POLL: Which Driver Mode do you use? WDM/KS or ASIO?

Hey Brent,

I have been using WDM/KS driver without a hitch for the past four years.  Out of the blue - last week when I fired up my system, all of the sound was garbled and sluggish.  I switched over to the ASIO driver and the problem was solved.

I will be building a new Core i7 64-bit Windows 7 system soon.  How do you like yours?

Take care.

I'm really surprised people even begin to record without a reasonable understanding of their soundcards, drivers, buffers, etc. Niether A1MixMan nor Mojo3432 state what soundcard or interface they're using, which is very important when discussing topics such as this. I would never use the WDM/KS drivers instead of the ASIO drivers for my Motu rig.

Hey Mattr, I'm using a Delta 1010 soundcard.
 
And I do alot of reading, and I generally hear (read) that you should use ASIO. But while READING the Sonar help file it says that I should try WDM first. See my confusion? Hence the reason for my POLL.
 
So why would you NEVER use WDM?
 
Quote from the Sonar Help File:
WDM/KS drivers are the latest available and typically have very low latency. MME is an older driver type and has higher latencies. ASIO drivers also offer lower latency. Your hardware may have all three options. If so, you should try WDM first.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar06/articles/pcnotes.htm
 
There is some good info at the bottom of that link page.
 
Just a guess - Cake probably recommends starting with Windows audio drivers because many of their users are using garden variety soundblasters or whatever was installed on their laptops. You won't find Magix or Steinberg making recommendations like that. I don't think there is a lot of love lost in the European community for anything Microsoft.
 
But I haven't kept on top of this. Maybe ASIO has been eclipsed by something better.

Something more that I dug up.
 
Quote:
 
In principle, WDM/KS is just as good as ASIO, but it has to be a WDM driver to work properly. E-mu, for instance, don't supply a WDM driver, it's an ASIO driver with some limited WDM support added on top, so don't be surprised if ASIO is the only way to get good performance with E-mu interfaces. Many interfaces have WDM drivers with ASIO, the WDM driver spec allows other program interface standards to be added on without limitations. "ASIO4ALL", a free program that adds ASIO to a WDM only driver, uses KS to get in. Using ASIO4ALL is therefore just the same as using WDM/KS.

The important thing with WDM/KS is the "KS" bit - Kernal Streaming - which allows a program like Sonar to get fast access to the interface - which is what ASIO also does. But, ASIO is NOT a native Windows program interface, it's an extra standard from Steinberg. WDM is Windows native and even an on-board soundchip should support KS well enough.

Here's some Pros for WDM/KS...
The host can adjust the latency - you don't have to go into the driver control panel.
Different WDM drivers from different makes of interfaces can be used to get more channels. With ASIO, only one driver can be used at a time.
Low latency is available even with cheap sound hardware that has no ASIO driver.

And the Cons...
WDM/KS cannot work if something else is already using the WDM driver - Some Mediaplayers and Codecs keep the driver in use even when they are not open! This is a common occurence, especially with the MediaPlayer on XP install discs.
Once Kernal Streaming is in use, nothing else can use the WDM driver. Sonar has an option to release the driver when it's not running so you can temporarily use some other audio program that needs the audio hardware without first closing Sonar.

So, when all is well, WDM/KS works very well, but when it doesn't, ASIO can bypass the problem, even when the ASIO is provided by an included ASIO support on a WDM driver. The only time ASIO might not get you out of trouble is if you rely on ASIO4ALL, because that must contend with the same issues that Sonars WDM/KS has.

I use ASIO... started out using WDM (don't recall why) but when I encountered issues when using Mediaplayer and iTunes on my DAW, I switched to ASIO and that resolved everything.

ASIO with my Creamware interface.

Michael Five,
 
That's funny that you mention RME audio.
 
Here's a quote from an article interviewing Matthias Carstens from RME Audio Germany
 
Quote:
 
"Additionally many users have a wrong view on WDM KS. At this time it does NOT give better performance than ASIO. And it will NOT give lower latencies, because ASIO too is already working at the border built up by Microsoft, the 1 ms interrupt latency. As long as Microsoft doesn't change this basic behaviour of Windows, we will not see better performance at many tracks and low latency. Doing a multi-track project including effects and Plug-Ins will require at least 6 ms latency for reliable operation, be it WDM or ASIO as driver standard "

Reread my post. I didn't say you should never use WDM as a general statement... I said that I would never use WDM for my particular setup.

That is what I was trying to get at - you should know your system well before you start recording, not just accept the default settings and hope for the best! Its not uncommon to spend many hours following the installation of a new soundcard getting to know how it behaves, tweaking and optimising your system, etc - and that's not just the settings in Sonar: some driver versions may give you better performance than others; you may have to sort out conflicts with other hardware... I had to roll back my firewire chipset drivers and use an older version of the Motu drivers in order to get the best performance from my interfaces. You should have a good idea of what size buffers you can comfortably run on for different loads / track counts, etc, and even be changing settings often to give you and optimal setup for the project you're running.

For example, if I'm mixing a very large project I'll often have to nudge my ASIO buffers up a bit, but there's no point leaving them high once that project is done. Equally, if I want to do some DI guitar overdubs on that large project, lets say, and need a low roundtrip latency for monitoring through an amp-modelling plugin, I'll have to tweak settings a bit more to achieve the lowest possible latency whilst retaining stability (though in this case it may be necessary to freeze tracks or synths, etc).

A1MixMan


Thanks Larry. Although that article is 3 1/2 years old, it does give some good advice. But also adds to the confusion.
 
Quote:
 
"If your application offers both ASIO and WDM/KS driver options, the final choice is best made after practical tests, as relative performance may depend on the quality of each driver and may vary between manufacturers and models. I've found similar performance from both driver options with most review interfaces, although occasionally one driver format will manage lower latency than the other, or have a lower processor overhead. For instance, some Echo interface users running Sonar find that WDM/KS works better than ASIO."

 
That advice is still sound today as it was 3 1/2 years ago.  You need to test your interface's drivers for yourself and find out which one works best in your system.  This poll is very misleading because it leads people into the believe that a certain driver must be used when such or such Audio Interface is used, and this is just wrong!  I own an RME FF400 and, as you have read, RME recommends using ASIO drivers for this interface yet there was someone in the forum who said he got better performance using WDM/KS.  Similar contradictions have surfaced in this forum regarding other audio interfaces, so don't take someone's word for granted.  Try it yourself and see which one's best for you.
 
 
HTH

In my previous Windows 32 bit environments (Win 95 - Win XP) it was ALWAYS WDM drivers that worked the best for me but now that I'm using Win 7 (64) I'm finding that ASIO is working better for me. 

So, it is true that it is a trial and error thing.

 
Same as Kev999 here - my TonePort UX2 runs perfectly with the ASIO drivers.
 
 
 
 
 
  
 

Funny thing here--I used to have better results with WDM for years, but recently--and before Win 7 or 64-bit--I find myself switching between the two as needed (fortunately this is easy to do in Sonar 8.x). Different softsynths (or combinations thereof); seem to respond better in WDM (or ASIO), or maybe just switching modes"re-sets" the drivers (maybe not the right technical term). Hey, whatever works.

A1MixMan--one may be able to use different makes of interface simultaneously in WDM mode in theory, but I haven't found it to work in practice. Unless the interfaces involved use the same drivers, there's usually some weird behavior that comes up.
Also, I've never found that onboard soundchips fared as well under WDM/KS in Sonar as pro (or even "pro-sumer") interfaces. Even in 64-bit, Sonar does not want to see my onboard "HD audio" as being capable of 24-bit, even though Windows does (well, I'll see how the RTM install goes, but I doubt it will be different).
Of course, that's just my experience. Listen to Jim for the overall view...

I use Terratecews88d cards. They don't like WDM at all, so I run ASIO.

With my FirePod I used ASIO.

With my new Konnect 48 I'm using WDM since it seems to offer lower latencies but I'm not convinced.

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