WASAPI or ASIO4ALL: What to use if no ASIO drivers available?

There was another thread that recently seemed to off topic when ASIO4ALL was mentioned.
 
Started this thread here to continue discussing the pros/cons of using either one with Sonar.
 
Original discussion is here:
Projects Corrupting
http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/3581648

Hi. I have found that on my laptop, WASAPI Exclusive mode is the best for this PC, and works better that ASIO4ALL did.
It might be down to the updates to WASAPI drivers that came some time ago.
All the best.

I recently found another rogue ASIO driver on my system.  A gift from Steinberg, apparently! 
 
"Generic Lower Latency ASIO Driver 64bit Will Be Installed"
https://www.steinberg.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=250&t=107480
 
I had been testing WASAPI, so I had my regular external interface (with ASIO) shut off, and was using the integrated audio on my PC.
 
In the meantime, and totally unrelated to the audio test, I installed the trial version of Cubase 9 Elements.  Apparently it stuck this generic ASIO thingy on here by default.
 
I didn't pay much attention to that until I recently went to hookup my external audio interface again, using the dedicated ASIO driver.
 
Sonar refused to allow me to configure my real ASIO driver again until I did two things:
 
1. Uninstall the Steinberg driver.
2. Delete the "aud.ini" file from Sonar, and let it rebuild my audio settings. 
 
Wow!!!
 
The bottom line is that you really should clean house if you plan to install a real ASIO driver for your audio interface!!!

The Laptop I'm using WASAPI on is Windows 7.  I guess on a slow day I could try installing ASIO4all and see if it works. Id be curious to try the loopback test. 
 
That's interesting about the Stienberg driver. I have Wave Lab7 and Cubase 7LE on my DAW and I don't believe that has ever happened. I guess I could take a look, but I've certainly never had issues with drivers and I swap out between the Tascam and the Scarlett from time to time.
 I do have a Stienberg ASIO driver on my live recording laptop as I was in a band and we bought a Yamaha mixer with stereo USB. It worked great along side my Tascam us1641 in WDM mode I had 16 channels available and recorded a couple of shows without issue. 

chuckebaby
 
are you a "Loyal" Sonar ASIO4ALL user ?

LOL!!!

Cactus Music
And the winner is--------Asio4all! 
 
OK,   I installed ASIO4all to this laptop I use at work and have been running Home Studio under WASAPI exclusive for a few months. 
So here you go, Asio4all wins the loopback test. It is very close to right on which boils down to you could use it for overdubing. 
I think the reason it works is it activates the offset controls and reports the latency properly. In all other modes there is no offset adjustment available. I am going to give it a run and see how it goes over the next few weeks. I noted what Sonar was reporting in each mode for latency. Most where all 10 ms which was what the buffer showed. Only Asio4all showed the RTL which was 30 ms. So there you go all you nay-sayers ( me sort of included) 
 

Hey Johnny, that sure is an interesting performance test.  
 
But I will add that I installed Platinum and most of my soft synths on my cheap Acer laptop with ASIO4ALL, and they run great.  I can stack em up until I run out of RAM (only 4GB) and they run fine.  But this laptop is really just a portable office, so I'm not trying to make a DAW out of it or anything.  I just wanted to see if I could play with my toys on it.
 
I must have gotten lucky with this laptop, because it passes LatencyMon with flying colors, even though it's only got a mobile dual core 4th gen i5 CPU and a slow 5400rpm HDD.

kitekrazy1
WASAPI vs. ASIO4ALL now if death were an option..........

So I'm guessing that reply marks you in the knee-jerk section.

Despite the so called common practice is to dissuade people from using ASIO4ALL, under the right circumstance it is a very good option.
From one of the Sonar data collection reports published in the ezine s for a while I think onboard audio and ASIO4ALL were the most commonly used audio device and driver combination. If I can find it I'll come back to this post and update with a link.

It was in the 2016 August ezine. What was the most popular audio output? ASIO4ALL. Who'd a thunk it?

abacab

Cactus Music
And the winner is--------Asio4all! 
 
OK,   I installed ASIO4all to this laptop I use at work and have been running Home Studio under WASAPI exclusive for a few months. 
So here you go, Asio4all wins the loopback test. It is very close to right on which boils down to you could use it for overdubing. 
I think the reason it works is it activates the offset controls and reports the latency properly. In all other modes there is no offset adjustment available. I am going to give it a run and see how it goes over the next few weeks. I noted what Sonar was reporting in each mode for latency. Most where all 10 ms which was what the buffer showed. Only Asio4all showed the RTL which was 30 ms. So there you go all you nay-sayers ( me sort of included) 
 

Hey Johnny, that sure is an interesting performance test.  
 
But I will add that I installed Platinum and most of my soft synths on my cheap Acer laptop with ASIO4ALL, and they run great.  I can stack em up until I run out of RAM (only 4GB) and they run fine.  But this laptop is really just a portable office, so I'm not trying to make a DAW out of it or anything.  I just wanted to see if I could play with my toys on it.
 
I must have gotten lucky with this laptop, because it passes LatencyMon with flying colors, even though it's only got a mobile dual core 4th gen i5 CPU and a slow 5400rpm HDD.

sounds like my lappy, though i have 8 gig of ram

Well I own 4 audio interfaces,, having the option of just working on a laptop while away from home has always been a popular activity for even serious users. 
I'm a huge pusher of " The audio interface is the heart of a DAW system" anybody whining about audio issues will get that from me every time.  My favourite line was --- You paid $500 for a DAW and your using a $10 audio chip?  
I think a lot of the people attempting recording sans audio interface are struggling with money and using pirated versions. Anytime I see a new user and they are using X series I'll assume this. Those versions are all easily pirated. 
 
But if you find your self away from your main DAW with a laptop and are just working with midi files having on board certainly seems to be a good option. But I think there are laptops that this would not work as smoothly on. You do get lucky. 

mudgel
Since the availability of this great WASAPI driver format I often don't turn on my studio system and run on my $10 onboard chip through my $15 desktop speakers. It's surprisingly OK for non critical listening. Also great for comparative listening.

same here, although using asio4all rather than wasaspi