[nuhi]

Saw this article and I'm wondering what do you think regarding 32bit processing, is it true, anyone noticed any sound improvements in the latest Vista beta builds?

Or this all matters only if you're not using Kernel Streaming or ASIO...

 

[bhjazz]

Seems like a great idea to me. If anyone is using beta builds, though, it will likely just use generic sound card drivers from MS, so they might not be optimal for good listening just yet. Still...would like to hear from those beta users!

Thanks for posting that link. A good read.

 

[swatx]

probably wouldnt be any diffrence till beta2 or RTM versions are released.

 

[uzziah]

death to windows

long live the penguin!

 

[Absorbine_Sr]

I'm currently running Vista build 5308 (Feb. CTP build) and as of right now, audio is pretty ugly. I had to do a manual setup for my Emu 0404 drivers, and though I did get it to work, sound is less than wonderful, with buzzing, crackling etc. From what I've seen in the beta program newsgroups, not much else is working well at this point. I expect things to get better, but don't hold your breath as drivers may take a while, even till after general release.

A_Sr.

 

[ManMower]

I've got bit perfect spdif on windows XP, there's really no way to improve on that imho.

 

[Myamps>thanyours]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ManMower I've got bit perfect spdif on windows XP, there's really no way to improve on that imho.

USB?

 

[ManMower]

usb? sure. whatever floats your boat.

(Though I don't hear anything wrong with my amp's DAC)

My point is that XP can get the bits out exactly as they're recorded on my hard drive.

If all you're using your sound card for is listening to pre-recorded music then this new 32-bit stuff seems essentially worthless.

For music, I see the computer+OS as a transport: as long as it passes on the information unaltered, I'm happy. If vista wants to diddle my bits as 32 bit floats as an intermediate step, I'm open to the experience... just so long as it manages to turn them right back into the original bits before they get to the sound card.

Seems like an ineffecient process to me though.

 

[thomaspf]

Besides the 32bit float pipeline Vista introduces a new playabck API that is very relevant for high quality playabck.

Exclusive Direct mode bypasses any audio processing and gives exclusive access to the sound card to one application. This will enable all sound cards that do not resample in hardware to operate in bit perfect mode.

Cheers

Thomas

 

[ManMower]

Don't we have that already with kernel streaming?

 

[sgrossklass]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ManMower Don't we have that already with kernel streaming?

That's kind of a crude hack though...

 

[wallstreet]

Quote:

Originally Posted by uzziah long live the penguin!

Agreed

.

An O.S. should be transparent when it comes to audio anyway.

 

[Chri5peed]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ManMower For music, I see the computer+OS as a transport: as long as it passes on the information unaltered.

And storage.

 

[skudmunky]

I'm running Beta (sshhhh!) and everything sounded pretty good, couldn't really tell a difference between 2k pro and Vista. One extremely annoying problem was music would clip/pop/crackle once (only once!) within the first 10 seconds of any song, using both Foobar2000 and the included WMP. Couldn't figure out why, strange though isn't it?

 

[thomaspf]

That is the new 32 bit float pipe stabilizing ...

Good to hear that is is stable and of high quality otherwise. Kmixer is gone from the pipeline.

Cheers

Thomas