[bangraman]

I had a casual look at the new Vista audio structure, but the diagram I was looking at didn't make all that much sense to me.


I'm currently replacing all of my main PC's with Vista Business and Ultimate systems and I'd like to know whether it means that a regular USB audio device outputting digital audio (say an Audiotrak Optoplay, which is recognised and works in Vista) is bit-perfect under Vista.


It's really a point of interest for my laptop systems more than anything.

 

[EnOYiN]

For as far as I know this is not necessarily true. It still depends on what you would use. Only OpenAL and ASIO are bit-perfect for sure. For the rest it can be bit-perfect depending on what will be resampled/added within the APOs. After going through the APOs the audio-architecture will use a kernel streaming transport to get to the hardware.

For more information you can go here. This is a weblog of one of the people working on the audio-architecture of Vista.

I haven't really read up on the Vista audio-architecture yet myself so I can't really give a clear answer to this.

P.S. Are you reffering to the diagram I made (Larry Osterman originally) or to something else?

 

[CSMR]

No it won't be.

 

[EnOYiN]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CSMR /img/forum/go_quote.gif No it won't be.

Any information going with this statement?

 

[bangraman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by EnOYiN /img/forum/go_quote.gif For as far as I know this is not necessarily true. It still depends on what you would use. Only OpenAL and ASIO are bit-perfect for sure. For the rest it can be bit-perfect depending on what will be resampled/added within the APOs. After going through the APOs the audio-architecture will use a kernel streaming transport to get to the hardware. For more information you can go here. This is a weblog of one of the people working on the audio-architecture of Vista. I haven't really read up on the Vista audio-architecture yet myself so I can't really give a clear answer to this. P.S. Are you reffering to the diagram I made (Larry Osterman originally) or to something else?

I don't know - it was a rather convoluted diagram, that's all I remember. I blanked out.

The blog wasn't really all that helpful I have to say. Anyone got any other ideas / resources?

 

[EnOYiN]

I read through a whole lot of text before I found out how all of this actually works. ( I was interested myself as well so that helped a lot )

You can't get bit-perfect output in Windows Vista. I looked it up from various sources. The only way to get actual bit-perfect output is to use KS or ASIO.
It was also in the blog I provided a link to before btw - just not too easy to find. Sorry for that inconvenient link.

Recommended source:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...dpost&p=469467

Loads of text:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...3&page=1&pp=30

A test done by someone of the AVS forum:
http://archive.avsforum.com/avs-vb/s...86#post2493886

Cheers.

 

[bangraman]

Second link was very helpful - thanks. So if apps are written to support Exclusive Mode, it will be. If not then it's still resampled but you get a lot more scope in what the OS can do with the sound. I think I'm satisfied with that answer.

 

[EnOYiN]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bangraman /img/forum/go_quote.gif Second link was very helpful - thanks. So if apps are written to support Exclusive Mode, it will be. If not then it's still resampled but you get a lot more scope in what the OS can do with the sound. I think I'm satisfied with that answer.

For as far as I understand it right now that's true indeed. The sound in Vista is a lot better using mixed sound than it was in XP.

Edit: I have been installing a few Vista computer and I noticed that there aren't a lot applications which support this audio-architecture completely. Foobar doesn't for instance.

 

[Tachikoma]

Just wondering, for USB devices that use the standard USB audio driver on vista, will they be in asynchronous mode or isochronous mode? For example, the UDA1321 chip?

 

[EnOYiN]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tachikoma /img/forum/go_quote.gif Just wondering, for USB devices that use the standard USB audio driver on vista, will they be in asynchronous mode or isochronous mode? For example, the UDA1321 chip?

"The reality: There are NO USB audio chips that out of the box support asynchronous mode!"

This is quoted straight from here.

 

[Tachikoma]

Quote:

The UDA1321 is an adaptive asynchronous sink USB audio device with a continuous sampling frequency (fs) range from 5 to 55 kHz.

Thats quoted from the UDA1321's datasheet. Isn't the main reason that there weren't any USB audio chips running in async out of the box, the fact that the windows XP usbaudio.sys file simply does not support asynchronous endpoints? (which was fixed in vista iirc)

 

[maarek99]

The X-fi sounds horrible in Windows Vista and good in xp. There's something terribly wrong with the drivers. I'm using spdif out.

 

[Riboge]

I found the spdif out from the X-Fi to sound just fine running 24bit at 48 or 96kHz, so I am wondering if your driver is corrupted. I am using it with a Stereovox HVXC cable to a Bel Canto dac 3, playing foobar.

 

[maarek99]

It works fine if I use the spdif out-playback device. When utilising the speakers out (so I get both speakers and spdif) the output sounds heavily processed, no matter what options I set.

 

[Toby M]

Quote:

Originally Posted by maarek99 /img/forum/go_quote.gif It works fine if I use the spdif out-playback device. When utilising the speakers out (so I get both speakers and spdif) the output sounds heavily processed, no matter what options I set.

Have you got that cmss 3d crap turned off in the driver? The Vista64 driver for the Audigy 2 turns it on by default so I guess the X-fi driver does the same thing. Took me like a week to work it out since in XP it was off by default.