damn you aardvark

[wes480]

I want my drivers for Win2k...and I want them now. Hell, I don't even care if they are "final"...but Beta5 won't even install on my system (i tried the logged version as well and it failed). Beta4 will not work either.

I built a system to spec with the Aardvark reccomendations...my Q10 is useless right now. I have been running Win98 for the past couple of weeks and been pissed about it, now it is crashing all over the place and the Aark Manager won't load up anymore. ARGH! to be expected.

Bottom line is - I want drivers...I wanted them yesterday...I wanted them day after thanksgiving when I bought the thing...I wanted them december 21st when Aardvark rep on this forum said that Beta5 was out and final drivers should be out within the week! Well it is fucking Febuary. !!!

Should have gone with Delta...should have gone with Motu...anything but this crap. What good are 8 preamps if you can't use any of them.

<sigh>

On a somewhat related note - I heard there is some kind of "EQ" box in the Aark manager...where you can adjust some levels...etc. before you actually record a track? Anyone know about that (I wasn't able to load up the manager to look for myself )

 

[FZmontanaDF]

It really isn't doing anything posting it here. Send them an email to beta@aardvark.com. It might do something, but I am not even sure they check that email.

 

[ifpo238]

Thought y'all might enjoy the thread below. I've forwarded it on to the beta team, and I'll letcha know what I find out.

-j

========================================

beta@aardvark-pro.com

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: ifpo238
Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2002 11:08:36 -0600

>Would it be possible for me to contact one of the developers to find out
>where they are?
>
>-j
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Ben Mullins [mailto:bmullins@aardvark-pro.com]
>Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2002 11:07 AM
>To: ifpo238
>Subject: RE: FW: Q10 drivers
>
>
>That's what they tell me, but I'm not actually involved in the
>development process. It's my hope that the information pasesd on to me
>is accurate.
>
>Ben Mullins
>Aardvark
>
>
>---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
>From: ifpo238
>Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2002 10:52:02 -0600
>
>>Sorry, I should have been more clear. I'm running W2K. Are you sure
>>there'll be an official 2000 WDM 96K driver by the end of the month?
>>There's not even a Beta WDM driver posted on the website yet...
>>
>>-j
>>
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Ben Mullins [mailto:bmullins@aardvark-pro.com]
>>Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2002 10:46 AM
>>To: ifpo238
>>Subject: Re: FW: Q10 drivers
>>
>>
>>
>>For what operating system?
>>
>>We currently support the Q10 on 95, 98, 98SE and ME. An official
>>XP/2000 96K WDM driver should be available by the end of the month.
>>
>>Ben Mullins
>>Aardvark
>>
>>---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
>>From: ifpo238
>>Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2002 16:41:57 -0600
>>
>>>> Any word when a supported Q10 driver will be available? How about a
>>WDM driver? Support for 24/96?
>>>
>>
>

 

[postalblue]

i think this is not what you want to hear, but your best bet if you want to keep the q10, and use it in the near future is going to windows 98, 98se or millenium.

adriano

 

[ifpo238]

as promised...

Hi Jeff,

Were you posting concerning WDM for Windows ME?

That is very low on the totem pole of priorities right now. Currently we are working on solving some installation issues that some users have experienced with the Beta drivers for XP and 2K. We are also working on WDM for XP and 2K, I would anticipate that being available in mid to late March.

WDM for ME and 98 is quite a ways away, as there are other issues related to current OS (2K and XP) that have to be worked on immediately.

Keep in mind that the mid to late March that I quote for WDM under 2K and XP is merely my opinion and does not reflect any official Aardvark policy. It could be later, could be sooner but it is a priority.

Best regards,

someone at
Aardvark

 

[sonusman]

Hmmmmmm...my Lynx One card SHIPPED with drivers that can STILL be used on 2K and XP! I wouldn't have bought a card the didn't ship with NT drivers. Seen too many bad experiences with that. Sorry to say, but my experience, and many others who I have talked with is that gear that doesn't ship with NT drivers usually has "suspect" design.

Why is it that all the "popular" cards have NT driver problems? I would be interested in an opinion on that from someone working for a company making such a card. I paid a bit more for a nice sounding card and it shipped with very stable NT drivers. The installation .exe works VERY well too! Card was working immediately. The updated drivers were only an improvement of little things.

There must be a moral in all this somewhere......

Ed

 

[ifpo238]

The Q10 has 2K drivers. I'm using mine now. However, it's an MME driver. I was asking about the WDM (Windows Driver Model) driver.

-j

 

[Dolemite]

Why is it that all the "popular" cards have NT driver problems? I would be interested in an opinion on that from someone working for a company making such a card.

As someone soon to enter the software development industry (bleh!) I might have a certain perspective on this. The main thing is, supporting your products beyond a certain point simply becomes unprofitable. Once you've sold somebody a product, you aren't making any money from releasing drivers for it. Of course your reputation and future sales may depend on how you support it, but that's usually only enough incentive to get things working for, say, 90% of the systems out there. At that point, most if not all of your programmers have likely moved on to developing for new products. Also, it seems to be quite common these days to see products like the Q10 ship with little more than beta drivers. All I can say is, do the research before you buy and don't buy simply on features. Never assume that something that relies on software at any level is going to work.

As far as NT/2000/XP, Microsoft basically forced the adoption of WDM (Windows Driver Model) which is a bit of a departure from previous driver models. The main difficulty, as I understand it, is dealing with the NT kernel's deeper HAL (hardware abstraction layer) which basically limits direct access to hardware by drivers and applications. This is a pretty good thing for compatibilty, but a pretty bad thing for performance/stability. It's a huge compromise.

Why the Lynx has been stable since the beginning while others cards are not, its hard to say. Certainly the Lynx is a even less a "mass market" product than the M-Audio or Aardvark systems. No doubt there are issues with Lynx cards, they just may not be as well publicized since few people own them. The Lynx is a more "esoteric" and expensive piece so perhaps more was budgeted initially for driver development. Sometimes you just get lucky and find that certain hardware is inherently easier to support...

 

[PhilWilson]

NT drivers were always different from the 9x/Me drivers for many reasons. NT is a 32-bit system all the way through, there is the HAL, 9x did Plug and Play etc etc. WDM kind of merges the two lines into one so that (with a few if any changes) one driver can deal with 98 and above as well as Windows 2000 and above. As a consequence, NT is orphaned because it doesn't do WDM, doesn't do Plug and Play, Power Management etc, all the things that WDM expects from the operating system. It's also orphaned because it never really got to be a consumer operating system. As you see Windows 2000 ("NT 5.0") and XP ("NT 5.01") become more consumer-oriented, the drivers will show up.