A questions about WDM and ASIO drivers.

H

HomeMadeHitShow

Member
I tried a cheapo soundcard this weekend (Soundblaster Live 24) someone gave me to see if it improved my latency. It really did not. However I have no idea how/whether I am using the WDM or ASIO drivers.

Do I just install them and it will use them or would I have to do something specific to make it use them.

I will be buying a better card but I was just wondering.

Thanks

Tony
 
Well thanks for that answer.

It's here because I'm buying a new soundcard for MIDI only, MIDI is where I'm getting latency and MIDI is all I care about, plus, up until now, everyone in this forum has been very helpful
 
A sound card has nothing to do with midi. If you are talking about softsynths playing late/slow/off/whatever then yes a sound card will help by having a good and fast driver with low latencies but I would first look at your computer and make sure that is up to snuff. If you want your softsynths to be snappy you will need to:

A> Drop your buffer way down (64 or 128) which will put more stress on your processer/computer to keep up. Find where it starts clicking/having playback problems and choose the next setting up from that
B> Make sure you have a decent soundcard and the fastest possible drivers for whatever software your using (Usually ASIO)

Your midi input will usually be via USB if you have a controller. You should only worry about having external interfaces if you have offboard hardware
 
thanks for the answer but I am aware of all that.

I have a solid computer (2.4ghz Athlon, 1gb memory) but it has onboard sound, it's very laggy with soft synths, I was told here by people (including you) that I need a better soundcard which I have ordered but my question here remains what do I do with these drivers. Do I install just one, all of them or do I have to select them.

I don't have a way to set the buffers directly in Acid, they use some other scheme that I need to play with but I've tried all the settings and they haven't helped.

I'm genuiinely confused by your statement that this has nothing to do with Soft Synths, isn't it MIDI that drives the soft synth's ??? I have no other sound related needs than soft-synths and MIDI ?

Maybe I should post this in the Soundcard forum but I'm sure I can get an answer here and avoid the double post :)
 
Are you running the KX Project or ASIO for all Drivers? You most likely are running the Creative WDM drivers which are poor for audio work.

Yes your softsynths take midi but that can be midi from anywhere (keyboard, Controller, file, whatever). If your having midi playback problems, its not because of your midi interface, its because the drivers are running poorly. The above drivers for Creative cards should make the card at least usable (which it sounds like its not)
 
Thanks again but I don't actually have a creative card. I tried one over the weekend but it was just a loan to see how it helped.

I'm buying the m-audio 2496 but I still don't know what I should do regarding drivers once I get it :)
 
The M-Audio 2496 has good WDM drivers, and ASIO ones too if I'm not mistaken.

The latency issue is because, with the older MME extensions, the overhead between the low-level interface to the hardware, the operating system, and the application was simply too much for softsynths to respond to MIDI messages in realtime. It isn't the MIDI data path that's the problem, it's the audio that has to get loaded up and sent out the audio outputs in response to those MIDI messages.
 
Common people, doesn't no one actually know how to help this guy? Cause I do:
ASIO4ALL
http://www.asio4all.com/
This is an ASIO driver that works with nearly any soundcard (even the cheap onboard AC'97 chips), providing low latency down to a couple of milliseconds. You do not need an audiophile 2496 just for midi.
 
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