christmas is here already! Many thanks to TK and Ploytec.

has much less latency when events are sent over multiple ports

As a matter of interest, has anyone done some measurements of the latency of the new driver?

I ask because I learnt a lot about MIDI latency through a great XP tool which is here:

http://miditest.earthvegaconnection.com/#about

This helped me realise which of my MIDI ports has almost 10ms latency. I would be really interested if someone could post their results (if not as soon as mine is made I will post my findings!)

Back to the soldering

David

T.K · November 23, 2008, 10:46pm

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
MidiTest Results
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



================ Info ====================================================

Date: 23 Nov 2008
Time: 23:42:26
AppVersion:	4.6.231
OS: Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
Processor(s):	Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU          6600  @ 2.40GHz
Speed: 2394 MHz
Number: 2
API: MultiMedia Extensions (MME)
Test type:	Advanced
Use timestamp:	yes
Errors: None



================ Tested Message Types ====================================

Note off: yes
Note on: yes
Key aftertouch: yes
Controller: yes
Program change: yes
Channel aftertouch: yes
Pitchbend: yes
System exclusive: yes
MIDI time code quarter frame: yes
Song position pointer: yes
Song select: yes
Tune request: yes
MIDI clock: yes
MIDI tick:     no
Start: yes
Continue: yes
Stop:     no
Active sensing: yes
System reset: yes
System exclusive mixed with realtime messages:	    no



================ Ports ===================================================

MIDI Output:	MIDIbox SID (1)
Description:	midibox.org GM5
Provider:	midibox.org
DriverDate:	11-20-2008
DriverVersion:	1.0.6.0


MIDI Input:	MIDIbox SID (1)
Description:	midibox.org GM5
Provider:	midibox.org
DriverDate:	11-20-2008
DriverVersion:	1.0.6.0



================ Results Per Message =====================================

MESSAGES   Snd   Rcv     Snd+Rcv

Message TotalTime: 1505.28 ms	23994.51 ms	25499.79 ms
Message MaximumTime:	    0.25 ms	    2.21 ms	    2.26 ms
Message MinimumTime:	    0.03 ms	    0.00 ms	    0.03 ms
Message AverageTime:	    0.05 ms	    0.77 ms	    0.82 ms
SysexTime:   19.44 ms 2640.01 ms 2659.45 ms
SysexAverage:     0.00 ms	    0.26 ms	    0.27 ms

    <  1 ms:   31250	  22455	  21219
  1 -  2 ms:       0	    8732	    9953
  2 -  3 ms:       0	      63	      78
  3 -  4 ms:       0	      0	      0
  4 -  5 ms:       0	      0	      0
  5 -  10 ms:       0	      0	      0
10 -  20 ms:       0	      0	      0
20 -  50 ms:       0	      0	      0
50 - 100 ms:       0	      0	      0
    > 100 ms:       0	      0	      0

Message count:   31250	Sysex count:	    160
Sysex size:   10000	Sysex passed:	  10000

Message latency:	    0.82 ms	Total time:	  75.497 sec
Message jitter:     0.39 ms
Message max deviation:	    1.44 ms



================ Results Per Byte ========================================

BYTES

Byte TotalTime: 9956.80 ms
Byte MaximumTime:	    1.46 ms
Byte MinimumTime:	    0.02 ms
Byte AverageTime:	    0.32 ms

    <  1 ms:   31223
  1 -  2 ms:       27
  2 -  3 ms:       0
  3 -  4 ms:       0
  4 -  5 ms:       0
  5 -  10 ms:       0
10 -  20 ms:       0
20 -  50 ms:       0
50 - 100 ms:       0
    > 100 ms:       0

Byte count:   79569

Byte latency:     0.32 ms
Byte jitter:     0.15 ms
Byte max deviation:	    1.15 ms
[/code]

stryd_one · November 23, 2008, 11:51pm

Nice!

Maybe MOTU/Roland/etc should hire this guy…

monokinetic · November 25, 2008, 8:45pm

TK: Thanks! Wow those are amazing figures! I’m even more impressed by GM5 now

Can’t wait to get this project up and running…

David

ultra · November 26, 2008, 5:48am

i already have this working with the eeprom setting my number of ports, so this is exciting to have the final piece in place - port naming!

thanks tk. the quest for the perfect midi/usb interface is now complete.

nILS · November 26, 2008, 9:29am

Works like a charm

Pascal · December 4, 2008, 12:00pm

Whoooohooo, thats great!

I hope, that the AsidXP now play my SIDÂ´s correctly

widdly · December 5, 2008, 7:08am

Awesome, this is great.

Multiclient was the one missing feature that was driving me mad. Now I can have my synth editors and Ableton running at once which will totally change my work flow.

I’d had no trouble with huge sysex dumps on the stock ms drivers. I’d tried doing it simultaneously on multiple ports without any problems.

widdly · December 5, 2008, 7:25am

Question on device names with multiple gm5’s.

If I modify the .inf I can have the names I want for devices.

Now lets say I build my second gm5 with 5 ports and I cut the jumper so it uses the ploytec PID. Can I modify the .inf file again to get 5 different names? Will I need to modify PID in the .inf as well? Anyone tried this?

Or would I be better off building the second gm5 with four ports? How would that work when installing the driver with the modified .inf file? I would have thought after installing the first gm5, the driver would auto detect when the second one is plugged in.

nILS · December 5, 2008, 12:46pm

That question is answered in the FAQ -> http://ucapps.de/mbhp_usb_gm5.html

widdly · December 5, 2008, 5:36pm

No it’s not. The FAQ describes how to get Windows to recognize two different GM5 boards by using a different number of ports or changing the PID link.

It doesn’t describe how to use two different modified .inf files to get 10 custom device names. I’m not sure that would work with the ploytec driver installation since it seems to remove previous instances of the driver. I think I could probably install the two devices then modify the names in the registry.

I guess there is only one way to find out if it will work . I’ll report back when I finish my second board.

widdly · December 7, 2008, 7:15am

The new ploytech GM5 driver doesn’t support hibernation properly on my laptop. The system freezes during resume and I have to hard reset the machine. The original windows drivers didn’t have the problem.

T.K · May 26, 2009, 7:59pm

Ploytec released an update for 32bit and 64bit Windows:

http://www.ucapps.de/mbhp_usb_gm5.html

Best Regards, Thorsten.

Lorcan · October 6, 2009, 2:42pm

Hi,

I’m using the GM5 in standard midibox.org configuration.

With the legacy driver of my OS (Windows 7 64bits), the ports are listed, but when I use ploytec’s 1.07 x64 driver, the driver installs correctly but the corresponding MIDI port names are not listed.

The GM5 pages states that one should revert to 1.06 in this case, but there is only a 32bit version available.

Any ideas please ?

Thanks

bosone · October 20, 2009, 2:34pm

i just started to test my gm5x5x5 on win XP SP3 (“normal internet system”) and SP1 (audio system)

with the 1.0.6 driver everything seems fine

with the new 1.0.7 i was not able to rename the port names and, moreover, sonar 6 sees just 1 midi output and 5 midi inputs. midiox, on the other hand, correctly sees all the 5 ins/outs

i revert to 1.0.6 and now everything is OK.