WASAPI vs ASIO

[Houston Haynes]

I'm curious - how much overlap is there between WASAPI and ASIO? Will ASIO (presuming an ASIO3 protocol) still be required for time-based event drivers like MIDI, or will WASAPI be a full-on replacement?

[Richard Berg]

It depends largely on the industry's adoption of WASAPI. I believe WASAPI is a great choice (finally!) but ASIO has a lot of traction. Then again, lots of companies are probably tired of paying the Steinberg tax. We'll see.

[Daryl]

You think Steinberg charges for ASIO?

D

[Houston Haynes]

Then again, lots of companies are probably tired of paying the Steinberg tax. We'll see.

EDIT:

ASIO Licensing page (http://www.steinberg.net/534+M54a708de802.html)

[David (plogue)]

Hello there

Two things from someone who actually did both ASIO and WASAPI code :)

It depends largely on the industry's adoption of WASAPI. I believe WASAPI is a great choice (finally!) but ASIO has a lot of traction. Then again, lots of companies are probably tired of paying the Steinberg tax. We'll see.

Indeed there is no ASIO tax, same with VST.

About the industry's adoption of WASAPI, well, there is some explanation required here.

1) If the hardware manufacturer released WDM drivers for XP, chances are that they will do a WASAPI driver for Vista. If you want your device to output Media Player/System sounds, it has to talk WASAPI one way or another.

2) If the hardware manufacturer only released ASIO/GSIF/etc drivers, then we can't be sure. ASIO still works under Vista.

3)Will all WASAPI drivers allow the new RC1 "exclusive mode + double buffer events method"?
I still need to investigate - my code needs a lifting. I will try with a few audio devices i have that ship beta drivers, and report the current status when i get a chance. But remember that Vista is still beta, so ill take my latency/glitch results with a grain of salt, but it might just be the end of the need for ASIO drivers on the windows platform. (just like Core Audio replaced the need for ASIO under OS X)

Uhhh...
ASIO is released under the Boost Software License and tools and source are available at SourceForge.


erm, sorry but that "ASIO" is not the "Steinberg ASIO" :

sourceforge: asio is a cross-platform C++ library for network programming that provides developers with a consistent asynchronous I/O model using a modern C++ approach.

Cheers!

[Richard Berg]

I'm not concerned about hardware manufacturers -- given the huge Windows market share, they don't have much choice. The question is application support. Cakewalk is historically an early adopter of new MS features, but the same can't be said for Sony and others. Consumer apps tend to use the bare minimum, and pro apps need to support lots of legacy plugins.

Good to know Steinberg doesn't charge for ASIO and VST. Several years ago I wanted to use their SDK for a small project...I recall giving up after some frustration (had to register via email, "company" was a required field, legal docs seemed impenetrable.) Nowadays the download link is the first hit on Google.

[Houston Haynes]

erm, sorry but that "ASIO" is not the "Steinberg ASIO" :

Thanks David - I correct the post to point to the right sight. I love Bidule, BTW - it's one of my primary hosts for testing a new plugin. Cheers!

[David (plogue)]

Thanks David - I correct the post to point to the right sight. I love Bidule, BTW - it's one of my primary hosts for testing a new plugin. Cheers!

Thanks!

Side note ASIO 2.2 was just released today. Official support for x64 is included (allthough it worked in x64 _before_, with just one slight code tweaK that any 3 month experience C++ coder would have figured out :)

[Houston Haynes]

Thanks!

Side note ASIO 2.2 was just released today. Official support for x64 is included (allthough it worked in x64 _before_, with just one slight code tweaK that any 3 month experience C++ coder would have figured out :)


That's really great to hear (read) - I hope that the spec release allows more vendors to put their x64 drivers in the field, even as a beta.