Which works better for Sonar WDM or ASIO?

Which works better for Sonar WDM or ASIO? and what's the differnce?

Like Richard says, with the caveat that all other things being equal, personally I use WDM for a number of reasons:

1. I can adjust latency settingsetc from the Sonar Options->Audio db
2. It seems to work better for me with two or more programs open at once (eg Sonar and Adobe Audition). I'm very happy to concede however that my inability to do this so well with ASIO might well be due to my own stupidity ... but I still prefer the easier option!
3. It supports multiple sound cards ... again, maybe this is possible with ASIO, but for a renowned technophobe like me, well I haven't figured it out. Happily I don't need to because of WDM.

Best,
Geoff

ORIGINAL: tommyp

Which works better for Sonar WDM or ASIO? and what's the differnce?

I think its a matter of your set up and hardware that your useing. Some set ups and hard ware work better with asio while others work better with WDM --- try both of them and experiment too see which one works best with your system. PC's are like that. You have to find what works best with your set up....... wdm may be great for one persons machine and not with anothers and visa versa with asio.....

I should chime in that with my set up with wdm drivers work like crap -- no matter what... I can't get ride of drop outs and crack and pops no matter the buffer size or latancy, -- asio runs very smooth and I have very very few problems --- unless I push my PC above its limits....some one else it may be the opposite --- any minute someone will chime in and say wdm is the way to go -- just watch

I have two cards one works better with one, one with the other, I using wdm now, since I changed computer, but it used to work better with asio on my old computer, Im using the Tascam FW1884 with wdm, the other is a luna II its not installed but I used asio for it, on the old computer the Tascam worked better with Asio

I can't use ASIO on my Delta 44 at 24 bit - I have posted a bunch in the past regarding this - ASIO is always my choice for tracking - WDM or ASIO is fine in post - IMHO

-D

on my system, ASIO has generally provided better latencies....... but multiple interface support or WDM is a must...

so being that I need the multi cards, WDM is better. If I couldn't live with the higher latencies, ASIO would be better.

With an Apogee Rosetta 800 using their Firewire interface, the ASIO drivers worked very well - WDM was not very good (latency-wise). I just added an RME Fireface 800 (The Rosetta goes into the RME via lightpipe), and the RME ASIO drivers were just about useless, but the WDM drivers work VERY VERY well. (can I add another VERY to that ?) So go figure ? This is on the same system, but note, the Apogee drivers were NOT removed. I also elected to delete the AUD.INI file, etc. etc. to clean out any crap that might have built up in there.

Answer to question - It obviously depends !

ORIGINAL: Mooch4056

I should chime in that with my set up with wdm drivers work like crap -- no matter what... I can't get ride of drop outs and crack and pops no matter the buffer size or latancy, -- asio runs very smooth and I have very very few problems --- unless I push my PC above its limits....some one else it may be the opposite --- any minute someone will chime in and say wdm is the way to go -- just watch

Here I am.
Seriously though it's the exact opposite for me.

Mike

I have found that it can vary by system and by driver both. Try both. I have generally had better results with WDM with my M-Audio devices, but a couple of times ASIO has proved more stable--my laptop started out with WDM best for my FW410 and, over time (same drivers), changed its mind!

I have been using RME drivers since like 2000 or so without a hiccup. There was a while that they had a special Sonar patch, I think. But that was like 5 years ago.

I think you pondered that way too long