Shitty High Latency Sound Card

Saw this in another thread but figured I'd call this out, since it is important and I'd like people to be able to find the info in a search.

Whether you are only using on-board sound (the sound chip that comes with your PC's motherboard) or a separate sound card such as a soundblaster, you can use these drivers to significantly reduce latency. I've used them on my laptops for the past few years to successfully reduce latency in applications such as Ableton and Reason.


http://www.asio4all.com/

Co-sign

yeah... definitely makes a difference... i've been using this driver with Ableton Live ever since i got my Mackie Onyx 1220i mixer... and no problems recording 8 tracks simultaneously via firewire on my laptop.

Does this top Mac "coreaudio?"

séance wrote:Does this top Mac "coreaudio?"

Well it's an ASIO wrapper for WDM driver, so it doesn't run on Mac. But to compare apples and oranges, on my dual boot Mac, ASIO4all runs a 128 sample buffer at just around 10ms total RTL. On the OS X side, Core Audio does the same at 15ms+.

Even if you have a dedicated USB or Firewire interface, there's a good chance ASIO4all will outperform the OEM ASIO driver that came with your interface. I've personally experienced this with 3 Presonus boxes, and an M-Audio interface. A majority of the manufacturers use an adaption of Ploytec's ASIO driver which has a huge hidden safety buffer (adds 64-128 samples to your buffer but it isn't reported), ASIO4alll circumvents this.

just dropping in to say -- ASIO4ALL works for laptops and stuff, but if you're using a pro soundcard that comes with native ASIO drivers, you should probably stick with those. probably. tascam, i'm looking in your **** direction. never again

high hat wrote:just dropping in to say -- ASIO4ALL works for laptops and stuff, but if you're using a pro soundcard that comes with native ASIO drivers, you should probably stick with those. probably. tascam, i'm looking in your **** direction. never again

what never again?

AntonPD wrote:

high hat wrote:just dropping in to say -- ASIO4ALL works for laptops and stuff, but if you're using a pro soundcard that comes with native ASIO drivers, you should probably stick with those. probably. tascam, i'm looking in your **** direction. never again

what never again?

Define "pro soundcard". You mentioned Tascam, that's exactly the kind of "pro-sumer" interface that usually benefits from using ASIO4all in place of it's native driver. I realize that ASIO4all was created primarily for getting low latency out of crappy in-built sound codecs like Realtek and Soundmax, but trust me, it can benefit most interfaces that retail for less than $500.

Metatron72 wrote:

AntonPD wrote:

high hat wrote:just dropping in to say -- ASIO4ALL works for laptops and stuff, but if you're using a pro soundcard that comes with native ASIO drivers, you should probably stick with those. probably. tascam, i'm looking in your **** direction. never again

what never again?

Define "pro soundcard". You mentioned Tascam, that's exactly the kind of "pro-sumer" interface that usually benefits from using ASIO4all in place of it's native driver. I realize that ASIO4all was created primarily for getting low latency out of crappy in-built sound codecs like Realtek and Soundmax, but trust me, it can benefit most interfaces that retail for less than $500.

you've answered your own question. back when i was in college and my wallet was much lighter i got a "professional" tascam audio interface and it wound up being a buggy piece of crap. the full line is: tascam audio interfaces, never again! no problem with their portastudios, though.

meanwhile, i've upgraded to a fireface 800, which has native ASIO drivers that wipe the floor with ASIO4ALL. but a $500 card it is not

Yeah, that was my point, until you cross over to that $800 range you probably won't get solid OEM ASIO driver performance. All my interfaces that benefited from ASIO4all retailed in the sub $500 range. I think a lot of people expect better performance out of these boxes (and should) but the poorly written drivers and hidden buffers always fight against you.

I got a MultiFace II/PCIe combo, so I feel on that man. Actually I recommend most anyone here on the forum to save and scrape and do whatever you have to get an RME, MOTU, or Apogee. Obviously a benefit from a sound quality standpoint, but MPC users are probably the most latency sensitive DAW users on earth. Running everything at 32 samples feels like your whole DAW and all your VST's are brand new.