DSP Usage

Extron ProDSP provides a processing tools that can be used in different ways to enhance and control audio signals. You can use different tools in different situations, but not all of the tools can be used at one time. The Design Rule Verification utility (see the Design Rule Verification section) should be used to help ensure that the configuration and set of presets you designed will work flawlessly.

Design Rule Verification

Each active processor uses a fixed amount of DSP processing power per processor block, which is not affected by parameter settings. Each processor you insert is used in the calculation of DSP usage, whether it is bypass or unbypassed. DSP Configurator calculates the usage of all active processors on the line output and mic input channels, plus the six most processor-intensive line input channels.

The six line input channels are constantly calculated in the DSP usage because they have the potential to overload the DSP even if they are never used simultaneously. The DSP Usage meter displays the results of this calculation in the bottom-right corner of the DSP Configurator screen.

The DSP overloads when a combination of processors totaling 100 percent usage is enabled. DSP Configurator prevents you from creating a configuration that will overload the DSP (put the DSP Usage meter above 100 percent) by not allowing certain operations. Elements within the workspace will become disabled when DSP usage reaches a point when those elements may cause an overload.

For example, when usage is above 90 percent, FBS processors will be unavailable and copy and paste operations will be disabled. See the Overload Possible subsection below for processor usage values.

It is possible to have a combination of presets cause the overload by creating individual configurations and saving them as presets.

To run Design Rule Verification:

1. In Emulate mode, create a configuration and a set of presets.

2. Save the file (see the Save and Save As sections).

3. From the Tools menu, select Design Rule Verification to run the Design Rule Verification utility. The utility runs and reports one of two results:

4. Design Verified Successfully

5. Overload Possible

Design Verified Successfully

When the Design Rule Verification utility determines that no combination of presets will cause an overload, the Design Verified Successfully dialog is displayed.

Overload Possible

When the Design Rule Verification utility determines that a combination of presets may cause an overload, the Overload Possible dialog is displayed.

Usage Calculations

The following table shows DSP usage for each processor type, the maximum number of processors that can be active within a configuration or current state (emulation), and the potential DSP usage if all of these processors are simultaneously active. Note that for a stereo channel (line input or output), each processor block uses two of each processor type.