Multimedia Production Forums

Wondering whether I still need the Windows xp audio driver if I am using EMU ASIO - just to avoid potential driver conflicts.

"If it's working, don't fix it."

Seriously. When you installed the E-MU drivers on your system, a whole bunch of DLLs got installed -- not just for ASIO, but for WDM / MME / DirectSound, as well. All are required for proper operation of your E-MU audio interface across the whole spectrum of applications. Some programs use ASIO, but others (like most media players) need WDM drivers.

There is really no "generic Windows XP audio driver" in play that could be disabled, as long as your E-MU drivers got installed properly. And trying to delete individual DLL files from the E-MU driver package would definitely be a bad idea.

However, if you were referring to a second audio interface (on-board sound chip) and its related drivers, it is definitely a good idea to either disable that component in the computer's BIOS, or in Windoze' device manager, as two "competing" audio interfaces can potentially lead to all kinds of audio glitches.

Agreed, just ignore it if you aren't using it. The amount of code there is small by comparison with everything else on the machine, not much gain to be had by messing around with something that works here.

Besides that, Windows OS is still going to need to use Windows Sound Drivers and they should be there for Windows to find, even if you've muted sounds. For example, web streaming content is NOT using ASIO.



--Mac

You guys are great, thanks for the reply!