Audiophile 2496 card is 24bit in Sonar, but not Cakewalk

  • Thread starter Thread starter RWhite
  • Start date Start date
R

RWhite

Well-known member
Forgive the cross-post, but I put this in the Computer & Soundcard forum and received no responses. Perhaps someone here will have an idea - RW


Audiophile 2496 card is 24bit in WDM only?

I've put up a few posts about problems I've had with my Audiophile 2496 card, specifically trying to get it to work in 24 bit. Working under Win XP with Cakewalk Pro 9, Sound Forge, and Sonar 2.0, the card would function fine when driver depth was picked as 16 bit, but refused to function at all when 24 bit was selected. In fact if 24 bit was selected in Sonar or Cakewalk, the card would disappear entirely as an available hardware device.

My Audiophile shares a machine with an ATI Radeon All-In-Wonder, a video card with both video and audio capture features. Someone on this board suggested disableing one of the ATI audio capture drivers, and that led to partial success - while the card would still not work in 24 bit, it would no longer disappear as a device.

This evening I finally had a chance to remove the All-In-Wonder card (which I use quite frequently) and replace it with a normal ATI Radeon card. After this switch, and some adjustments in drivers, I FINALLY was able to get the Audiophile to function at 24 bit in Sonar. Both recording and playback now work normally. But when I tried to do the same in Cakewalk 9, I still had no functionality - and the card disappears as a device for playback.

I went back to Sonar and tried forcing the Audiophile to use MME drivers at 24 bit instead of WDM drivers, and had the same results as Cakewalk - the card disappears and there is no recording or playback function. When WDM drivers are re-enabled, everything is fine. And at 16 bit, it works in both MME and WDM.

So - I guess the question I have is, does the Audiophile 2496 require WDM drivers if you want the card to record / playback at 24 bit? Or in otherwords, I can forget about using this card to play back my (large collection of) 24 bit Cakewalk projects? Has anyone out there used an Audiophile in Cakewalk at 24 bit, in any OS?
 
I have no answer for you about the Audiophile, MME-drivers and 24-bit issue (since I don't have an Audiophile-card).

However:
Or in otherwords, I can forget about using this card to play back my (large collection of) 24 bit Cakewalk projects?
Click to expand...
Can't you just open the PA9 projects in Sonar?
 
I don't think I can be of much help here either. One question I would ask if whether there is a second sound card in the machine. If so, I presume you are aware that both cards need to run from the same type of driver - MME or WDM. You can not use one with WDM drivers and the other with MME. However, forcing MME should satisfy this requirement.

I have a Delta 1010 and I am able to use it at 24 bit with MME drivers under WinME. However, I use the "true" MME drivers - not the MME drivers imbedded in the WDM driver set. I have never been able to get my Delta 1010 to work properly with WDM drivers. But I am attributing that to the OS - since M-Audio does not claim to make a WDM driver for WinME (and my experience would support that).

Best I can tell you is that it should work at 24 bits - regardless of whether you are using MME or WDM drivers. In fact, it should be profiled by Sonar/PA9 at 24 bits.

If you have a second sound card, I would try disabling it and see what happens with the Audiophile. Can you get it to work by itself? Also, decide whether you want to use WDM or MME drivers. If you want to use MME, download the actual MME drivers, rather than trying to force MME using the WDM driver set.

A frustrating problem I am sure. Good luck.
 
In effect, the All-in-Wonder video card IS a second sound card, since it has audio recording capability and associated drivers. So by removing the All-In-Wonder, I removed the second card. And things did improve. But it still doesn't work in Cakewalk, unless I limit it to 16 bit only.

Yes, Sonar will open Cakewalk projects. But it will not save it in a format Cakewalk will then recognise. At the moment I'm trying to finish my current project (an album of my bands original material) in Cakewalk, and I don't want to add the time for file conversion / learning curve to the project. I thought I would move on to Cakewalk afterwards. More importantly, the system I actually record on, which uses a Gadget Labs card, is limited to Win 9X. This is because Gadget Labs went out of business and there are no Win 2000 / Win XP drivers for their products. Being limited to Win 9X makes me want to stick with Cakewalk on that system too - everything I read says that Sonar works best under Win 2000 or XP.

Dach, where did you get these "true" MME drivers? From the company web site I presume?
 
!

Yes, Sonar will open Cakewalk projects. But it will not save it in a format Cakewalk will then recognise.
Click to expand...
Technically, of course Sonar will save Cakewalk procjects, it's a Cakewalk program! Problem solved! :D

Sorry, it just annoys the hell out of me when people talk about Cakewalk, and they really mean Pro Audio 9. It's like "I was typing a letter in Microsoft, then I used Microsoft to surf the web". No no, you used Word and Internet Explorer. Microsoft just happens to make them....

This sentence here, just confused me...
I thought I would move on to Cakewalk afterwards.
Click to expand...
Errr.... move on to Sonar, you mean?


Ok, I'll stop being an arsehole...
 
RWhite said:
Dach, where did you get these "true" MME drivers? From the company web site I presume?
Click to expand...
Remember, RWhite, I'm using the 1010; however, yes, I downloaded the drivers from the M-Audio site. If you tell the driver locator that your OS is Win98 or WinME, I believe it will direct you to the MME drivers. At least for the 1010, M-Audio only recommends the WDM drivers for Win2000 or WinXP.

One way to tell is to look at the installed drivers. WDM drivers will have a .sys extension, while MME drivers will have a .vxd extension.

In all cases when switching Delta drivers, make sure you actually delete the old drivers. M-Audio has an uninstaller program that will do this for you. Otherwise you have to manually delete each driver file.

I'm also wondering if when you removed the All-on-Wonder card whether you also got rid of the drivers on the machine? I don't know if it would have any effect, but it's certainly worth a try. Your problem surely sounds like a conflict of some sort.

Again, good luck.
 
Thanks for the replys.

Moskus - yes, I mis-wrote that a bit. I meant that I wanted to move on to Sonar after I finished with my current project. And when you save a project in Sonar 2.0, you can't then re-open it in Pro Audio 9.

I know that Cakewalk is a generic term - I've been using Cakewalk since version 5. I just figure that since they renamed the product Sonar, that saying "Cakewalk" would suffice to mean that last version, Pro 9.


Dachay2tnr - Yes, I have the uninstaller. I also just downloaded the brand-new 12/5/02 drivers last night, but have not installed them yet. I'll give that a shot tonight.

The All-In-Wonder actually makes use of 3 drivers/applets, a video capture driver (which apparently is the one causing the conflict), a display driver, and a "Media Center" applet which is what is used to actually do things like record video/audio & watch TV. The drivers all have to be installed or uninstalled in a certain sequence, which is well documented by ATI. It really is a very neat card, one that I use a lot, and I just bought a newer version of it that I plan to install shortly.

But for the moment I'm using just a straight ATI video card, and all the All-In-Wonder fluff has been removed. And I'm still screwed.

From what I have seen so far, I'm about 99% ready to conclude that the Audiophile software driver set that is required under Win 2000/XP just doesn't work in 24 bit unless you use it in WDM "mode". Since Cakewalk Pro 9 doesn't work with WDM, the choice seems to be to either use Cakewalk 9 in Win 98 / ME with those drivers, or switch to Sonar under Win 2000/XP. I don't think this is a problem for most people, I just happen to be stuck because like I said, my main recording machine with the Gadget Lab hardware HAS to stay Win98.

It seems my only option is to switch everything to Sonar now, which I'm sure is what the software Gods want anyways. So I guess my next thread will be:

Does Sonar 2.0 really work well in Windows 98?
 
Does Sonar 2.0 really work well in Windows 98?
Click to expand...
I had no problems with it, it ran smooth, but then again I din't have any of the issues you have with the Audiophile...

You do have the SE version of 98, right? I don't know, but I think I've read somewhere that regular Win98 and Win95 doesen't support WDM-drivers...
 
As I already mentioned (I think), I am running Sonar and a Delta 1010 under WinME with no problems at all. However, as I indicated, I use the Delta MME drivers, not the WDM drivers.

WinME might be an option for you as there is a good chance your Gadget Labs card drivers would work under ME. (Of course, some might argue WinME is no better - and maybe worse - than Win98, so why bother.)
 
I'm sure my Gadget Labs would work under Windows ME. I just have not had very good experiances with ME - in fact I consider it an abomination of sorts. While Win98SE (the only flavor I use) seems to be about as stable as Windows 9X can get, ME seemed to be a step backwards in terms of crashing a lot. Because of this evaluation by a LOT of people (not just me!) we avoided ME entirely where I work - we have 300 + systems which are being switched over from Win 98SE to Win XP.

Moskus, I believe you are correct about Win98SE being the first version to support the WDM driver model.

I also believe that the most recent Direct X, version 8.2, is the last version for the Win 9X product line (which ended with Windows ME).

Actually I was brainstorming today about a new test for my 2496. Being a PC support guy and all-around PC junkie, I have 5 PCs in the house, including one in my living room hooked up to the TV. It serves as MP3 server, movie player, and soon (after I install my older All-In-Wonder card) TV video recorder. That box is still running Win 98SE, and is hooked into my big-ass living room stereo. I bought the Audiophie for mastering, but I may just put it into this TV computer so I can "preview" Cakewalk 24 bit audio projects right into my stereo without having to go through the whole mixdown / convert to 16 bit hassle.
 
RWhite said:
Moskus, I believe you are correct about Win98SE being the first version to support the WDM driver model.
Click to expand...


Ummm, no.

I was using TV tuner cards and video cards with WDM drivers way back in '97 in Windows 95 OSR2.
 
brzilian said:
I was using TV tuner cards and video cards with WDM drivers way back in '97 in Windows 95 OSR2.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty shure that my old Win98 (pre SE) machine will not take advantage of audio WDM-drivers. Tried to install my old Audigy in it and WDM didn't turn up in Sonar as it did in Windows 2000. Ironically, the Audigy card was much more stable in Win98... ;)

But then again, it could be me who did something wrong. But how hard is it supposed to be? :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top