WDM advantage or disadvantage?

[Deen]

Hello N-trackers,

just tried out the demo. Just wanted to ask if WDM drivers
put more load on the cpu than Direct sound drivers. Also,
do the wdm drivers give you clearer sound, wider dynamic range
compared to MME and direct sound drivers? It seems the wdm
drivers prevent me from running more real time plugins, N-track
hangs when the usage is at almost 20% using 2 tracks only.
When I switch to Direct sound it can handle more plugins and the usage goes farther up to 45% + and system does not hang.I manage four tracks, even more with many plugins. Am I doing something wrong somewhere?

[Slackmaster2K]

Well a lot of this depends on your soundcard and its drivers.

Firstly, MME and DS are limited to 16bit only, and are not what we would refer to as "low latency" driver models. WDM, on the other hand, *can* provide low latency and supports 24bit (as can ASIO). The catch, however, is that your soundcard's drivers must support these WDM features...all drivers are becoming "WDM", whcih just stands for Windows Driver Model and doesn't really imply anything special (yet another general term used by Microsoft...like DX...very misleading).

All driver models at the same bit depth and sample rate will sound the same unless something is broken.

I don't know what your WDM problem is, but I'm guessing that you need to fiddle with the buffer settings both in n-Track and your soundcard's control panel. I manage 24 track projects with lots of effects using both WDM and ASIO for my Delta 1010, and I'm just on a lowly 850Mhz processor. Because you say n-Trach "hangs", I am going to guess that it's more of an issue with your drivers. n-Track rarely hangs during playback/recording normally.

Slackmaster 2000

[Deen]

The prophet has spoken!

Thanks for the reply Slackmaster. When I used the direct sound drivers on N-track, used more tracks and effects it showed no signs of buckling under the pressure. When I used the WDM
it could only run 2 tracks and few effects, before hanging. I'm
using Avance Logic AC 97 audio drivers, that have MME, Direct sound and WDM appear in N-tracks audio options. I suppose if
it runs using WDM, the soundchip supports WDM. But since it hangs, perhaps there's some mismatch or lack of optimization that is Motherboard-driver-AMD related. A bug perhaps. Maybe
these drivers from Avance are not updated enough to run smoothly with N-track. Anyways I'll stick with Direct sound for now, as it works fine. Thanks again for the reply.

[Slackmaster2K]

Yeah, the WDM drivers for the AC 97 chipset aren't the WDM drivers that we're talking about when we talk about WDM drivers in audio applications. Confusing, ain't it?

Use MME and you'll be fine!

Slackmaster 2000

[Deen]

Thanks a mil Slackmaster,

It's all clear now. You aint a moderator for nothin'
Flavio should pay you for this.