Ok got em installed. Again with the weird problem uninstalling the old drivers...they don't like to be stopped, hence a blue screen. Removing them in safe mode works though.
First of all they do seem to work. I'll report my successes first:
Good Thing #1: ASIO works for me, unlike the very previous version (I was using ASIO via the June 1st driver set). Probably because I installed W2K SP2.
Good Thing #2: WDM is there and works.
Good Thing #3: Multiclient works! I was playing from both wavelab and fruity loops at the same time.
Good Thing #4: I loaded up n-Track with a 24 track project; all 24bit/44.1 audio tracks. I was able to use the WDM drivers with latency of about 60ms. ASIO worked the same, just fine. WDM is a better in n-Track because there is no stuttering when playback position changes. I've always had little dropouts when adjusting faders and shit when the system starts to get taxed. But regular playback is crackle & pop free. I've never experienced a problem with crackles on recording, and though i haven't tested the new drivers recording, I'm not worried.
Ok, on to the bad things:
Bad Thing #1: Why m-Audio can't decide on whether we're going to set latency in terms of samples, ms, or bytes I have no clue. Every time they change drivers the DMA portion of the panel is completely different. No big deal really, but I liked the old one where you could have different settings for different driver models (ASIO & Wave).
Bad Thing #2: The DMA setting is very screwy, at least when it comes to n-Track. At first I cranked it up to the max, which translates to about 60ms of lateny, my normal working environment. I go into n-Track and start playing that 24 track project using WDM and the lowest latency I can get is 139ms! So I go back to the m-Audio panel and set the latency back down to the default 384 samples and then suddenly I can set n-Track back down to about 60ms. What the hell? Who's to blame I don't know yet, I'll do some digging.
Bad Thing #3: Multi-client with n-Track sort of works. That is, n-Track no longer hogs the card and I can play from a wave editor or fruity loops while n-Track is open. However, I can't playback from both n-Track and another application at the same time. Of course this isn't really something that's done very often, but at times it would be useful.
The verdict: performance is the same so far, but I get the bonus of using WDM and having multiclient support. Some minor irritations with the DMA settings, but I'll live with 'em.
Slackmaster 2000
