Ugh, the wav drivers!!

subhuman · Post by **subhuman** » Wed Nov 14, 2001 2:23 pm

Actually, their WDM driver works pretty darn good. It even supports Kernel Streaming, if the host application supports it. Of course, I am sure there is room for improvement:

I think before there is a whole stream of more uninformed posts about Creamware's WDM driver, you should read up on the WDM driver model a bit.

1. Names of various drivers have to be the same (a workaround might exist, but...) this means Creamware Rec 1, Creamware Rec 2, etc.

2. WDM audio drivers only support 24 bit audio, if the host application uses Microsoft's new FORMATEXTENSIBLE.

3. WDM audio drivers take away some of the control Creamware and any card manufacturer have over the total flow of audio data i/o. Audio must now pass through the Microsoft WDMAUD wave driver, and the Microsoft Kmixer.

4. Windows 2000 had a limitation on the number of wave drivers. I believe in XP, this number has been raised. Since XP was released October 25, and the V3 was released almost a month earlier...

Anyway, you might want to better inform yourself before bitching.

_________________
<a href=http://infinitevortex.com>Infinite Vortex Audio</a>

[ This Message was edited by: subhuman on 2001-11-14 14:29 ]

subhuman · Post by **subhuman** » Wed Nov 14, 2001 2:25 pm

Here's a link to some of the tech documents at Microsoft, my main reference.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/defau ... p_7wz7.asp

Of course, feel free to back up any of your claims with proof.

BTW: apps which support kernel streaming (like SONAR) bypass some of the extra steps usually indicative of WDM wave drivers...

[ This Message was edited by: subhuman on 2001-11-14 14:45 ]

Post by **garyb** » Thu Nov 15, 2001 12:09 am

i guess it goes to show that the latest is not always the greatest.my computer runs flawlessly on 98(just made me some money tonight!).it seems that 2000 and xp have some room for improvement, stable or not. (surprise,surprise...)

oh yeah,those who need to scapegoat someone because they don't want to be an engineer and figure out how to make their machine work,please don't bring your negativity to the system i'm running, as it's been a godsend to me. my pulsar1 always works well,sounds good and is very affordable.

[ This Message was edited by: garyb on 2001-11-15 00:18 ]

Noctulius · Post by **Noctulius** » Thu Nov 15, 2001 2:35 am

Ok guys. Sorry to disturb you all again but, as I said before, I don't have a chance to test it all myself yet. So, finally, please:
Does PULSAR allow loading more than 8 wav stereo modules (16 or 24 bit) in one project and save it (and load again and work with it)?
Regardless of any recording application...

Thanks.

subhuman · Post by **subhuman** » Thu Nov 15, 2001 9:31 am

Yes, in Windows 98 or Windows Millenium Edition, this is no problem.

kwild · Post by **kwild** » Thu Nov 15, 2001 2:20 pm

Ehm...excuse my igniorance subhuman but u,the guru of all the gurus

and the discover of the hot water are the same person?
We know there's no problem to use more than 8 waves drivers under win9x and Me the problem is to use MORE than 8 wave drivers under w2k and xp!
The drive works well,but i want to know who are the genius tha set a maxium of 8 wave drivers for a "next generation OS" such w2k or for the wdm drivers of the "cadillac" of soundcards...pulsar!Yes pulsar is the cadillac of soundcards (look at the price in $!!) but is marketed by a bunch of s*****s!
Excuse me,but i don't have spend a lot of money for blow my head under the lots of problems of that fuckin pulsar....i want to make music,only that,i've payed for that...
8 wave drivers only?I can't believe that.
I can't believe....

subhuman · Post by **subhuman** » Thu Nov 15, 2001 3:02 pm

Agree, more Wave drivers would be nice, but this is only going to be possible, if I understand correctly from the Microsoft techdocs, under Windows XP. As is mentioned on the Creamware website, they will work to improve functionality under XP as soon as they can. I know that the SCOPE/SP software is the next (and current) project, so after that is finished, I would expect more XP optimizations for all their products. XP only just came out, remember...

Noctulius · Post by **Noctulius** » Fri Nov 16, 2001 2:38 am

Wait a minute! As far as I know 2k and XP allow using both MME and WDM drivers. I thought the problem is with WDM drivers only. And I though that if I force my Sonar use only MME (which is possible), the problem is gone. And now it seems that under XP (or 2k) the very Pulsar software enviroment forbid just loading more than 8 wav modules, regardles of drivers (MME or WDM) it uses? Seems like a meaningless artificial restriction!

kensuguro · Post by **kensuguro** » Fri Nov 16, 2001 2:50 am

Well, I only dread that maybe 8 is the limitation that comes from XP...
I thought, well, Pulsar IS capable to up 16 wave devices, but 98? yes, XP? no... the only difference is the OS and the driver architecture. So the limitation probably lies within either one of these.
BUT of course, this is an uneducated guess so you shouldn't totally be convinced by it.

By th way, DSP factory's XP driver is also made of 8 devices... which is the card's max ability... but the number worries me.

Noctulius · Post by **Noctulius** » Fri Nov 16, 2001 5:35 am

Ugh... I hate the idea that I'll have to change to Logic or Cubase since they (the biggest inconvenience) don't cooperate with my (poor) Korg N5ex well...

kensuguro · Post by **kensuguro** » Fri Nov 16, 2001 6:40 am

well, as you may have read, I'm forced to switch to nuendo as well.. But I guess some things are inevitable.

Post by **garyb** » Sat Nov 17, 2001 12:19 am

98 works fine......for now.

Noctulius · Post by **Noctulius** » Tue Nov 20, 2001 2:54 am

Humm... Got the Pulsar II board finally. Decided to check out the problem. Got funny results. Yes, Windows Pulsar driver shows only 8 outs (16 channels). But when I loaded Big Mixer (earlier MicroMixer with the same result) and patched Pulsar input and Wave 1 source and then loaded SONAR I got the message "One or more soundcards do not support stereo. Mono is set as default." (or something very close to that). You know what I saw when I wished to set the audio track source? I saw 8 8-channel Pulsar sources. I mean - "Pulsar 1 1/2", "Pulsar 2 3/4", ..., "Pulsar 8 7/8"... And SONAR audio setup sees 64 channels of audio. Though I have no idea how to use it as all Wave modules in Pulsar are 2-channels. Or SONAR can use interleaved wavs???

kwild · Post by **kwild** » Tue Nov 20, 2001 4:04 pm

Me too Noctulius.
I've experimented the same thing.
A lot of SONAR virtual outputs and a lot of inexpensive pulsar wave drivers that don't works (exluding the first 8 ).
Im thinkin the Pulsar "way of life" is dying slowly killed by the same people that have created it.

http://www.kwild.com

[ This Message was edited by: kwild on 2001-11-20 16:05 ]

jbraner · Post by **jbraner** » Mon Nov 26, 2001 5:23 am

kwild and noctilius,

I've just been through this - setting up an XP partition with SONAR and Pulsar.

Use the 16 bit interleaved device. The "normal" WAV devices only seem to work in mono (try panning a stereo track in SONAR with one of these).

The interleave device works fine, and you'll probably be able to load 8 of _these_ so that's 64 stereo tracks!

I only use 1 interleaved device, and do all my mixing in SONAR.

John Braner

Noctulius · Post by **Noctulius** » Tue Nov 27, 2001 2:56 am

On 2001-11-26 05:23, jbraner wrote:
kwild and noctilius,

I've just been through this - setting up an XP partition with SONAR and Pulsar.

Use the 16 bit interleaved device. The "normal" WAV devices only seem to work in mono (try panning a stereo track in SONAR with one of these).

The interleave device works fine, and you'll probably be able to load 8 of _these_ so that's 64 stereo tracks!

I only use 1 interleaved device, and do all my mixing in SONAR.

John Braner

Great news John, thank you. Now I know I'll be able to use interleaved wavs. Hopefully all 8 will work. Mono is a minor inconvenience but after all it's not a real problem. By the way, forcing SONAR to use MME only allows it to use 8 normal stereo drivers.

Noctulius · Post by **Noctulius** » Wed Nov 28, 2001 3:02 am

Humm... Sonar uses only two first inputs/outputs of the interleaved wav in MME mode or one in WDM mode. I wonder how you could use only one interleaved module for your mixing. Could you explain the process in details? Your Pulsar Windows driver settings, all Audio settings in Sonar, all the Pulsar project (all modules and their connection)?

kwild · Post by **kwild** » Wed Nov 28, 2001 4:35 pm

Me too mate,i have try to use interleaved waves with Sonar 1.3.1 but nothing!
The sound is mono even if the sample inserted in the sonar track is stereo and i've encountered the same Noctulius problems.
See ya.

http://www.kwild.com

jbraner · Post by **jbraner** » Tue Dec 04, 2001 8:18 am

Sorry, I haven't been back here for a while. I just set up one interleaved device, and SONAR sees Pulsar Wave 1/1, Pulsar Wave 1/2, up to Pulsar Wave 1/16 - as destinations.

All 8 stereo pairs work fine (but I'll double check this).

(I'm at work so I'll do this from memory)
Nothing fancy, just a interleaved source with the outs going to BM Ver2, and one interleaved dest with the inputs attached to the BM mixer outs.

The WAV devices are definitely mono, but these are stereo (I not using the "MME compatible" setting).

There's not too much else to say - There's definitely not anything "fancy" set up here, but it did take a while to work this out (with some help from the Yahoo group).

Are you sure that only the first 2 outputs are working?

Email me if you want, and I'll try to do some screen dumps etc, and then we can post back here.

******* 4/12 PM ************
I just checked this out, and actually only 4 pairs work - so Pulsar Wave 1/1 to Pulsar Wave 1/8 work fine, but 9-16 don't work. Still, that's 4 stereo pairs for each interleave device.

******* 4/12 PM even later ************
DOH! 9-16 don't work if they're not connected to anything! After connecting all outs from the interleave device to my big mixer, I can confirm that ALL the 16 outs work fine in SONAR.

Also the Puldar settings in device manager are:
Wave Setup - number of devices 1
max channels 16

-----------------------------
John Braner

jbraner@blueyonder.co.uk
http://www.mp3.com/johnbraner

[ This Message was edited by: jbraner on 2001-12-04 12:36 ]

[ This Message was edited by: jbraner on 2001-12-04 14:03 ]

[ This Message was edited by: jbraner on 2001-12-04 14:10 ]

jbraner · Post by **jbraner** » Tue Dec 04, 2001 2:14 pm

Here's another question for the group - how do the spdif drivers appear in SONAR?

I only have the Pulsar WAVE devices listed in the audio input and oputput devices.