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Author Topic: ASIO Config for MC16 using ASUS Xonar D2 card under windows 7  (Read 2949 times)

suttonn

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ASIO Config for MC16 using ASUS Xonar D2 card under windows 7
« on: August 05, 2011, 11:21:51 am »

Hello,

I purchased J River MC 14 a few years back and have been very happy with it. I built a machine using 32 bit Vista Ultimate and got an ASUS Xonar D2 card (which supports ASIO) for it, installed the driver that came in the box, and put MC 14 on that machine. I was able to configure 4 zones for muti room sound using ASIO and it worked flawlessly. I could play different music in 3 different zones at the same time (the 4th zone didn't have speakers installed yet). For 2 years I was extremely happy with this setup, using rivermote and an iPod (and then later an iPad) to control my music. I could select playlists, go forward or back a track, and control the volume all wirelessly from my iPad.

Recently I decided that I needed to upgrade my server to windows 7 (Vista was getting just to slow and painful to deal with) and so I did an upgrade install to Windows 7 Ultimate. My MC14 complained that it was installed for a different operating system so I renistalled it, and that seemed to make it happy. But after moving to windows 7 I started to receive an error every time I tried to start music up in a 2nd zone while it was still playing in another zone. I tried updating the Xonar D2 drivers but that did not fix the issue. I played with the Output Format settings and the ASIO driver settings in order to fix it, but nothing worked.

Finally I decided to try MC16 to see if that would fix my issue. It is giving me the same error everythime I try to start music in a 2nd zone while another zone is playing music. The error is:

Playback could not be started on the output 'ASIO' using the format '44100 Hz, 64 Bits Per Sample, 2 Channels'.
This output format may not be supported by your hardware.  You can use DSP Studio to change the output to a compatible format.

I receive the exact same error from MC14 except it reports 32 bits per sample instead of 64. I cannot seem to get this to work under windows 7 no matter what I do. I have tried various versions of the ASUS Xonar D2 drivers for windows 7, but the result is always this error.

Is there anything I can do short of buying another sound card to make this work? I worked beautifully under Vista, but Windows 7 is so much quicker and better than Vista.
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Matt

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Re: ASIO Config for MC16 using ASUS Xonar D2 card under windows 7
« Reply #1 on: August 05, 2011, 11:35:31 am »

Welcome to Interact.

As to the 32-bit vs 64-bit, it's because the audio path was upgraded to 64-bit precision with v15.  ASIO is always delivered full precision, and the ASIO output scales to the format requested by the audio card.  So to Media Center, the output when using ASIO looks like 64-bit output.

As for multiple instances, I'm afraid it's probably a driver limitation.  Most ASIO drivers don't handle multiple instances very well.  ASIO itself wasn't programmed with this in mind.  Media Center codes around it in a clever way, but it still requires a driver to handle multiple instances.  I just tried multiple instances with a Xonar on Windows 7 and it crashed inside their driver :(

However, I am able to use Direct Sound output to target different lines on the Xonar on Windows 7.  Just select different channel targets in Options > Audio.  Hopefully this works for you.
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Matt Ashland, JRiver Media Center

mojave

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Re: ASIO Config for MC16 using ASUS Xonar D2 card under windows 7
« Reply #2 on: August 05, 2011, 01:06:51 pm »

Quote
Playback could not be started on the output 'ASIO' using the format '44100 Hz, 64 Bits Per Sample, 2 Channels'.
This output format may not be supported by your hardware.  You can use DSP Studio to change the output to a compatible format.
I had that error message just once using ASIO output. I don't know what caused it. I set my Output Format to 24 bit, but I don't think ASIO looks at that. Have you tried using the Asus Xonar Universal Drivers? I use those with Windows 7 and my Asus Essence ST. They work great.

In Options > Audio > Audio Output > Output Mode Settings, do you have your device selected. If you forget to do this and have the drivers loaded for the motherboard's soundcard, you could be getting the error message. JRiver will actually be trying to use the onboard sound, which probably don't work with ASIO.
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suttonn

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Re: ASIO Config for MC16 using ASUS Xonar D2 card under windows 7
« Reply #3 on: August 05, 2011, 03:17:34 pm »

The universal drivers work great!!! It's working just like it did before installed Windows 7 I upgraded the ASUS drivers . I was really feeling quite strongly that the problem was drivers and that there was probably nothing I could do. Thank god other people are as frustrated with ASUS and there lousy drivers!

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
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