Audigy annoyance... why do I need WDM?

  • Thread starter Thread starter RWhite
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RWhite

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I'm continuing this thread from one I started in the Cakewalk forum. You can see it here if you wish:

http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?threadid=62296

The short version is that my SB Audigy card will not work in Sonar 2.0 if I use WDM drivers. It will see the card as a recording device, but not a playback device, therefore it will not play audio. If I force it to use MME drivers, the card is detected fine and works fine. This is using the newest Creative drivers, installed several times - and I might add that each time I installed the Audigy drivers it crashed my XP system, and I had to use work-arround to get the install to finish.

After reading many comments that the Audigy's drivers were suspect, I finally decided to switch back to a SB Live card. I am planning on buying an Audiophile 2496 card soon anyways, but I wanted to start playing with Sonar now. But I encountered the same problem - the Live works fine under MME, but will not play audio under WDM.

Has anyone else experianced a problem like this? Furthermore, do I really NEED WDM? I have read a bit about it, I understand it supposed to work better and offer better latency, but is it really a big improvement?
 
Hey, that was a nice piece.

After reading that I can understand that WDM drivers make my life easier - if I'm a software developer. But is there really a big advantage to me as an end user? If I continue to force Sonar to use all devices in MME mode, is my perfomance going to be horrible? Will hair grow from my PC? Come on, inquiring minds want to know...
 
Yeah Audigy is horrible. I bought one and it is going on Ebay next week. I an going to get a 2496.
 
why do people spend several hundred dollars on audio apps, then $100 for their cards I'll never figure out.
 
Good question. In my case, my "main" sound card is a Gadget Labs Wave 824 - 8in/8out 24 bit. Nice card when I bought it. Problem is they are out of business, and thus there will be no WDM drivers coming out, no 2000 or XP support. It's host computer in my basement studio is limited to Win98.

However upstairs I have another system running XP. It has an Audigy card because it was bought for games, general purpose, and for 16 bit recording. The Audigy works great for these tasks - under Windows 98. Works well under XP too except not, apparently, using WDM drivers. Until I bought the SONAR upgrade and installed it on this machine, I had no idea this was an issue.

Which brings to mind another issue - assuming I get my Audiophile 2496 upgrade, can that card support any games? I would not expect it to work with older games, but how about newer Direct X titles? It would be nice if I could use it as the one and only sound card...
 
Keep the soundblaster for games. You can use the audiophile and in many games it'll be great, but in others you'll get crackly problems (at all buffer settings) and sometimes sounds will cut out short.

I have a SB Live and a Delta 1010 and have had a lot more luck with a variety of games just using the SB. Not to mention that it supports hardware 3D sound and effects which can improve performance and sound better.

UT and Q3 both worked fine through my Delta1010 and Delta44, but in Deus Ex the audio would be fine for a while, then get all crackly and I'd have to restart the game. So if you have the option, run two cards! ( I compare the audiophile to the delta because they are "technically" in the same product line and use the same drivers...perhaps the audiophile does work better for gaming...it does not do any 3D audio processing though)

It's kind of a shame because games sound awesome through the delta, even though games usually use stripped down low quality sound. Never underestimate the power of a converter I guess!

Slackmaster 2000
 
Thanks for the info Slack.

I had planned to use two cards, but then I read in the Sonar manual that if you have two sound cards installed, you must have working WDM drivers for both. If one card doesn't work under WDM (i.e. the Audigy) then you must set ALL soundcards to use MME. Which was one of the reasons I was curious to see if I could use the 2496 for everything.

So, does ANYONE out there have either a Audigy or SoundBlaster Live card working under XP (or 2000), using WDM drivers?
 
Yeah, but you can use WDM drivers for the SB if you also add an audiophile. You said that the SB wouldn't work in Sonar using WDM, but you wouldn't be using it in Sonar.

Slackmaster 2000
 
Well this just keeps getting too damn funny...

Bought my Audiophile 2496 card today from Guitar Satan. Just installed it a few minutes ago, alongside the Audigy card. I do want to have the option of using the Audigy for MIDI, and the occasional game.

Fired up Sonar and, true to their word, if all sound cards don't have working WDM drivers, it gets freaky. The humor factor is this - with WDM selected, for playback it now sees 6 channels of Creative Audgy and NO Audiophile. I have Audigy 1/2, 3/4, and 5/6. The Audiphile is listed as a recording device only.

If I swicth back to MME drivers, everything looks normal.

Only two options now - forget WDM for good, or dump the Audigy card and stop playing games. Since this PC is multi-purpose, I'm leaning strongly towards the former.
 
Just as an update - I've tested out using the Audiophile with some of my favorite games (Starcraft, AOE II, Warcraft III) and it works fine. So using it as the sole sound card in a general-purpose PC seems to be no problem.
 
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