24 bit.... really?

Y

Yadi

New member
Not trying to start a discussion on why or why not one would work in 24 bit. But does anyone believe that they are working in 24 bit under Win 2000 or Win XP? If so, how do you know? This is not a "loaded question", here is why:

I own an Egosys Wamirack 24...works great under 98 SE w/ n-tracks, Acid, Cubasis

I'm trying to migrate to SONAR and I received a free copy of XP. Egosys has an enhanced version of drivers (E-WDM) that supports XP. Upgraded to XP since I am told that the performance improves. I installed the wami-ma-jig without any problems....

While getting the latest version of drivers from the Egosys site, I saw a vague statement: "....while XP supports 24 bit recording, it does not support 24 bit playback". I contacted Egosys and they assured me that neither XP or 2000, will support 24 bit playback, and that this is a Microsoft issue that affects ALL hardware manufacturers. I have their emails on my pc at work.

Does anyone else know anything about this? Lets just assume that this is unique to Egosys, looking at their advertisements and website, they are totally misleading the public. Now assume that other hardware vendors are also affected.............bummer.

Nonetheless, I'm happy working in 98SE (dual boot) or just 16/48. I just don't like to be mislead, especially for cash.
 
Ah, no. That's refering to an older limitation of WDM, and the workaround required a change in soundcard WDM drivers, Windows itself, and the software interface.

Therefore, for a short time there, it was indeed impossible to do 24bit using WDM drivers in a lot of applications. Windows was updated (SP2), drivers were subsequently updated by most manufacturers, and software was subsequently updated by most software providers.

However, that only applied to WDM. People using ASIO on Windows 2000, for instance, were not affected by the 16bit limitation (nor other limitations like a single pair of inputs).

Right now I record and playback 24bit audio using both WDM and ASIO using a Delta44 soundcard and n-Track 3.0 (actually I use WDM more in n-Track now , but I used to use ASIO before the good delta WDM drivers came out. I still use ASIO in other apps like Buzz Tracker).

The limitations that Egosys is referring to are quite old and the fix has been available since late last summer (if memory serves me correctly).

Slackmaster 2000
 
win2k, 24 bit in/out/under/through and have been since the summer time when Service Pack 2 came out, along with the first set of M-Audio WDM drivers that worked like liquid. There is a reason I think people recommend The Delta series soundcards over their counterparts. Not just sound, but the have good support.
 
zonks...especially considering that I added an SP2 statement to my post after seeing your post immediately after posting my original post in which I forgot to mention SP2 but which prompted you to post your last post which prompted me to post this post.

Slackmaster 2000
 
I really don't know a lot about about computers, so forgive me if I'm asking a no brainer. So what does this mean If I'm running windows 98? Am I unable to go record higher than 16/48 regardless of what soundcard I may purchase and install?
thanks,
werewolf
 
you can record at a higher bit rate but you wont be able to play it back unless your soundcard supports it.......
 
I'm so frickin lost..... here is a the vague link where egosys speaks about wdm and service pack 2


Egosys page

This doesn't sound like an old problem to me. At least not for the Wamirack.

Talk about lack of support....I asked if they could be more specific regarding "QFE" since I only get a trillion hits on the MS website...they told me to contact MS Support for the QFE audio patch.
 
no that's wavelab, if you go to cubase.net and go to the wavelab 3 forum you will see people have this problem with wavelab, not 2000 or XP. wavelab 3 doesn't like all 24 bit cards. when i installed wavelab 3.02 it wouldn't let me record at 24bit with my delta 1010. it said something like, be sure you recording interface can utilize 24bit recordings and this sample rate. after doing the newest 3.04 update it works fine...
 
if egosys would have used logic, nuendo,cubase,sonar...bla bla bla they would have seen you can record at 24bit under XP and 2000.
 
C9. Thats pretty astute of you. I didn't even think about the Wavelab. I, being my usual dumbness factor 10, assumed that they would know something like this, before they posted it and respond to my emails. Maybe its a language barrier thing and I have missed what they are saying.

Nonetheless, I do appreciate you taking a look at. I'll sleep a little better now.
 
Wavelab: is that what they mean by MME supporting software? Is Wavelb an MME supporting software....whereas Sonar isn't?
 
EWDM Test Report
We've tested EWDM driver with MME supporting softwares.
In this test, we found that 24bit data reproduction is possible in Windows ME and 98SE + QFE patch system with EWDM driver.

However, 24bit data reproduction through other hardware is not possible in Windows XP, 2000, Service Pack 2 System.
The reason is Windows K-mixer (one structure of WDM driver) doesn't allow 24bit reproduction in these Operating Systems.
We did the test with Ego Sys WaMiRack 24 and Wave Lab 3.
Click to expand...

i think they need some other testing tools, wavelab isn't the only program out. they need a tester like....ME :D lol
if wavelab didn't work under xp-2000 recording at 24bit, wouldn't you have opened something like Cep, or sound forge at least... i guess they're just a little slow.
 
and does it really matter?

If I have a 24bit file, and I play it back through an auto downshift-to-16bit-OS... so Im HEARING the 16-bit version.... Im still PROCESSING a 24-bit file... thus pusing back my rounding errors and such.. thus when I dither to 16-bit and press a CD.. the Cd will actually sound BETTER than if I had done the whole thing at 16-bit, REGARDLESS of whether I monitored at 24 or 16???

convoluted? yes. Drunken? indeed.

but true? who knows.

xoox
 
camn, you're right. I guess I was just getting peaved about the vague claims being made. But, as c9 pointed out, I was misreading the website. Pretty bad for someone with a college degree huh?
 
I can record in 24 but xp wont playback ...tries to connect to find the right codec, unsuccessfully.

Is this just a cubase thing??
 
You mean you can't play back a 24bit file in Media Player? That's because Media Player only works with 16bit files, period. That's not a limitation of XP, but a limitation of MP.

Slackmaster 2000
 
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