EMU 1212m/1616m on Windows 7 - The Thread to End All Other EMU Threads!

[Mindraiderz]

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^^^ Latest driver, as posted above:

http://www.emu.com/index.php/component/ ... edasdriver (http://www.emu.com/index.php/component/phocadownload/file/4-pciedasdriver)

Did anyone report that it works for PCI as well as PCI-e?

Also, is anyone using their SPDIF I/O on their 1212m/1616m? Anyone going into AES/EBU?

Thanks!

This links to the PciE drivers. I have an pci 1616m which is not supported according to the specifications.

Don't feel like trying since the old drivers work for me.

[1616m]

Heelo friends,
I have 1212m PCI (first version) that still serves me OK for music playback. I wouldn't replace it. I have used it on Windows XP 32 and 64bit, Vista, 7 32 and 64bit without problems at all. I have also used it on the many builds of Insider Previews od Windows 10 (like beta tester) for almost a year. The card was working also very good without problems at all!
But, now, that I installed final version of Windows 10 Home 64bit, there is a problem with the card, or, should I better say with Windows. So, the problem is that ONLY the 48khz sample rate gives sound. 44.1, 88,2, 96, 172 and 192khz does not work. I know how to adjust the sessions, in PatchMixDSP and also in Windows Control Panel, I learned it over the years
So, I tried all driver/patchmix versions available to me but with no luck. Always the same!
The card itself is OK, I would say, because, if I load a Signal Generator insert on ANY sample rate, the card plays the sound correctly. The problem is with the Windows sounds, on the WAVE strip, I mean: Foobar, WMP, Internet Explorer or any other sound. Anyone have this problem????
To add, ASIO works OK for music listening trough Foobar2k, but it does not output any of the windows sounds, IE, WMP....which is a problem for me.
To sum it up, I would say that the Windows does not output signal on the mentioned sample rates to the card, if it could be said that way

Thanks for any opinions!

Same problem here with 1616m + Win10Pro 64bit.
I asked to Yamaha, and they said like "It's because of the WDM driver(s). There are a lot of problem for WDM drivers with Win10"

[symphpower]

I must ad my experience.
my hardware : mother board asus p5K SE/EPU. proc: core 2 quad Q6600. 4 Gb ram
Emu 1212 PCI and Emu microdock 1616M
SONAR X3 - win 7 pro 64

Since I had win 7 pr 64 on my computer, the soundcard never worked really flasslessly. POP AND CRACKS all the time, especially when the computer was cold. and difficulties for the microdock to be recognized. I had to start it several times before the blue light came.

then after reading this forum I decided to make it clear.

I've changed the pci port for the one above. Then checked the irq conflicts. I saw My pci port shared the same irq with the network material, the video card and the IDE bus. quite a lot I thought.

So I uninstall may card. turned OFF the network and IDE controller within the bios (no more CD rom but never mind, no more cable network, but no problem with wifi card so...) .

Then I made a new install of the card with the latest drivers found. those of 2014 wich were announced to work only with PCIe card... still It worked for me.

FLAWLESSLY. No more cracks and pops. The sound is so clear that I though I had changed my sound card.
So after reading and experiencing, In my opinion problems with this sound card are in relation with the motherboard you use.

now my sound card has more than 10 years, and really works fine. the quality of the card is worth spending time trying to fix problems.

[robotmonkey]

In my opinion problems with this sound card are in relation with the motherboard you use.

It's generally true of any PCI soundcard. On some motherboards the PCI shares data lanes with PCIe and this causes conflicts especially with low latency audio cards. Some of the early Intel 67 chipsets were notorious because of that and never worked for audio properly. The best motherboards are those which have two separate controllers for PCIe as then you can be sure there is enough of data lanes for all the PCI and PCIe slots. Asrock motherboards have been very good in that regard.

[eq1]

In case any 1616m user hasn't noticed, there's a relatively new driver (December 2014) that is not in the Beta status anymore:
http://www.emu.com/index.php/component/ ... edasdriver
In fact, it's the successor to the previous Beta 2_30_00 driver. Since the file size differs slightly from the mentioned Beta driver, there may even have been minor adaptions within the driver....

fyi, I was curious about this 'newer' driver and looked into it a bit - and in the process found what looks like some really weird and bad labeling and dating on EMU's part. From what I can tell by looking at all the file dates and sizes of the files inside the various downloadable .exes, the file you download from the link above is the same file that you can download at another of EMU's product pages. The filename is also 2_30_00 but the date there is July 14, 2011. Here's a link to that other download page with a few different files; it's where I got my drivers:
http://support.creative.com/downloads/w ... -1#type_-1

What's confusing is that at that page, the 'Beta' file is dated '8 Aug 2012' - so it looks like it's an update to the 2_30_00 file above it, dated 2011. But if you look at the file dates of the files inside the 'Beta' executable, they're all like 2010, older than the files in the 2_30_00 executable, which are mostly 2011...

So, to me it looks like '2_30_00_Beta' file/driver is actually older than 2_30_00 - which makes sense were it not for the release dates listed on the website - and the file/driver supposedly from december 2014 in the quoted passage above is just the same 2_30_00 from 2011. Yet it does look like it is the successor to the Beta file... I'm just going by the dates of the files inside the packages. I think I have the Beta running right now, though I've used both Beta and regular 2_30_00. I never used either a lot so can't really comment on how well they work or not. I run Windows 7 x64, i7, and as I recall they both seem to work fine, with a 1616M PCIe setup...

edit: Well, based on what I found with the file dates I decided to re-install the drivers with the 2_30_00 file rather than the 'Beta' file. And the info splash screen lists the driver version as 6.00.01.1245. The 'Beta' file driver version is 1246. 1246 comes after 1245 - so you'd think the beta version is newer, wouldn't you?. I have no clue at this point...

[CPUCam]

Short version: if you are getting lock-ups try the v2.3 beta driver package.

I had my EMU 1212M PCIe running on Windows XP, then 8.1, and then 10 (32-bit) but yesterday I upgraded to a quadcore CPU and things went pear-shaped. I think I got things working again so here are my preliminary observations.

Motherboard: ASUS M2N-E (not SLI) BIOS 5001 beta
CPU: AMD Phenom 9850 quadcore
1212M PCIe on 4x slot
Radeon HD 3650 PCIe on 16x slot
MSI TV Tuner on a regular PCI slot
Ethernet card on a regular PCI slot (my onboard Ethernet died)
UAD 2 Solo PCIe on 1x slot
450W PSU
4 SATA harddrives
Windows 10
EMU driver version 2.3 beta version

I just upgraded to the Phenom 9850 quadcore, and my system began locking up any time I used audio (WDM - i.e. playing mp3s, videos...). At first I was getting stuttering on mp3s and the stuttering would stop when I moved the mouse so I figured there were IRQ conflicts. I uninstalled then reinstalled the version 2.3 "stable" drivers but that made things worse. My system began freezing and I was getting lock-ups after about 10 seconds of playing audio.

I removed the UAD 2 card but that didn't help. I removed the Ethernet card because it was showing as being on the same IRQ as the EMU - didn't help. I moved the EMU to the 1x PCIe slot and it got assigned a different IRQ but was still freezing. I fiddled with my BIOS IRQ settings and other power settings but the system was still freezing after a few seconds of playing audio.

I decided it was a power supply issue (450w is not really enough for all my cards and harddrives according to every calculator and sane person out there) so I ordered a new PSU and gave up...

I scrolled back through this post to see if I had missed something and saw RexXx's post on the very first page caught my eye - he mentioned using the version 2.3 *beta* driver because there can be issues with BSOD and lock-ups on quadcores. hmmm.

The description of the beta driver from the emu site says:
•Fixed an issue on Quadcore and I7 computers using Windows Vista or Windows 7 where the PC would lock up requiring a reboot when using the WDM driver.
•Improved performance when IRQ conflicts are present.

I uninstalled the V2.3 "normal' driver (as RexXx called it) and installed the v2.3 beta driver package (in the release notes it says the driver release date was February 2010), and it seems to have fixed things. I tested it on mp3s, video, and my TV tuner. I surfed the net a bunch while the mp3s were playing to give the network card a workout while the EMU was in use. No stuttering or lock-ups or freezing whatsoever.

BTW the EMU and my network card are sharing IRQ 16. I'm letting Windows do the IRQ assignments (I can let the M2N-e set the IRQs but it still come up with shared IRQs).

I haven't tested this with ASIO yet but I will post back when I do.

[Mister Natural]

CAM

Plz lemmee know how WIN10 works for you as I have (obvious) the same EMU card and the same CPU that you just upgraded to. BTW, what host are you using ?
I currently run WIN7 64 bit with LIVE9 @ 32bits very successfully

[planetearth]

Short version: if you are getting lock-ups try the v2.3 beta driver package.

I had my EMU 1212M PCIe running on Windows XP, then 8.1, and then 10 (32-bit) but yesterday I upgraded to a quadcore CPU and things went pear-shaped. I think I got things working again so here are my preliminary observations.

...

I uninstalled the V2.3 "normal' driver (as RexXx called it) and installed the v2.3 beta driver package (in the release notes it says the driver release date was February 2010), and it seems to have fixed things. I tested it on mp3s, video, and my TV tuner. I surfed the net a bunch while the mp3s were playing to give the network card a workout while the EMU was in use. No stuttering or lock-ups or freezing whatsoever.

BTW the EMU and my network card are sharing IRQ 16. I'm letting Windows do the IRQ assignments (I can let the M2N-e set the IRQs but it still come up with shared IRQs).

I haven't tested this with ASIO yet but I will post back when I do.

Just out of curiosity, why are you using WDM instead of ASIO? I've always had better results with ASIO on my E-MU card than with WDM.

Thanks!

Steve

[CPUCam]

Mister Natural: If by host you mean DAW, I was using Cakewalk SONAR but I haven't reinstalled it yet because I'm going to upgrade it. I was using SONAR 7.

The EMU 1212M has been working fine under Windows 8.1 and then Windows 10, but I so far I've only used it for standard Windows stuff - watching videos, playing mp3s, streaming internet radio, using my TV tuner. The problems began when I upgraded from a dual-core to a quad-core CPU, but the v2.3 beta drivers fixed/stopped the lockups and I haven't had any problems since. I still haven't tried SONAR or ASIO.
Note: I'm on Windows 10 32-bit, not 64-bit. I was afraid of other drivers not being available for 64-bit (like for my TV tuner) so I haven't switched to 64-bit yet. One thing at a time...

Steve (planetearth): I agree r.e. ASIO! I use ASIO in my DAW but I haven't re-installed my DAW yet. I sort of assumed that Windows is using WDM and not ASIO for everyday applications outside of my DAW. When I look in the device manager it indicates that my Speakers and Wave are using "E-MU E-DSP Audio Processor (WDM)". There doesn't seem to be a way to tell the EMU to use ASIO for WAVE, which is what my everyday Windows applications are outputting (?). And I'm no pro with patchmix. Who is??

Of note: The beta release notes mention that they help with problems with the WDM driver - here's no mention of problems with ASIO. I've read elsewhere (possibly even in this thread, but I forget now) that Windows 10 has problems with WDM, but the v2.3 beta driver from Creative/EMU was released well before Windows 10 came out, so I don't think it was a Windows 10 issue, just a quadcore issue. I don't anticipate any problems once I do use ASIO in my DAW, but I'll let you know how it goes.

[CPUCam]

Steve: It would seem that there is no blanket setting to make all Windows apps use ASIO - I think I would have to somehow set each app to use ASIO, and it's just not an option on most apps like iTunes or Firefox or what-have-you. Maybe something like ASIO4All would work, but I don't really need ASIO for any of my apps outside of my DAW (and ASIO4All needs WDM drivers to work, so I would still need the beta WDM driver installed anyway).

[planetearth]

Steve: It would seem that there is no blanket setting to make all Windows apps use ASIO - I think I would have to somehow set each app to use ASIO, and it's just not an option on most apps like iTunes or Firefox or what-have-you. Maybe something like ASIO4All would work, but I don't really need ASIO for any of my apps outside of my DAW (and ASIO4All needs WDM drivers to work, so I would still need the beta WDM driver installed anyway).

Right, my mistake. I thought you already had SONAR (which I also use) installed and were facing these issues with that.

Most of the standard audio programs will use the WDM driver, but there are some (such as SoundForge) that can use ASIO. None of that really matters of course, since you're concerned about latency in a DAW.

I hope the drivers work out for you. It will be interesting to see if staying in a 32-bit environment helps you. From what I've seen with non-audio Windows 7 and Windows 10 drivers, even the 32-bit ones are new (and written for the OS), and the older ones (for XP or Vista) don't work (or don't work reliably). So staying in a 32-bit environment to avoid having to change drivers may not help much here. I've been using the 64-bit E-MU 2.3 drivers for over 2 years now, and haven't had a problem. I don't remember if I'm using the "beta" ones or not; the next time I'm at the DAW, I'll check.

Steve

[CPUCam]

Right, my mistake. I thought you already had SONAR (which I also use) installed and were facing these issues with that.

Most of the standard audio programs will use the WDM driver, but there are some (such as SoundForge) that can use ASIO. None of that really matters of course, since you're concerned about latency in a DAW.

I hope the drivers work out for you. It will be interesting to see if staying in a 32-bit environment helps you. From what I've seen with non-audio Windows 7 and Windows 10 drivers, even the 32-bit ones are new (and written for the OS), and the older ones (for XP or Vista) don't work (or don't work reliably). So staying in a 32-bit environment to avoid having to change drivers may not help much here. I've been using the 64-bit E-MU 2.3 drivers for over 2 years now, and haven't had a problem. I don't remember if I'm using the "beta" ones or not; the next time I'm at the DAW, I'll check.

Steve

Good to know that the 64-bit EMU 2.3 drivers have been so stable for you (and that you are also using SONAR). That was a concern for me.
I guess the only other thing keeping me in 32-bit world is my ancient PCI TV tuner card (which is working under Windows 10 with the original 32-bit drivers from 10 years ago), so I really should just change that out and take the plunge to 64-bit land.

[planetearth]

Good to know that the 64-bit EMU 2.3 drivers have been so stable for you (and that you are also using SONAR). That was a concern for me.
I guess the only other thing keeping me in 32-bit world is my ancient PCI TV tuner card (which is working under Windows 10 with the original 32-bit drivers from 10 years ago), so I really should just change that out and take the plunge to 64-bit land.

I was in no hurry to go to Windows 7. But now I wish I'd gone at least a year sooner. The extra memory you can access with a 64-bit OS (and DAW) is worth the price of admission, in most cases. The same projects that used to crash SONAR X1 under Windows XP (because they grew to more than 1.5 GB in RAM when open) play just fine on SONAR X1 and X3 under Windows 7. In fact, I've even added more tracks and been able to get the projects to be more like what I originally wanted now that I don't worry about them getting "too big".

Steve

[CPUCam]

CAM

Plz lemmee know how WIN10 works for you as I have (obvious) the same EMU card and the same CPU that you just upgraded to. BTW, what host are you using ?
I currently run WIN7 64 bit with LIVE9 @ 32bits very successfully

Mister Natural, I have now tried the 1212M with ASIO (32-bit) in Cakewalk Sonar under Windows 10 and it's working. Seems like those v2.3 beta drivers are the key.

I am, however, having that strange glitch with the sample rate - using ASIO seems to work for multiple sample rates (I haven't messed with different bit depths yet), but for WDM (i.e. audio from everyday Windows programs) you have to have your patchwork session set to 48kHz to hear anything.

[Mister Natural]

WIN10 naturally defaults to 48khz (for whatever reason)

Curious if ASIO also needs to run @ 48 . . .