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The cards described here were tested or are currently being tested. The results can be seen on the detail page.

Please note that these tests are only function tests together with BPM Studio and are no stement on the function of the cards with other software. Even if a card failed the test, it can be suitable for the work with another software. BPM Studio is very demanding on the realtime capabilities of a soundcard



General Soundcard FAQ
Driver-NEW's
Soundkarten in Zusammenarbeit mit BPM Studio

ALCATech is constantly testing different soundcards together with the different versions und publishes a summary about that here.

Additionally you can find the latest informations from the soundcard manufacturers Please read the general information before you proceed to the test reviews. All tests published here were done with the latest drivers of the manufacturers. Basically you shouls always download the latest drivers when troubleshooting.

Several sound cards in one PC

The 5 virtual devices of BPM Studio can be assigned to up to 5 different soundcards. The assignment is done on the tab Audio I/O in the program options. Generally BPM Studio works with all DirectSound capable soundcards installing a driver for all available channels. Further all cards with WAVE and/or ASIO/EASI drivers are supported but these card have a longer latency time than the ones with DiectSound drivers and because of their driver architecture they tend to produce dropouts when the system ressources are low.



Several sound cards in one PC

(This is concerning all „normal“ soundcards witha stereo output e.g. Soundblaster, Terratec) A sound card driver can ususally address only one soundcard. It is not able to recognize the presence of two equal soundcards in the PC. For this reason generally two different soundcards must be used. When the latest Terratec from November 99 are installed soundcards of different manufacturers must be used, e.g. Soundblaster live + Terratec DMX. In every way the use of a multichannel soundcard is to be preferred because they are much easier to install and are mostly cascadeable.


Download DirectX
www.microsoft.com/directx/homeuser/downloads/
Further important links about sound cards
www.soundkartenkatalog.de
www.driversguide.com
Test results
Windows98/ME:
Audiotrak
Maya 44
Inca 88
Maya EX7 / 7.1 USB
Maya EX / 5.1 USB
Maya 44 USB
Maya 44 MKII
Maya EX5
Creative
Soundblaster 16 / 16PCI
Soundblaster PCI 128
Soundblaster AWE 64 Gold
Soundblaster Live! Value
Soundblaster Audigy
Soundblaster Extigy USB
Digigram
VX-pocket (PCMCIA)
Echo Corporation
Echo Indigo
Egosys
Wami-Box
Giga Station
GigaPort AG
waveterminal U24
Emagic
EMI 2/6
Audiowerk 2
Audiowerk 8
ENCORE / Pearl Agency
USB Sound Konverter
Fostex
VC 8
Gadgetlabs
Wave Pro 424
Wave Pro 824
Guillemot
ISIS Maxi Studio
M-Audio
Delta 10/10
Delta 4/10
Delta 44
Delta 66
DMAN PCI
Delta Dio 2496
DMAN 2044
FireWire 4/10
Revolution 7.1
Marian
Marc 2
Marc 4
Marc X
Marc 8 Midi
Numark
DMX01 USB
CM 200 USB
RME
Digi 96/8
ADI-8 Pro
AEB-8 O
Hammerfall DSP
Hammerfall DSP 9632
SEKD
ARC 88
Siena
PRODIF-96-Pro
PRODIF-Plus
Terratec
128 PCI
XLerate
Base 2 PCI
Voice System
EWX 24/96
Aureon 7.1
Test results
Windows2000/XP:
Audiotrak
Maya 44
Inca 88
Maya EX7 / 7.1 USB
Maya EX / 5.1 USB
Maya 44 USB
Maya 44 MKII
Maya EX5
Creative
Soundblaster 16 / 16PCI
Soundblaster PCI 128
Soundblaster AWE 64 Gold
Soundblaster Live! Value
Soundblaster Audigy
Soundblaster Extigy USB
Digigram
VX-pocket (PCMCIA)
Echo Corporation
Echo Indigo
Egosys
Wami-Box
Giga Station
GigaPort AG
waveterminal U24
Emagic
EMI 2/6
Audiowerk 2
Audiowerk 8
ENCORE / Pearl Agency
USB Sound Konverter
Fostex
VC 8
Gadgetlabs
Wave Pro 424
Wave Pro 824
Guillemot
ISIS Maxi Studio
M-Audio
Delta 10/10
Delta 4/10
Delta 44
Delta 66
DMAN PCI
Delta Dio 2496
DMAN 2044
FireWire 4/10
Revolution 7.1
Marian
Marc 2
Marc 4
Marc X
Marc 8 Midi
Numark
DMX01 USB
CM 200 USB
RME
Digi 96/8
ADI-8 Pro
AEB-8 O
Hammerfall DSP
Hammerfall DSP 9632
SEKD
ARC 88
Siena
PRODIF-96-Pro
PRODIF-Plus
Terratec
128 PCI
XLerate
Base 2 PCI
Voice System
EWX 24/96
Aureon 7.1
Assignement of the system ressources

BPM Studio processes all frames of the mp3 file and therefore requires more ressources than other single MP3 players such as WINAMP(TM). Further BPM Studio offers a wider range of functions than these players and a direct comparison to them makes no sense. For this reason it is essential that each soundcard is assigned to a separate IRQ which is not in use by any other card or PC component. Also the other components like harddisk, CD-ROM drive and graphics card have a high influence on the system's performance. For the professional use it is highly recommended to run BPM Studio solely on the computer.


Latency of the drivers


Latency means the delay between a command such as play, pause or stop and the moment when the soundcard reacts on it e.g. starts playing. Generally these latencies depend on the used driver model or the driver itself. The lower the driver latency is the better it is suitable for exact beat mixing.
  • Kernel driver: 4...13 ms, this driver is definitely the fastest.
  • DirectSound drivers: 20...30 ms, 150...300 ms (!) with emulated drivers
  • MME Wave drivers: 70...180 ms, depending on the selected buffer size in the program options
  • ASIO/EASI drivers: 20...50 ms, the latency is generally set up in the ASIO driver options.

As you can see from the list above the kernel driver and the direct sound drivers are to be preferred because both drivers work in the kernel mode of the operating system and are therefore relatively independent from the system resources. The ASIO and WAVE drivers are running quite stable too and are very suitable for background music as in dance schools, pubs a.s.o. BPM Studio supports WAVE drivers because they are available for almost any soundcard and work properly even with NT.

DirectSound Driver

This is the fastest and most stable standard driver. Depending on the hardware configuration toggling between cue and play takes less than 20...30 ms. The sophisticated DJ putting a big weight on exact beat mixing and using the cue and play functions of BPM Studio will prefer this driver model. If the kernel driver is supported by your soundcard it is recommended because of its even lower latency and stable playback.

 
Kernel Driver

This driver developed by ALCATech adresses the soundcard from a very low level in the kernel mode and provides an extremely high priority with a very short latency of 4...13 ms and highest stability. The kernel driver utilizes the functionality of existing drivers such as Direct sound and therefore works on most soundcards, even on those which could only be run with ASIO or WAVE drivers because of the missing DirectSound drivers and tended to produce dropouts.
 
ASIO-Driver

This driver developed by Steinberg is designed as an interface for multichannel soundcards. It is a little slower than the direct sound drivers and tends to produce drop-outs as a user mode driver at high resource consumption. This driver is suitable for background music purposes and works quite well. The latency is between 6 and 50 ms and can be adjusted usually on the driver options. For BPM Studio latencies from 20 to 46 ms are recommended otherwise drop-outs can occur. The correct has to be detected by „trial-and-error“.

On some of the tested cards ASIO drivers are running unstable.
EASI Driver

This driver developed by eMagic is equivalent in function and stability to the ASIO drivers and is eMagic's answer to Steinbergs ASIO. All statements made on ASIO are valid on EASI too because they differ slightly only. EASI is rarely supported and threrefore almost without meaning.

WAVE-Driver (Wave out)

This is a very stable driver which can be use alternatively to the wave driver but provides hight latency times. On multichannel soundcards without DirectSound or ASIO drivers it is the only way to adress the differnt channels separately. It is very suitable for background music, but not for live DJ's. Latency is between 120...200 ms.