Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[jesseinsf]

Read my last post below :-)

If you right click the Asus Audio driver in the Task bar and choose ASIO you get the option to change the bitdepth., 24, and 32. What is the best setting since the Actual card supports only 24 bit. When I choose 32 bit then MC will output at that bitdepth then I would guess my card would continue down-converting to 24 bit. So my question is, would it be better to set the driver to 24 bit rather than 32 bit? My guess is yes because it would be less messing with the audio output.

[Audioseduction]

I think you set it at the highest bitdepth your DAC will support.

[jesseinsf]

My DAC supports 24 bit. But I can Set my ASIO settings to 32 bit and everything still works. MC also reports that its output is 32 bit via ASIO. My question is: is this a good idea to set the ASIO settings to 32 bit where as my DAC supports up to 24 bit?

[Matt]

The user selected bitdepth is ignored when using ASIO (the dialog does say this below the selection in the note, but it's easy to miss):
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Audio_Bitdepth#ASIO

This is a good thing.  It means there's one less thing to worry about if you use ASIO.

[jesseinsf]

Actually this setting that I'm talking about is not within MC, it's in the ASIO driver settings. And it does have a visual effect in MC when I toggle the 3 available bitdepths. If you have an Asus sound card with the ASIO driver that was installed along with the sound card drivers then you can right click the Asus Driver management in the notification area and then chose "Asus Xonar ASIO", you then can change the Bitdepth and the time in ms. If I set a bitdepth to 16 bit then MC will show that it is outputting the file at 16 bit. If I change the ASIO driver to 32 bit then open MC it will show that it is outputting at 32 bit. (the same goes for 24 bit). Again my question is: If I keep the ASIO driver at a bitdepth of 32 bit will the sound card still down convert the file to 24 bit? if this is true then is it best to have the card's DAC  down convert the file to the supported bitdepth or should I set the ASIO driver to 24 bit so MC can output the music to the cards supported bitdepth?

Again this setting is NOT within MC. It is part of the sound card's driver settings for ASIO.

[jesseinsf]

Still waiting to hear from a knowledgeable person. :-)

[Matt]

I'd be tempted to select 32bit in the Asus ASIO control panel.

Without getting an answer from their driver programmer, it's hard to know what's really happening.  But there should be no real harm in their driver down-converting from 32bit to 24bit if it doesn't really support 32bit.

[nwboater]

I've had an Essense ST with H6 Daughter card for some time. I have been using the 'Unified Drivers' available here  http://brainbit.wordpress.com/category/uni-xonar/  for some time without any problems. I know of a least one other here on the Forum that also used them. They supposedly solved a few problems with the Asus drivers. You might want to look into them.

To check what you are talking about I started the Asus Xonar Audio Center Deluxe for Essence ST (It's normally off when using the Unified Drivers.) and did not see anything about bit depth. So apparently there is a separate ASIO Control Panel? I also don't have this setting available with the Unified Drivers.

Rod

Added on Edit:  I just found the Asio Panel for the Asus Drivers. It was down in the taskbar when the Asus Drivers were running. It was set at 16 bit. Normally I have the Asus Drivers not running so don't know if this ASIO Panel has any affect when I'm running the Unified drivers.

I'm going to make a post on the Unified Drivers Blog asking about the bit depth settings. Will report back here when I find something.

Rod

[nwboater]

Here's my post on the Unified Drivers Blog and their response:

"When running the Asus Drivers there is an ASIO control panel that allows setting the bit depth at 16, 24 or 32. Since I’ve been running your wonderful drivers I exit out all the Asus stuff. What happens to bit depth in this case? Does it run at the last selected setting?

I run all our audio through JRiver Media Center 17. It also has a bit depth setting. Any idea how this all ties together and how the final bit depth is determined?

Thanks again for all your efforts.

Rod"

    "CarvedInside
    January 5, 2012 at 7:02 pm | #75
    Reply | Quote

    Yes, the bit depth for ASIO is saved to the registry and loaded in the driver so no need for Asus or Cmedia Audio Panel to actually run.

    Maybe JRiver Media Center has a audio bit depth related to Direct Sound and not ASIO, just like foobar has, and if you use ASIO as output then the ASIO bit-depth is used. But anyway, set both the same level, might not work with 32, so I think 24 is enough."


So for the Unified Drivers he is suggesting to set both to 24 bits. His drivers are a modified version of the Asus drivers, but I don't know how applicable his response is to the pure Asus drivers.

I do need to thank you jesseinsf for your post here as it got me looking into this. I had the ASIO Panel set for 16 bit so have probably been losing out on quite a bit - or should I say lots of bits!


Rod

[Matt]

Rod, thanks for the post.

I want to reiterate that the bitdepth setting in Media Center is ignored when using ASIO.  So CarvedInside's advice to make the bitdepths match is harmless but also unnecessary.

The user selected bitdepth is ignored when using ASIO (the dialog does say this below the selection in the note, but it's easy to miss):
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Audio_Bitdepth#ASIO

This is a good thing.  It means there's one less thing to worry about if you use ASIO.

[jesseinsf]

Matt you are correct but the Asus ASIO Control Panel is not a part of MC, so Asus ASIO Control Panel settings does affect the output bitdepth of MC. I tested it myself. You access the Asus ASIO Control Panel through the notification area of the Windows Taskbar. When testing this you have to put your mouse over the NEW DSP quick view near the top left of MC. And again as Matt just said, the Bitdepth settings within MC don't have any effect on the audio path/signal, only the Asus ASIO Control Panel settings have an effect in MC.

[jesseinsf]

I'm still wondering if someone has an explanation to my original post? As you can see the picture in my previous post states that MC is outputting at 32 bit where as my Xonar Essence STX card only states that it only supports up to 24 bit? What is happening? Is the ASIO driver taking the 32 bit file that is receives from MC and "down-converting it to the supported Bitrate which is 24 bit? Or does the card actually support 32 bit audio in ASIO mode? I would ask Asus myself but I don't have the Serial number that they need to answer my question. I am using the latest Asus Driver for my card that come from the Asus website. All bitrates work and playback in MC when I change them in the Asus ASIO Control Panel.

Remember I can change the Asus ASIO control panel to 16 bit and MC will output at 16 bit. I can give a screen shot if anyone needs it.... Thanks

[Audioseduction]

Post this question at Computer Audiophile site: http://www.computeraudiophile.com/. Lots of experiance people there.

[jesseinsf]

Here is the answer. Yes set it to 32 bit.

Computer Audiophile forums said:

Xonar cards use the oxygen PCI(-e) controller which supports only 16bit and 32bit samples over DMA - see the corresponding line in the linux driver source code git.alsa-project.org Git - alsa-kmirror.git/blob - pci/oxygen/oxygen_pcm.c

 The DAC connected to oxygen via I2S supports 24 bits exactly - oxygen adds zeros/pads zeros to the samples read via DMA before sending to the DAC via I2S (or switches the DAC to 16bit I2S, I have not studied the source code in detail). All these operations are bitperfect with zero effect on the sound.

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f11-software/asus-asio-control-panel-10027/

This might also be why WASAPI default Bitdepth settings  which is "Automatic" outputs at 32 bit.

[Jackkan]

You can hear differences in timing going from 32 to 16 for CD and 32 to 24 for studio masters with the Asus ASIO driver. I have the latency set at 50ms and buffering the same. OH it does bypass JRiver's 32 bit preference accordingly when viewed in Audio path.