A question to overcome latency

[shnex]

A question to overcome latency
Hi,
Before I start, I just want to say that my Virus TI is currently away for repair in Germany, and I therefore can't answer some of the silly questions I'm gonna ask.

A N Y W A Y, a bit of background:

I've had my Virus TI for a few years, and after a few early "clunky" months, the Virus Control and TI settled comfortably in my setup

But since then, I've added a Firewire Sound Card (M-Audio projectMix) and as it happens my computer's 2 firewire ports share the same Bus, which means some of my IMac's precious USB bandwidth is now shared with an Audio Hard Drive. (please don't tell me to add a PCI USB card, as an IMac doesn't have slots for that)

The issue I have is that now, things don't run as smoothly as they used to, with dropouts and Sync Issues from the Virus

The thing is, as I understand it, choosing the Analogue out for a Part on Virus Control only makes latency problems worst, as the Audio is sent from the Virus, into the computer, and then back out of the computer into the Virus, essentially doubling the original latency one gets from selecting the USB outs X( (if I'm wrong about this reasoning let me know, by the way)

Now, once again, as I understand it, using the D button (direct Out) located next to each part on VC bypasses the whole computer/USB journey by sending the audio straight out of the Virus, and, oh Joy!, no more latency.

BUT!!!! my question is, is it possible to use Direct Out on multiple parts at the same time?

I would be more than happy to use my Virus like that while writing (hence monitoring all the parts out of the Virus via SPDIF into my mixing desk) and recording down each individual parts when I'm ready to mix.

Is that possible? Does that even make sense? ?(

I mean, when my virus used to work fine, I still only ever used one single USB stereo output and always left the DAW channel it was on to zero, essentially doing a premix using the effects, pan and level controls on the virus rather than extra plugins.

I feel this could be the answer to all my problems, that is if what I've been writing isn't a load of driveling nonsense.