WDM vs ASIO?

orca wrote on 10/22/2004, 10:36 AM
This may be a silly question. But I've been searching both Vegas & Sound Forge forums and still not clear to me what the advantages of WDM over ASIO? I read that ASIO has low-latency, what's the use for this? Does this make it superior to WDM? I have both Vegas 5 & SF 7, and want to record 24-bit sound, probably build my sound library using SF 7. But it doesn't support ASIO, is WDM as good for SF, will it create conflict if I use SF 7 with WDM and opening it in Vegas using ASIO? I'll probably be using Edirol UA-25 on a laptop here (Win XP), but I'm still on the researching stage and more confused than ever whether the equipment will work on SF 7. Thanks for all of you who can explain this to me.

Comments

Spot|DSE wrote on 10/22/2004, 11:53 AM
In most instances, WDM is superior to ASIO. But, Vegas doesn't support WDM, and microsoft is dropping development of WDM. ASIO is just fine for most things. I start noticing issues when I've got several plugs going on input, but otherwise, it's just fine for multi-channel inputs.
With a good sound card, you'd never know the difference between ASIO and WDM on a 2 channel or 4 channel input anway.
orca wrote on 10/22/2004, 12:13 PM
Hi Spot,

Thanks for the info. But I just looked at the Vegas features (http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/products/showproduct.asp?PID=914&FeatureID=7542) and it says that it supports WDM?

ASIO Driver Support
In addition to supporting Microsoft Mapper™, Windows Classic Wave, and WDM drivers, Vegas 5 software also supports professional-quality low latency ASIO™ drivers.

It's just that from what I've read that SF 7 doesn't support ASIO, only WDM for 24-bit. OK, I assume the Edirol UA-25 is a good enough sound card to record 24-bit audio, so should I be concern with using WDM on one application (for SF 7) and ASIO for Vegas then?

I'm only concern with this since I read the UA-25 manual that to record 24-bit, I have to use either WDM or ASIO, or else it goes to 16-bit/44.1. So that's why I needed to ask.



Spot|DSE wrote on 10/22/2004, 12:17 PM
Let me rephrase...the WDM drivers are supported, but not taken advantage of.
Use ASIO.