PT 11 HD without cards

Hi,

I am a long time Cubase user for about 20 years. From the times when it was used just for scoring. A few years ago I have build a new, large studio and I know I had to switch to PT. So I made the jump. In the studio now we have a PT10 HD2 system attached to Lynx converters via LT-HD. So far so good. I'm very much OK with working on PT.



Now we want to have PT11 HD. Maybe just for mixing. We will also keep the old system.

Now my question is that if it is possible to use PT11 HD without any avid cards. (native and hdx). I know Avid doesn't sell it that way but if I have the license for 11 HD some how (from ebay for example) would all HD features be there without the cards? By HD features I mean VCA, surround, input monitoring, advanced metering, higher voice counts etc.



I know this topic is covered a lot on internet, I'm researching for a few weeks about this but I couldn't reach to a certain answer. Some say that the software should see an avid card to make HD features available even if you have an HD license other wise it becomes PT11 vanilla and some say once you have HD license HD features are all there even without the harware.



Confused... Please help.

PT 11 HD without cards