CPU to card and back to CPU again. It takes time for the data to move to and fro. This is latency. A Pro Tools MixFarm card loads the mix engine, mixer i/o and plugins onto the DSPs. No need for chit-chat with the CPU. No noticeable latency. For $10K, you can have a fully automated 64-track recorder with a virtual rackfull of quality plugins. That is hard to beat. Nope. Native processing is nowhere near PT efficiency. -george "M. Connelly" wrote: > So you need some sort of hardware to reduce latency...but there's no > reason the hardware needs to be at any particular price point. Is there > any reason why a soundcard can't be built for under $1000 that has just > enough "help" for the cpu to keep the latency down? (while the cpu is > used for processing?) > > Mike