meaning of ASIO, GSIF?

[JahJahBinks]

If a soundcard supports ASIO, and GSIF, what are they?

 

[akar]

ASIO: Audio Stream Input/Output

Developed by Steinberg, it is a cross-platform, multi-channel audio transfer protocol that is being adopted by many of the manufacturers of audio/MIDI sequencing applications. It allows software to have access to the multi-channel capabilities of a wide range of powerful sound cards.
ASIO expands on the basic capabilities of a standard computer sound card, most of which can only provide stereo (two-channel) audio input and output. The ASIO specification defines the interface that manufacturers of professional audio sound cards must use to create an ASIO driver for their hardware. This driver allows the host audio/MIDI application to "see" all of the inputs and outputs available on the sound card. The user can then assign these I/O ports as needed for recording or playback when using an ASIO-compatible software program. This allows the users to record more tracks simultaneously than the previous limitation of two channels imposed by a standard sound card.


GSIF: GigaSampler Interface

The GigaSampler-InterFace support was invented by Nemesys (now Tascam) to allow multichannel output for the GigaSampler (and later GigaStudio) software. As with ASIO it allows the user to access the hardware for multichannel playback over one device. Recording is not possible.

GigaSampler / GigaStudio also work with DirectSound drivers but that does not allow output of multiple channels at the same time. Because of that, special GSIF support is needed for multichannel audiocards.

 

[JahJahBinks]

There is a winamp plug in for ASIO, is it important to have it on if you have an ASIO card?

 

[lan]

Quote:

Originally posted by JahJahBinks There is a winamp plug in for ASIO, is it important to have it on if you have an ASIO card?

No, you can choose either DirectSound, WaveOut, or ASIO for outputs. Your choice. I use the ASIO one because it has better upsampling.