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[Shmoo]

Hi and thanks in advance for any help or suggestions that can be offered. I have three main questions.

I have been happily using MC 17 then MC 18 for about 14 months now. I am currently using it strictly for my computer setup. I am using an Asus Xonar Essence STX soundcard on a Win 7, 64 bit system. Because I need to hear mail come in when I'm away from my desk, I have been using ASIO output and application volume to adjust via the slider. About a month ago I all of a sudden couldn't adjust the volume with the slider; I had to do so on the speaker volume control. I was having some other driver issues so I didn't think too much of it. I have just finished a complete reinstall on my system and reinstalled MC 18 with the same settings as before. Yes, I can confirm that because I took screenshots of all the settings first.

I restalled MC 18 using the download I had used previously (I believe it was 18.0.059). My settings were once again working as I wanted, but I was doing some poking about in the Wiki and forums looking to see what my best option might be for sound quality. I found the following link: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?PHPSESSID=crb9916lkqkipvtvssfeb88d57&topic=75605.0 which, while it seemed quite a stretch, I thought might mean that there could be a way that I could use ASIO output and system volume as well.

I updated to the latest version and now I'm back to the same situation of application volume not having any effect when using the volume slider! So my questions are as follows:

1. Is there a bug in the latest version(s) of MC 18 that is causing this, or is there an additional setting that I need to be using? And a follow-up to this question would be whether there is an easy way to revert back to a previous version if there is indeed a bug.

2. I might as well ask the question that led me to do some research in the first place. Given that I want to be able to adjust the volume via the slider yet want the best sound quality possible (and sometimes I have it turned down significantly lower), am I better off going with direct sound and system volume, or ASIO and application volume? Or are both options equally atrocious?

3. Is there another setup that I could use to accommodate these two different volume level requirements? Different zones perhaps? I'm grasping at straws here for ways to enjoy the best sound quality my system can offer while both hearing mail come in and yet not annoy the neighbours.

Thank you!

[6233638]

Are you sure you were using ASIO before? As soon as I use ASIO or WASAPI Exclusive, Media Center has exclusive control of the device and I can't hear system sounds at all.
Application Volume controls the Windows Mixer - which I don't think should have any impact on ASIO at all.

I think you want to use WASAPI with Exclusive Mode disabled, or DirectSound.
I would probably use the Internal Volume control, rather than Application Volume.

[Shmoo]

Hi there,

Yes, I'm sure. I have the screenshot to demonstrate, but I don't think I can upload it here, can I? As I said, ASIO with application volume worked fine up until about a month ago, then suddenly it didn't. It worked again this morning until I updated MC 18.

[JimH]

Make sure you have 18.0.193 installed.  It's at the top of the MC18 board.

[Shmoo]

The update that installed this morning brought it up to 18.0.175 and it now says it's up to date. I'll try downloading .193 to see if it does the trick.

[Shmoo]

I have installed it now but unfortunately I'm still having the same issue.

[JimH]

Confirm what version you now have installed.

I don't believe there have been any bugs concerning volume recently.

[Shmoo]

Hi Jim,

Yes, I can confirm that I have now installed 18.0.193 and I'm still seeing the same results.

I'm not imagining things that using application volume is the one setting with ASIO output that will allow you to use the volume slider to adjust the volume, correct? This had been working perfectly for me up until quite recently.

Any other solution that achieves the same end result would be just fine as well.

Thank you!

[6233638]

I'm not imagining things that using application volume is the one setting with ASIO output that will allow you to use the volume slider to adjust the volume, correct? This had been working perfectly for me up until quite recently.

ASIO should be bypassing the Windows Mixer entirely, so System Volume or Application Volume should not have any effect. The only volume control that should have any effect with ASIO is Internal Volume.
ASIO also gives exclusive control of the card to the software using it, so it would not be possible to hear system sounds at the same time. (WASAPI Exclusive does the same thing)

To quote the ASUS website:

To keep the ASIO stream bit-perfect, the following two rules apply:
(1) The ASIO stream has higher priority of using DMA buffer than other streams. That is, when the ASIO stream is played, other streams cannot be played.
(2) No volume control is available for the ASIO stream.
When there are more than two ASIO applications running, only one application gets the right to use the hardware resource. This is based on “first come, first service” rule.

You need to be using WASAPI with Exclusive Mode disabled, or Direct Sound to hear system sounds while music is playing.
Either the Application Volume or Internal Volume control should work with those outputs - with Internal Volume being preferable.

[Shmoo]

Hi 623, thank you for the info. I'm hoping that someone could clarify then, what has been "fixed" in 18.0.70 as indicated in the following post.

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?PHPSESSID=crb9916lkqkipvtvssfeb88d57&topic=75605.0

Also, I had made all the settings adjustments that I wanted when I first installed MC and hadn't touched them in over a year. Why would it have been working and then not? And why would it have temporarily worked this morning? As I have indicated in the subject line, I fully expect that I have overlooked a setting somewhere, but I can say with certainty that I was using ASIO and application volume. At this point I would just like to have something work that involves the least amount of sound quality loss. I have changed the settings to your suggestion and it does allow for the volume to be adjust within MC so I will go with that option. Thank you very much for suggesting it!