Anybody using, have info about using the WASAPI driverwith X2a and Win 7 32 bit? I'm hearing it's supposed to be the best option for audio in Win 7 but, can't find out much about it. 
My Echo Audiofire 12 has a WASAPI driver and I'm just wondering if it's worth trying. 

Give it a try. Any driver is good if it performs well enough for what you want to do.

Yup.  If it works better than ASIO for you, then there is no reason not to use it.

Try them both and decide which works better for you.

Bob Bone

This explains what it is, they don't realy call it an Audio "driver"  

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-ca/library/windows/desktop/dd371455(v=vs.85).aspx 


In this article they explain further what it does, I'm thinking WASAPI does not replace ASIO, but WDM. My guess is if your using Vista, W7 or 8 your already using WASAPI. It appears to have replaced KS ( kernel steaming ) in the newer OS systems starting with Vista. 

So I guess it's just a new way of saying WDM driver??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_features_new_to_Windows_Vista

WASAPI is microsoft's beginning answer to ASIO.  they tried to get to the lowest level of control possible when dealing with an audio interface.  problem is most audio units are written to deal with asio drivers and built around that protocol, so wasapi can be flaky.  anytime in vista-win8 someone uses wdm mode, the wdm protocol is implemented as a software wrapper to talk to WASAPI, thereby inducing latency and sniggly nasty artifacts that too many layers of software can add into an audio stream.  

Thanks everyone!
swamptooth : I'm using an Echo Audiofire 12 which says it has a WASAPI driver. Currently I'm using WDM/KS just because that's what I used for years with my Sonar Producer 8.3. It always worked better for me than ASIO.
Of course, that was on Win XP and now I'm on Win 7. I'm just getting X2a all set up so, I'm trying to figure out what's gonna work best for me. (i5 processor / 8 gigs RAM)

swamptooth


WASAPI is microsoft's beginning answer to ASIO.  they tried to get to the lowest level of control possible when dealing with an audio interface.  problem is most audio units are written to deal with asio drivers and built around that protocol, so wasapi can be flaky.  anytime in vista-win8 someone uses wdm mode, the wdm protocol is implemented as a software wrapper to talk to WASAPI, thereby inducing latency and sniggly nasty artifacts that too many layers of software can add into an audio stream.  

Hey Swamptooth, you may be right about the techie side of WD/KMS & WASAPI.  However, I'm running WD/KMS with Win7 with MOTU PCIe-424 devices and WD/KMS is the only way I can get the latency down to 64 without stuttering and clicks & pops.  ASIO came in second at 256 and WASAPI third at 1024.   Perhaps, at least in the case of the MOTU drivers, WASAPI is some kind of wrapper around the WD/KMS drivers?  Don't know (or care honestly) much about Microsoft's latest junk....err...I mean technology, but I'm definitely getting the best results with WD/KMS in Sonar under Win7.

a lot of that can be system dependent, gd.  the pcie-424 ships with wdm/ks drivers for windows and as such - because they were specifically written for the card in question - may work well.  i would gather that if they haven't updated their software for wasapi, they probably won't.  i would try asio with the following qualifiers:  in sonar's preferences/playback and recording uncheck "always open all devices" and try changing the "usehardwaresampleposition" setting - these can be killers if your asio drivers are not top-notch.  


for wasapi:
- always work in 48 or 96khz (wasapi plays sometimes haphazardly at 44.1) because it will offload some of the processing your cpu will be doing to the audio interface.  i can run 57 audio tracks with prochannel and automated eq and fx parameters without pops and clicks on my realtek audio chip while riding the bus using my laptop's battery power in wasapi mode at 144 samples.    
- in preferences/configuration file you might need to see which values of "usewdmdmaforwasapi" work better on your system.  
- also, in config file, set "minimizedriverstatechanges" to 3 and "threadschedulingmodel" to 2, (typically) set usehardwaresampleposition to false and dropoutmsec to around 500.  
- if using wasapi, always double-check that prefs/audio/sync and caching/record latency adjustment "device" is your current device.  never install asio4all if you'll be using asio mode because 4all hijacks that field and will not let you change it to your interface's drivers.  you can select the interface-native drivers but if you close prefs and reopen again you'll see that asio4all is still selected.  


rod - i don't know if you have any native-instruments products, but if you open any of their audio preferences you will only see options for asio or wasapi.  no wdm, no mme.  i use wasapi when i'm on a bus or a plane and asio when i'm back at the ranch.  n-i and steinberg have been very good about future-proofing their products and they work brilliantly.  and seeing that you run in 32-bit mode i would really urge you to do all recording or live work in 48 or 96khz because 44.1 is more cpu-intensive.  


i've had good experience with wasapi, though it took tweaking those params in sonar to make it work ok.  not a hitch at all running any n-i stuff in wasapi shared mode - even whilst watching videos on youtube. :D

a lot of that can be system dependent, gd.  the pcie-424 ships with wdm/ks drivers for windows and as such - because they were specifically written for the card in question - may work well.  i would gather that if they haven't updated their software for wasapi

Actually, they're pretty current.  Have a switch to use WASAPI or WDM mode (ASIO active with either setting).

 in sonar's preferences/playback and recording uncheck "always open all devices" and try changing the "usehardwaresampleposition" setting

Didn't know what these settings did.  I'll check it out.


Also, thanks for the WASAPI tips.  I'll retry my settings.  I would always just use ASIO but I've been using quite a few soft synths and really wanted to capture performances with the soft synths rather than use a similar hardware synth sound for recording as well as trying to use some of these amp-sims realtime and have been trying to squeeze that latency number down as much as possible.

Thanks again for the tips.