Jim Fogle Posted April 1 Share Posted April 1 The +++ Sterling Harmony H224 Audio Interface +++ driver executable loads a audio interface control panel, WDM driver and ASIO driver for use in Windows 10 and 11 operating systems. Can anyone explain to me why the developer includes a WDM driver in addition to an ASIO driver? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Stanton Posted April 1 Share Posted April 1 backwards compatibilty. possibly a worse reason - they use the WDM/KS with an ASIO overlay (sort of like ASIO4ALL does using MME) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Fogle Posted April 1 Author Share Posted April 1 (edited) Glenn, do you mean backwards compatibility with older software programs that perhaps don't offer ASIO or WASPI compatibility? So your thinking the ASIO driver is likely a wrapper? If so, is there a way for someone to know? I have a utility programming that exposes the individual files in an executable file. I downloaded the Sterling Windows driver package and saw there are 32 and 64 bit WDM & ASIO drivers. The WDM files are about 82K in size while the ASIO files are about 304K. Does that tell of anything? Edited April 1 by Jim Fogle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Stanton Posted April 1 Share Posted April 1 it's possible that people still run their software on older systems. not sure if it's a wrapper or not, usually the ASIO driver will have a lot less latency than the WDM. of course, reaching out to their support folks could answer it more directly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwal³ Posted April 1 Share Posted April 1 18 minutes ago, Glenn Stanton said: like ASIO4ALL does using MME fake news! asio4all is a wdm wrapper and, fwiw, works a treat in lots of (other) daws 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Stanton Posted April 1 Share Posted April 1 thanks. i guess they upgraded to WDM. dunno. i only use ASIO4ALL when i need to handle some VI which only operate on even boundary buffer settings and cannot change it in my usual ASIO or WASAPI. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwal³ Posted April 1 Share Posted April 1 fwiw, here's the "about" info (and note the explicit "not interfering with other drivers" something that some users keep saying) Quote What started as a bedroom project in early 2003 – for the sole purpose to get ASIO support for the AC97 on my laptop – has become ASIO4ALL – the universal ASIO driver for WDM audio. Honestly, I did not expect this project to become as popular as it has become (but this popularity would not particularly disappoint me, either 😉 ASIO4ALL is a hardware independent low latency ASIO driver for WDM audio devices. It uses WDM Kernel-Streaming and sometimes even more sophisticated methods to achieve its objectives. In order to use ASIO4ALL, you need: A WDM-compatible operating system, (any Windows OS since Win98SE) A WDM-driver for your audio hardware, whereas all audio device drivers are WDM drivers, except sometimes under Win98SE/WinME. A couple minutes of your time and a little bit of luck. What ASIO4ALL will NOT do: Replace your existing sound card drivers or mess with them in any way. Install any kernel mode components that could potentially affect the stability of your system. “Overclock”, or otherwise operate your audio hardware in ways that could potentially be harmful and/or void your warranty, except, of course, in cases where the manufacturer of your hardware has specifically stated that the use of ASIO4ALL would void your warranty indeed. ASIO4ALL is free for the end user. Commercial exploitation (resale/bundling…), however, is restricted. /goodluck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwal³ Posted April 1 Share Posted April 1 Just now, Glenn Stanton said: thanks. i guess they upgraded to WDM. dunno. i only use ASIO4ALL when i need to handle some VI which only operate on even boundary buffer settings and cannot change it in my usual ASIO or WASAPI. it was always a wdm wrapper 🤷♀️ https://asio4all.org/about/ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Stanton Posted April 1 Share Posted April 1 thanks! i have no issues with ASIO4ALL. i've had it installed for years and never had a problem with it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwal³ Posted April 1 Share Posted April 1 1 minute ago, Glenn Stanton said: thanks! i have no issues with ASIO4ALL. i've had it installed for years and never had a problem with it. me too 👍 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Fogle Posted April 1 Author Share Posted April 1 Great conversation about ASIO4ALL. I can attest it works better than my onboard computer's ASIO driver. I've reached out to Sterling's e-mail support and will update when I receive a response from them. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Roseberry Posted April 2 Share Posted April 2 (edited) If your audio interface doesn't provide/expose a WDM audio port/s, you won't be able to hear Windows Sounds (YouTube, WebAudio, etc) thru your audio interface. The solution is to use something like Vincent Burrel's "Voice Meeter" (provides/exposes a WDM port to Windows - routes to your audio interface using an ASIO port): https://voicemeeter.com/ Voice Meeter is essentially the reverse of ASIO4ALL. I use an Antelope Orion Studio Synergy Core audio interface. Has nearly every feature one could want... except... it doesn't provide/expose a WDM port for Windows Sounds. Voice Meeter is an easy work-around. If you have something like a keyboard, guitar processer, etc that also acts as an audio interface... these often provide/expose a WDM port to Windows. ie: I use a Yamaha Montage M8x keyboard... which does exactly this. If you're achieving better audio performance using ASIO4ALL (vs the audio interface's stock ASIO driver), it's almost surely because of extra buffering in ASIO4ALL. Extra buffers can help if the machine is pushing performance limits... but it comes at the expense of higher latency. It's essentially no different than raising the buffer size of the stock ASIO driver. The best solution for a DAW has always been (and always will be) an audio interface with a rock-solid ASIO driver. You'll never achieve better low-latency performance with ASIO4ALL. Edited April 2 by Jim Roseberry 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwal³ Posted April 2 Share Posted April 2 2 hours ago, Jim Roseberry said: The best solution for a DAW has always been (and always will be) an audio interface with a rock-solid ASIO driver. You'll never achieve better low-latency performance with ASIO4ALL. true! but asio4all will give decent performance for onboard realtek, super handy for laptops and/or cheapskates 👍 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starship Krupa Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 On 4/2/2024 at 6:51 AM, pwal³ said: asio4all will give decent performance for onboard realtek, super handy for laptops and/or cheapskates IME, ASIOALL does no better than the officially Microsoft and Cakewalk supported WASAPI Exclusive with the Realtek hardware CODEC. YMMV. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Stanton Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 11 hours ago, Starship Krupa said: IME, ASIOALL does no better than the officially Microsoft and Cakewalk supported WASAPI Exclusive with the Realtek hardware CODEC. YMMV. agreed - exception - i use it only to handle synths that break or otherwise refuse to operate on non-even buffer sizes... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starship Krupa Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 3 hours ago, Glenn Stanton said: agreed - exception - i use it only to handle synths that break or otherwise refuse to operate on non-even buffer sizes... If I encountered such a plug-in, I would probably decide that it wasn't my interface driver that needed to be replaced....🤨 But then, I'm not much for "no other XXXX does what this one can do" when it comes to plug-ins. I have hundreds of the damn things. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Stanton Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 agreed. but a couple of them i use and they're excellent virtual representations of older synths that even a few of my other paid products cannot quite get "the sound". anyways, it's a non-issue for me either way... 🙂 it's there, it behaves well, so i leave it. the realtek stuff otoh... oo la la... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwal³ Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 Why are you using non-even buffer sizes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Stanton Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 1 hour ago, pwal³ said: Why are you using non-even buffer sizes? not me 🙂 the WASAPI shared and exclusive modes sometimes return non-even buffers (e.g . 441 samples) when using their returned scan values, (e.g. they're not on divisible by 8 boundaries) so i need a way to adjust to an even value so the ***** hard-coding of a synth can operate. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Vere Posted April 13 Share Posted April 13 Most good interfaces not only have an ASIO driver but they will need a Windows driver for playback from apps that can’t use ASIO. Another situation is when you want to use 2 or more different interfaces together to add more inputs to record a live band. You can’t use ASIO so you switch Cakewalk to WASAPI or WDM mode and now both interfaces can be chosen as inputs. In my collection of 6 interfaces not all of them support WASAPI because they are old. Then my brand new ones don’t support WDM mode. Only ASIO and WASAPI. The deal is it really doesn’t matter for live recording or editing but only ASIO reports the latency to your DAW so it can adjust the offset. Look in sync and caching in ASIO mode and note that it says use reported latency. Now switch to WASAPI or WDM and look. There’s nothing there. It’s guessing. All overdubs will be probably out of sync. ASIO is all about communicating system latency and fixing it for you. I’ve never managed to test if ASIO 4all behaves this way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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