New Microsoft WDM drivers for Win98...

[tubedude]

as rumor has it... check it out...

[DS_Sultan]

Got a link to this rumor?

[brzilian]

Uh...drivers are for specific devices. Do you have any clue what you are talking about?

[AlChuck]

Whoa there, brzilian...

Standard drivers work through system components... it could be the foundational WDM stuff has been updated and not any specific drivers. I understand there were a lot of problems with WDM drivers actually working with Win 98SE...

That said, a link would be helpful, tubedude... Microsoft has a huge site...

[tubedude]

Hey there brzilian, I do know what I'm talking about, and you can kiss my ass. To this point, Win98 has not co-operated with WDM hardware, NOT because of hardware drivers, but because of the Win98 software. I was in a rush and figured you people could find it on your own and would know what I meant.
For everyone else, you should be able to find it on the microsoft Win98 upgrades page. I'll look for it later and post it if someone else doesnt by then.

[silverhammer]

Hey Tubedude, Sorry to be redundant but, does that mean I can use Sonar with 98se ? Thanks for the info if you can explain it to a fairly new computer user. Silver

[Teacher]

U were always able to use Sonar in Win98se just w/o the WDM drivers

[brzilian]

FYI, I have been using WDM drivers for my video card (ATI All-in-Wonder 128) and SB Live for over a year now in Win98 with no problems. Same goes for Sonar with WDM in Win98. What card are you using?

WDM drivers have been around for a while and were introduced before Windows 2000. They were a new type of driver that were supposed to be universal and work with Microsoft operating systems (Win98,98SE and Win2k). It never ended up working that way.

[silverhammer]

I am using a SBLive. I don't know anything about the WDM drivers, and only heard about them in relation to Sonar. It made me think that Sonar only works with ME, 2000, or the upcoming XP. I really like 98SE, especially since I know it works, and can tweak it pretty good for audio. Man, I just keep finding out how little I know. If you can give me a short tutorial, I'm all eyes. Thanks, Silver

[silverhammer]

I was reading about Sonar, and the incompatability list included my chipset or processor, I forget which, so I wouldn't be able to upgrade to Sonar until I get a new computer. By the time that happens, Sonar will probably be obsolete or I will be too old to fool with it. (SIGH) Oh well. Silver

[rjt]

Okay, the old microsoft website and I never got along well.... if anybody has a website, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks in advance!

[brzilian]

Here is an explanation if anybody is interested:

http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/wdm/wdmtech.htm

[windowman]

I've been wondering about this for a while now too. I never knew much about the WDM drivers before but I use Cakewalk and visited their site a couple of weeks ago to view any info they had about which soundcards could be used with their programs (they have a special page just for that) and it even tells the following general info about WDM:

WDM
Windows Driver Model. A driver model based on the Windows NT driver model that is designed to provide a common architecture of I/O services for Windows operating systems for specific classes of drivers. This driver model is currently supported under Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows Millenium Edition, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. SONAR, Home Studio 2002, and Music Creator 2002 support the use of WDM drivers by providing enhanced features such as ultra-low latency monitoring of effects and DirectX Instruments (DXi).

It also says that SB Live uses WDM drivers but it has a footnote attached to that:

4. WDM drivers are only available in Windows 2000. Please use the Microsoft SB Live Basic (WDM) drivers that are supplied on the OS installation disk.

Well, if I wasn't confused before, I am now....

[brzilian]

I am using the drivers from the Creative Labs website for my SB Live in Windows 2000 and everything is working just fine. The Creative Labs drivers are pretty new.

It has always been a rule of thumb for me to use the vendor specific drivers instead of the generic ones that come with whatever version of Windows I am using at certain time, especially when they are recently posted drivers.

I think that footnote was posted before Creative released newer drivers and nobody at Cakewalk has bothered to update that page.

[AlChuck]

tubedude, still no link? I did a search at the Microsoft site and didn't find anything that looked like what you were referring to...

Link us! Link us!!

[tubedude]

I don't have time to mess with it right now, but there is a Windows update page, I believe under "downloads", that will scan your version of windows, and then give you a checklist of things that are new that you dont have that you can pick from.

[windowman]

Originally posted by brzilian
I am using the drivers from the Creative Labs website for my SB Live in Windows 2000 and everything is working just fine. The Creative Labs drivers are pretty new.

I think that footnote was posted before Creative released newer drivers and nobody at Cakewalk has bothered to update that page.

To be honest I just let SB and Windows work that little detail out. I don't really know which drivers I'm using. I assumed that SB would install whatever drivers it needed and thought best. I mean either they're using they're own or they chose to use the drivers MS already had in there. The only thing I ever did different was to uninstall the entire Creative Labs package and use the ASP Drivers for a while but I hated this latest version (4.8 I think?) and dumped it and went back to the original drivers (whatever they are.) I don't use midi so I never had any latency problems anyway so the ASP drivers never really were a benefit for me to use. And the mixers (there's 2) that come with the ASP drivers are a real pain to use. The SB stuff is so much more straight forward. Whatever drivers are in there are working fine so I'm not gonna sweat it for now.

[AlChuck]

tubdedude,

I tried Windows Update right after I saw your post, said there were no driver updates at this time... perhaps one musyt already be using a WDM driver for this to show one what you are talking about?

[rjt]

I would love a link.... I also scoped out the Microsoft website to no avail.

[brzilian]

Originally posted by windowman
To be honest I just let SB and Windows work that little detail out. I don't really know which drivers I'm using. I assumed that SB would install whatever drivers it needed and thought best. I mean either they're using they're own or they chose to use the drivers MS already had in there. The only thing I ever did different was to uninstall the entire Creative Labs package and use the ASP Drivers for a while but I hated this latest version (4.8 I think?) and dumped it and went back to the original drivers (whatever they are.) I don't use midi so I never had any latency problems anyway so the ASP drivers never really were a benefit for me to use. And the mixers (there's 2) that come with the ASP drivers are a real pain to use. The SB stuff is so much more straight forward. Whatever drivers are in there are working fine so I'm not gonna sweat it for now.

What do you mean by ASP drivers?

If you are using the drivers off the Installation CD you should check out the drivers on the Creative website. They were posted in the last couple of months.

[windowman]

Originally posted by brzilian


What do you mean by ASP drivers?

If you are using the drivers off the Installation CD you should check out the drivers on the Creative website. They were posted in the last couple of months.

That's correct, whatever the drivers are that it installs are what I'm using. I was at Creative's SB Live site just a couple of days ago and didn't read anything about a driver update for my card (it's only a year old. I have the 5.0 version; the 5.1 is out now but it doesn't seem to have anything new about it except for some options that gamers might like so I guess I'm using the best driver they currently have.

You know, I've always assumed that when installing any software that either it or Windows would auto-sellect the best driver for my system. A lot of times you'll get a pop-up mesage saying that a file or driver you have on your system is "newer" than the one you're trying to install so the process seems fairly intuitive to me. I don't know though....

But like I said, the ASP driver is the only other alternative I have to what I'm now using I think and I don't seem to need it. (Besides, technically speaking it's an illegal hack.)

What I'd like to know is excatly WHAT driver SB Live 5.X uses? Do they even have a driver of their own or do they just use WDM? According to Cakewalk it appears they use WDM but I couldn't find any info on that at the Creative website.

[AlChuck]

You must mean the APS drivers. (The Emu Audio Production Studio is essentially the same hardware as the SB Live, and you can get those drivers to work with an SB Live failry easily. They have low-latency ASIO drivers for Cubase, etc.)

I never heard of ASP drivers. ASP (Active Server Pages) for web servers, sure; and Cleopatra was killed by the bite of an asp...

[brzilian]

Originally posted by windowman
That's correct, whatever the drivers are that it installs are what I'm using. I was at Creative's SB Live site just a couple of days ago and didn't read anything about a driver update for my card (it's only a year old. I have the 5.0 version; the 5.1 is out now but it doesn't seem to have anything new about it except for some options that gamers might like so I guess I'm using the best driver they currently have.

You know, I've always assumed that when installing any software that either it or Windows would auto-sellect the best driver for my system. A lot of times you'll get a pop-up mesage saying that a file or driver you have on your system is "newer" than the one you're trying to install so the process seems fairly intuitive to me. I don't know though....

But like I said, the ASP driver is the only other alternative I have to what I'm now using I think and I don't seem to need it. (Besides, technically speaking it's an illegal hack.)

What I'd like to know is excatly WHAT driver SB Live 5.X uses? Do they even have a driver of their own or do they just use WDM? According to Cakewalk it appears they use WDM but I couldn't find any info on that at the Creative website.

Not sure what you mean by version 5.0 and 5.1. The 5.1 in the product name denotes that the card is capable of Dolby Digital 5.1 decoding (5 speaker channels + 1 subwoofer channel).

If you bring up your harware manager , it will tell you the date of your drivers. Mine are dated 1/5/2001 and are from the Soundblaster website. In the hardware manager, my SB Live is listed as SB Live! Value (WDM) - that means it is using WDM drivers. Vendors can write WDM drivers as well - that is not exclusive to the drivers that come with Windows 2000.

I agree with you that Creative Labs should provide more specs on their website as far as driver compatability goes (WDM, ASIO).

[windowman]

Originally posted by brzilian


Not sure what you mean by version 5.0 and 5.1. The 5.1 in the product name denotes that the card is capable of Dolby Digital 5.1 decoding (5 speaker channels + 1 subwoofer channel).

Last years model was 5.0 and now its 5.1. They've got a driver update if you have last years 5.0 but like I said, its just got a few bells and whistles for the gamers/kids.

I will say this however, a lot of people have trouble trying to record at 16/44.1 with it. It seems it just isn't fast enough to dither all the tracks on the fly (since the card can only record at 16/48 by default) so they fall out of sync especially if they're long tracks of 5 minutes or so and recorded in one complete take. It seems the best route to go is to record at 16/48 and then dither down the final product. Trouble is, some of the cheaper software for recording (like Cakewalk Guitar Tracks2) can't record higher than 16/44.1 so your stuck with buying better software or a better card. A young guy on a budget can't win these days....

Oh, I tried to look for my driver (SB wave I assume) and it looks like maybe it's ctmm16.drv; does that seem right?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Al; yes I mean APS you big wienie!

Actually I always hated the mixer scheme of that crazy thing. I know it was a God-send for the midi guys but it didn't do anything for me but to complicate my life. Besides, I always felt like a thief seeing as how its a hack (though possibly a necessary one for some people.)

[Paul881]

Wow, now this would be great! I use Home Studio 2002 with an s/b 5.1 (I thought the 5.1 referred to the Dolby surround sound capability, not the version issue of software/hardware), and a Win 98 o/s. With my set-up, "real time" DXi effects mean unacceptable latency. Hit the keyboard, wait for the sound. Absolutely no good for me. WDM drivers for win 98 and no latency would be a god-send but not in my lifetime - I think. If anyone can tell me that I can use WDM drivers in win 98 to get rid of this delay, I would be overjoyed.

Soooooo....if this is more than just a rumour or urban myth, give us the details, tubedude. Cos I can't find any mention on the M/s site either.