ASIO won't install on Foobar2000

Out of curiosity, what does ASIO do that WASAPI doesn't?  It is my understanding WASAPI is a superior solution and you won't have the unfortunate consequences of having other audio streams play at the same time.  For example, if listening to music and browsing the web at the same time, the experience of "Congratulations, you've just won a free Ipod Nano!" on top of your heavy metal double bass at full volume is altogether horrifying. 

 

It it my understanding WASAPI brings the best Windows bit-streaming functionality while not having the disadvantages of ASIO and Kernel Streaming.

 

Personally I'd go back and use an older version of foobar, preferably 0.8.3.

 

I don't think WSAPI is superior to ASIO or vice versa, WSAPI just became flavour of the month. Both do bit perfect and unmangled audio, cheap cards don't support ASIO, hence the bias towards WSAPI now.

 

 

 

 

What are these disadvantages of using ASIO you speak of? It works (or at least should work) exactly the same in regards to accessing the sound card exclusively; it doesn't let any other audio streams through.

In my case, what makes ASIO superior to WASAPI is the fact that when it's in exclusive mode, it doesn't interfere with other applications in any way at all. I can turn it on at any time, play some music, stop it and not have it cause any problems. WASAPI, on the other hand, will not let some games run when it's being used and it'll make some applications lose sound completely until they're restarted. It's probably sound card/driver dependent, so your mileage may differ.
Edited by fufula - 2/13/12 at 3:14am

..are you referring to the latest version of Foobar and ASIO?

I had a bit of an issue with ASIO and the latest foobar also, what I did was install an older version I had and use Foobar to update the plugin.

 

I am not sure what is going on with that plugin but I had issue with it also when installing the player on a new system.

 

What I mean is try and find an older version of ASIO plugin, install it and then use Foobar to update it to the latest version.

That worked for me when I had this issue last night installing this on another system.

I still fail to understand why WASAPI isolating the audio stream so other sources can't be injected isn't desirable.  I guess you've never had the luxury of casually browsing the web late at night, listening to some mild music, only to have a flash audio advertisement added to your music, and both the music and flash ad go to full volume.  It is astonishingly awful, although it does get the heart rate up, as well as the roommates :/  Speakers/subs could easily be damaged, in fact I'm surprised I haven't blown one doing this.

I used Firefox with Ad block and Flash block when I was listening to music, but that is pretty lame.  Then I just got a dedicated audio computer that I removed the internet gateway so that it can't even browse the web but I can still network it.  This was before Windows 7 and WASAPI...

I don't recall wanting to listen to more than one thing at a time anyways.  I find it very simple to hit the stop button on Foobar, then I can play what I want. 

 

Should probably read my post then.

My bad, reading fail. 

If I need more than one stream at a time, I usually just have another instance of Foobar configured normally without any kernel bypass.  That way I can have music and video games at the same time, etc.  I don't really need the increased audio quality with multiple streams.

One thing you can consider is installing Foobar twice (I do the portable install and regular install.)  That way you can configure each installation differently.  For example, one installation could be the new version with WASAPI, and the other the older version with ASIO.  If you don't need any of the features of the newer version of Foobar, then I suppose the old version is fine.

Just be careful with flash audio content, have you had any issues with it so far?

 

 

ASIO doesn't mix multiple streams of audio. It works exactly like WASAPI in that particular aspect (there are some differences in other areas). It's sound card/system/driver dependent (EssST/W7/latest from C-Media), so -- like I said -- it might work differently for you. I remember that KS in XP back when I was using an X-Fi based sound card would let other streams through, even though I don't think it should do that; not sure if ASIO behaved the same way.

 

Sorry for dragging it a little OT.

I have a slightly different experience, although you do say multiple 'asio' streams and I usually mix types. ASIO, unlike WSAPI doesn't cut the card off completely.

 

If you have an Emu at least you can play foobar via ASIO and aslong as the sample rate matches what Windows/Games are producing then DirectSound etc still works. I regularly play Quake via DS and foobar via ASIO at the same time. If I mute Windows volume control it does not mute ASIO, so I can avoid the noises that way

 

Additionally all motherboards pretty much have onboard sound, so I connect that to some speakers and use that as my default device, all these annoying noises you talk about are then produced there, leaving the seperate audio card only doing what I direct to it output to the 'phones. (as you now have dual volume controls, one per card, leave the speakers on low)

Edited by Magsy - 2/14/12 at 6:36am