Windows 10 for DAW

[telecharge]

To summarize, I have gotten decent results using WASAPI with Tracktion 7 and Stagelight 3. Not so much with Sonar Platinum or FL Studio 12. However, I still have yet to uninstall the Realtek HD driver and use the default Microsoft HD audio driver instead.

Thanks for the testimonial. Any chance that another program was still occupying your sound card (using Windows Audio) when you tried with Sonar?

[incubus]

Sorry, my point is that in the past, cortana was something you could kill dead if you didn't want her.

Now, unless you HACK it, it's going to "HAL" you to death. And let's be honest, they'll figure out some borg assimilation for the "hack"

I have not disabled Cortana, and she doesn't bother me. I don't even notice she is there for the most part. I mean, it says "ask me anything" in the bottom bar, but I generally hit the Windows key and start searching. I'm not forced to use Cortana for anything, and nothing I do is interrupted by it.

So honestly, I think it's a bunch of whining about nothing when people complain about Cortana. Maybe she only leave me alone and nobody else, but I know that people love to find reasons to complain about Microsoft, even if the reasons are ridiculous. I just personally don't see how Cortana gets in the way.

YMMV.

Brent

Whining? That is, really weird.

[incubus]

Resistance is futile. You will be updated.

No shit!

[koolkeys]

Sorry, my point is that in the past, cortana was something you could kill dead if you didn't want her.

Now, unless you HACK it, it's going to "HAL" you to death. And let's be honest, they'll figure out some borg assimilation for the "hack"

I have not disabled Cortana, and she doesn't bother me. I don't even notice she is there for the most part. I mean, it says "ask me anything" in the bottom bar, but I generally hit the Windows key and start searching. I'm not forced to use Cortana for anything, and nothing I do is interrupted by it.

So honestly, I think it's a bunch of whining about nothing when people complain about Cortana. Maybe she only leave me alone and nobody else, but I know that people love to find reasons to complain about Microsoft, even if the reasons are ridiculous. I just personally don't see how Cortana gets in the way.

YMMV.

Brent

Whining? That is, really weird.

Just a word, man. People love to whine about Microsoft and other things, and much of the time it is related to either a pre-determined bias (they were going to complain regardless), or they overblow things, etc. If your complaints aren't considered whining to you, no problem here. I have zero concerns about whether others see it the same way.

I whine about some things I don't like. I'm ok with the word. But that's what most complaints I see about Microsoft, Steinberg, whomever is the villain of the hour, are just that; whining. Nothing weird about it.

Brent

[koolkeys]

EDIT: Double post. Quoted myself instead of editing, lol.

Brent

[tonedef71]

Thanks for the testimonial. Any chance that another program was still occupying your sound card (using Windows Audio) when you tried with Sonar?

I think I have figured out the deal with Sonar Platinum and FL Studio 12. I am currently running with the Microsoft High Definition audio driver, although I think the Realtek driver would work just as well.

The first reboot after I switched to the Microsoft audio driver resulted in the "Blue Screen of Death". It took three more attempts to get Windows 10 to boot up without hanging or locking up. I hope this behavior does not become a regular occurence, otherwise I am switching back to the Realtek HD audio driver for good. Windows 10 actually seems to prefer the Realtek driver; every time I would uninstall the Realtek driver, Windows 10 would reinstall the Realtek driver on the next hardware scan. To get Windows to retain the Microsoft HD driver, I had to do the following: go into the Device Manager; highlight the Realtek driver; right click and select "Update Driver Software ..."; "Browse My Computer for Driver Software"; click "Show compatible hardware"; and then select "High Definition Audio Device":



Sonar Platinum does work with Windows Audio, but you must not select the "WASAPI" or "WDM/KS" driver modes; you must select the "MME (32-Bit)" driver mode:



Sonar reports a latency of 10ms with a buffer size of 441 samples:


FL Studio 12 seems to work with Windows Audio, albeit it does it behind the scenes through an ASIO wrapper. You need to select "FL Studio ASIO" as the audio input/output device and then bring up the ASIO control panel to select the HD audio device as the Output. With a buffer size of 256 samples, FL Studio reports an impressive 6ms latency:



I have to say, so far, these configurations that rely on Windows Audio via the High Definition driver have overall provided better results than ASIO. ASIO was giving me excellent latency times, but I had to deal with intermittent audio sputtering because Windows 10 internal processes would pre-empt the ASIO thread and cause buffer underruns. This does not appear to be happening when running with the Windows Audio engine. I guess Microsoft certainly did enhance the thread priority scheduling in Windows 10 to favor the high definition audio device driver and stay out of its way; Windows 10 does not recognize the ASIO threads (especially those from ASIO4ALL) to provide those drivers with any preferential treatment as well.

[telecharge]

I didn't have to force the driver. This is how I did it:

1.) Uninstall Realtek via Programs & Features
2.) Uninstall Realtek via Device Manager and check the box "Delete the driver software for this device"

That's it. On next scan, Windows installed its High Definition Audio Device driver.

A couple of other things that I will have to explain later.

1.) I wouldn't recommend using MME, but if it works for you, great.
2.) I would not use 64-bit Double Precision Engine

I can explain more later, but you can look into this yourself by searching the Sonar forum using Google.

[tonedef71]

I didn't have to force the driver. This is how I did it:

1.) Uninstall Realtek via Programs & Features
2.) Uninstall Realtek via Device Manager and check the box "Delete the driver software for this device"

That's it. On next scan, Windows installed its High Definition Audio Device driver.

Ah. I did check the box "Delete the driver software for this device", but I had not uninstalled the Realtek driver package via the Control Panel.

A couple of other things that I will have to explain later.

1.) I wouldn't recommend using MME, but if it works for you, great.
2.) I would not use 64-bit Double Precision Engine

I can explain more later, but you can look into this yourself by searching the Sonar forum using Google.

It appears that I have no choice but to not use the WASAPI driver mode in Sonar. When Sonar's Wave Profiler runs under WASAPI mode, it fails to find any working configurations for the High Definition Audio Device Driver (with the exception of the Digital Audio S/PDIF mode, which is not useful to me):


While the "WDM/KS" driver mode reports back even lower possible latencies than "MME", audio playback sounds distorted no matter what I settings I tweak while using this driver mode:


The "MME (32-bit)" driver mode seems to work fine for low latency audio playback and plays back clean and undistorted. What are the drawbacks to this driver mode? Also what are the drawbacks to enabling the 64-bit double precision engine?

Please do offer more explanations. I appreciate very much the insight you have been sharing. Getting audio to sound and perform well on Windows 10 has been very frustrating for me.

[Vincent Burel]

I tried to use WASAPI; I am not sure if I have properly enabled it on my PC: none of the audio software applications installed on my PC that I have tried so far have been able to detect WASAPI support:
[1] In Sonar Platinum, when I switch driver mode to "WASAPI", the audio profiler polls all of the audio devices on my machine but cannot detect one that supports WASAPI.
[2] In FL Studio, when specifying the audio configuration I do not see any options for WASAPI.

If using Voicemeeter (or banana version) you have to connect Voicemeeter main output (output A1) To WASAPI or KS or even Physical ASIO device... but all DAW applications like Sonar, FL Studio and others must be connected to Voicemeeter virtual ASIO driver...

Also i remind that Voicemeeter uses WASAPI or KS output device in EXCLUSIVE mode per default (so no other application could use the device selected as Voicemeeter output A1).

VB

[telecharge]

Please do offer more explanations. I appreciate very much the insight you have been sharing. Getting audio to sound and perform well on Windows 10 has been very frustrating for me.

My pleasure. Again, I must apologize because I'm unusually pressed for time, but here is a quick suggestion. Try ASIO4ALL again with the High Definition Audio Device driver and see if there is any improvement. I'll try to check back later, but it may be a while.

[telecharge]

If using Voicemeeter (or banana version) you have to connect Voicemeeter main output (output A1) To WASAPI or KS or even Physical ASIO device... but all DAW applications like Sonar, FL Studio and others must be connected to Voicemeeter virtual ASIO driver...

Also i remind that Voicemeeter uses WASAPI or KS output device in EXCLUSIVE mode per default (so no other application could use the device selected as Voicemeeter output A1).

VB

I hadn't heard of Voicemeeter. I'll have to check it out.

[telecharge]

Also what are the drawbacks to enabling the 64-bit double precision engine?

See this: http://forum.cakewalk.com/Audiosnap-Cau ... 93827.aspx

[tonedef71]

If using Voicemeeter (or banana version) you have to connect Voicemeeter main output (output A1) To WASAPI or KS or even Physical ASIO device... but all DAW applications like Sonar, FL Studio and others must be connected to Voicemeeter virtual ASIO driver...

Also i remind that Voicemeeter uses WASAPI or KS output device in EXCLUSIVE mode per default (so no other application could use the device selected as Voicemeeter output A1).

VB

Welcome to the discussion, VB! Your timing could not be better.

Thank you for the pointers regarding VoiceMeeter. To me, VoiceMeeter is essential for getting the most utility out of an ASIO driver.

[tonedef71]

My pleasure. Again, I must apologize because I'm unusually pressed for time, but here is a quick suggestion. Try ASIO4ALL again with the High Definition Audio Device driver and see if there is any improvement. I'll try to check back later, but it may be a while.

Thanks. I'll give it a shot.

[tonedef71]

Also what are the drawbacks to enabling the 64-bit double precision engine?

See this: http://forum.cakewalk.com/Audiosnap-Cau ... 93827.aspx

Thanks. I wonder if Cakewalk has figured out yet what to do about that problem. Keeping that option disabled until mixdown sounds reasonable to me.