Wasapi vs asio drivers?

if the wasapi drivers work well for you, then you should use them :)

There are three reasons people tend to recommend ASIO drivers:
 
1) It is in nearly every case a guaranteed bit perfect delivery. No resampling or anything like that. That is not guaranteed to the same extent in other driver models necessarily
 
2) Many pro cards have good ASIO drivers and bad WDM drivers. They focus on ASIO since that's what most pro software likes and the WDM drivers are an afterthought. So you get things like MOTU interfaces that can only do one stereo pair via WDM, but all I/O via ASIO.
 
3) Because that's what most pro software uses so they just assume that's what you have to use. The "that's what we've always used because that's what we've always used," thing.
 
 
However that doesn't mean that YOUR card has better ASIO drivers. If it doesn't WASAPI or WDM/KS may well be a better option. For a really well designed card, like a RME, it won't matter what you choose all drivers are equally good and it'll work flawlessly in either mode. For a lot of cards, there is one that works better than the other, and for many consumer cards, ASIO just isn't an option.
 
They are just different ways of talking to the card, so you use the one that is right.

WASPI I guess must be even yet different than WDM mode ,,right?  I've never encountered it as an option.
WDM mode is an interesting item. 
When I did loopback testing my Tascam performed poorly, my Scarlett didn't even support it and and this old PCI card I have,   CARD DELUXE http://www.digitalaudio.com/support/
 performed equally well in both ASIO and WDM modes. That's because the manufacturer wrote both drivers. 
Not all audio interfaces supply the WDM drivers it would seem. 
Generally they are not as good as ASIO but it might be a matter of who wrote them. 
 

 

tenfoot

Cactus Music
Not all audio interfaces supply the WDM drivers it would seem. 
Generally they are not as good as ASIO but it might be a matter of who wrote them. 

I think you are right about that Johnny. The wasapi drivers are certainly impressing me on the X32, but to be honest I suspect that is only because the asio drivers are, well, let's just say a bit ordinary!

you could hop over to the X32 forum and post the question there as this is independent of DAW software used
 
just make sure you come back here and tell us what you learned cause I got 2 of these X32s in use as well ... ASIO what else? quoting George C. here ;-)

tenfoot
How did your dmx adventures go?

still on my list to pursue. as nights get longer and colder on this side of the planet, I'm hoping to find some time to mess with new toys ;-)

The #1 reason most choose and recommend ASIO: habit. Inertia.
 
For a long time, ASIO was a safe bet (still is) but that was before Microsoft finally got serious about audio and gave us an improved WASAPI in Windows 10. WASAPI can now rival ASIO for low-latency performance.
 
ASIO still has a potential edge because it's written for a specific device, and can therefore be tailored to the hardware in a way that a generic driver like WASAPI cannot. Because the interface manufacturer probably wrote the driver, you can count on it working with that interface. There have been reports of interfaces that just don't like WASAPI, but those are rare. Of course, not all ASIO drivers are created equal.
 
Both ASIO and WASAPI bypass the unnecessary Windows overhead (e.g. Windows mixer, "sound enhancements"), and both will sound the same. If a detectable difference exists, it will be in efficiency - as indicated by the ability to work reliably with small buffers.
 
Pull up your most CPU-intensive project (as opposed to one that challenges your disk drives more than the CPU) and determine the lowest buffer size that your computer can reliably play back without dropouts. Then do the same for the other driver (bear in mind that switching drivers may also change the default buffer size, so you have to verify that you're comparing apples & apples). If both are able to handle the lowest buffer size, then flip a coin to choose your driver.

bitflipper
The #1 reason most choose and recommend ASIO: habit. Inertia.
 
For a long time, ASIO was a safe bet (still is) but that was before Microsoft finally got serious about audio and gave us an improved WASAPI in Windows 10. WASAPI can now rival ASIO for low-latency performance.
 
ASIO still has a potential edge because it's written for a specific device, and can therefore be tailored to the hardware in a way that a generic driver like WASAPI cannot. Because the interface manufacturer probably wrote the driver, you can count on it working with that interface. There have been reports of interfaces that just don't like WASAPI, but those are rare. Of course, not all ASIO drivers are created equal.
 
Both ASIO and WASAPI bypass the unnecessary Windows overhead (e.g. Windows mixer, "sound enhancements"), and both will sound the same. If a detectable difference exists, it will be in efficiency - as indicated by the ability to work reliably with small buffers.
 
Pull up your most CPU-intensive project (as opposed to one that challenges your disk drives more than the CPU) and determine the lowest buffer size that your computer can reliably play back without dropouts. Then do the same for the other driver (bear in mind that switching drivers may also change the default buffer size, so you have to verify that you're comparing apples & apples). If both are able to handle the lowest buffer size, then flip a coin to choose your driver.

Thanks for chiming in Bitflipper - your post is music to my ears on this late night having spent the day trying to disbelieve the seemingly irrefutable!
 
The X32's that I have are just for live performance, so reliability of playback (particularly in an active playlist where 2 projects load together) is my main concern rather than latency, but I understand that the latter is a good measure of efficiency. There is no doubt in my mind that the wasapi driver performs better under both windows 10 and, surprisingly, windows 7 with regard to playlist playback. I also found that whilst running the playlist with some decent size arrangements (30ish tracks plus lots of fx) the windows 10 wasapi driver had a buffer of only 264 samples. That is disturbingly close to the performance I get from my RME UFX under the same conditions! The ASIO driver, on the other hand,  was set to 2048 samples, and still the playlist would glitch -  taking the buffer size up or down seemed to make little difference. It's probably safe to say that this particular asio driver has some issues!
 
For whatever reason, the X32 wasapi driver seems far superior in this circumstance. I certainly feel confident in running with it. I am now convinced that not all non-asio drivers are the enemy:)
 
Thanks everyone for your help and input!