Parallels desktop+XP+audio card

Hello there,

I need to use win XP for one and one reason only: apply some audio plugin on my audio files which are neither available on Vista nor on MACOSX.
I've been using XP and my RME Fireface800 for quite a long time and know how to configure Xp to do so.

Installing Parallels Desktop is easy but, whatever I do, i just can't make my audio card work with it.
In fact, the "AC97" driver is working and Parallels Desktop is enable to root this "fake" audio channel to the Fireface which is installed in MACOSX but this is really not good enough...
Why?
For 2 reasons:

1) the audio is poorly routed and too many glitches are to be heard (ratio latency/performance to bad).
2) My audio sequencer (Cubase) isn't able to recognize my audio card per se as it recognizes that damn AC97 instead.
In fact, for what XP knows, there is no Fireface at all ou there.
This has for consequence to increase te latency by a hundred (100ms instead of 1ms) which is unacceptable to work with. i don't even talk about the fact that all my fireface capabilities are comletely ignored.

My only salvation is to find how to make Windows recognize my audio card which is a failure so far...

I tried to uninstall the "AC97" driver but it keeps reinstalling it.

I finally succeeded in making my own driver recognized...for a second as when I install it, it turns in a blue screen of death and corrupts my XP installation as I can't reboot on it anymore and have to reinstall it all over again.

So what?

I know this has nothing to do with XP, te drivers or even my audio card as they work perfectly together in a standard PC configuration.

My last idea was that there may be a conflict as I'm trying to install my Fireface in both Mac OSX AND XP, so I deactivated completely my fireface from Mac OSX and let the internal speakers do the trick before installing the PC Fireface drivers but I still get a blue screen death and a corrupted and useless XP install after that.

Any help as I only need Parallels Desktop for that purpose?

Thank you.

 

bayl0ck,

As for now, only default AC97 drivers are supported for use in the virtual machine.

 

Thank you for your quick answer.

All I think about right now is to create a standalone bootcamp XP version for my audio work (nothing to do wit PD) and a PD4 virtual machine for both XP and vista for anything else but the audio processing, directly and conveniently accessible on my MacOSX.
It was that close to be perfect for me but I must admit that PD4 is still a hell of an application.

Thank you.