Portaudio support (was: WinUAE support for ASIO drivers)

[Amiga1992]

Not really sure, I'm not on Vista.
Sucks about ASIO!

[AmigaFriend]

It's a solution for Vista/7 users. The problem with WaveRT is that it only supports PCI/PCI-X audio. USB and Firewire equipment is a no go for now. And from my experience external devices are the most used equipement for several years now, from musicians.

[Toni Wilen]

Perhaps it is possible to use (for example) Foobar2000 sound output plugins...

It has both ASIO and WASAPI plugins.

[AmigaFriend]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Perhaps it is possible to use (for example) Foobar2000 sound output plugins...

It has both ASIO and WASAPI plugins.

That's a great idea. Making WinUAE compatible with Foobar's output plugins. I'm Foobar user for many years now.

Do you think it's doable Toni?

[Amiga1992]

Go the audionerd movement, xpect! ;D

That sounds amazing, Toni!

[Dexther]

Use Asio drive is veri usefull for a Professional card (tipe E-Mu card).
Native use Asio reduce cpu cost.
Great implementation !

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Perhaps it is possible to use (for example) Foobar2000 sound output plugins...

It has both ASIO and WASAPI plugins.

Using plug-ins made for a music player may not have the desired effect here.

ASIO and WASAPI themselves are designed for low-latency playback, but any advantage from using that would become insignificant because music player output APIs are not designed for low-latency playback and relevant plug-ins aren't coded with low-latency operation in mind either - quite the opposite: when playing music or any other pre-rendered content, longer buffer / more latency is better because it means stronger protection against stuttering when the system is under heavy load.

[AmigaFriend]

Originally Posted by Akira

Go the audionerd movement, xpect! ;D

Originally Posted by DEATH

when playing music or any other pre-rendered content, longer buffer / more latency is better because it means stronger protection against stuttering when the system is under heavy load.

Yes, you are correct on your statement but incorrect on the actual use of the driver.

The buffer size is always controlled by the ASIO driver not the program itself. The ASIO plugin in Foobar only provides a way to output audio through an ASIO driver. In my PC I have two audio cards. Realtek and Audigy 2. The driver for the first is controlled by ASIO4All the second from Creative ASIO drivers.

As you can see in the images posted of audio panel from Reason 4, the buffer size is only selectable on the ASIO driver side. Only DX driver buffers can be controlled by Reason directly. In Foobar is the same.
So if Toni makes a Foobar Asio plugin wrapper it's on the ASIO CP side that you control buffers, not in the program/plugin themselves.

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by DEATH

Using plug-ins made for a music player may not have the desired effect here.

ASIO and WASAPI themselves are designed for low-latency playback, but any advantage from using that would become insignificant because music player output APIs are not designed for low-latency playback and relevant plug-ins aren't coded with low-latency operation in mind either - quite the opposite: when playing music or any other pre-rendered content, longer buffer / more latency is better because it means stronger protection against stuttering when the system is under heavy load.

Afaik output plugins only transfer the data (with buffer size requested by main software), it would be impossible to get correct video/audio sync if plugins add big delays..

[Toni Wilen]

PortAudio seems to be even better solution, supports DirectSound, WASAPI, WDM-KS and ASIO. (also Windows Multimedia but thats useless..)

Apparently PortAudio is basically very thin wrapper, it does not increase latency.

(WinUAE sound device selection box can get quite long..)

[amiga]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

PortAudio seems to be even better solution, supports DirectSound, WASAPI, WDM-KS and ASIO. (also Windows Multimedia but thats useless..)

Apparently PortAudio is basically very thin wrapper, it does not increase latency.

(WinUAE sound device selection box can get quite long..)

Maybe I don't get it. Isn't it enough to lower Sound buffer slider in Winuae sound panel settings in order to diminish audio lag ??

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by amiga

Maybe I don't get it. Isn't it enough to lower Sound buffer slider in Winuae sound panel settings in order to diminish audio lag ??

Yes but DirectSound (for example) has some internal latency.

ASIO and WASAPI use more direct path (skips all mixing, resampling etc.. steps) which results in smaller latency.

Note that ASIO and WASAPI takes exclusive audio access = all other sounds will be muted. (smaller latency or more flexible, can't have both..)

[Toni Wilen]

PortAudio appears to work, at least device detection works (nothing else done yet. Sound card used: Auzentech Prelude which includes native ASIO support)

[MME] Microsoft Sound Mapper - Output
[MME] Speakers (Auzen X-Fi Prelude 7.
[MME] SPDIF Out (Auzen X-Fi Prelude 7
[MME] Digital Output Device (HDMI) (H
[Windows DirectSound] Primary Sound Driver
[Windows DirectSound] Speakers (Auzen X-Fi Prelude 7.1)
[Windows DirectSound] SPDIF Out (Auzen X-Fi Prelude 7.1)
[Windows DirectSound] Digital Output Device (HDMI) (High Definition Audio Device)
[ASIO] Auzentech ASIO
[Windows WASAPI] Speakers (Auzen X-Fi Prelude 7.1)
[Windows WASAPI] SPDIF Out (Auzen X-Fi Prelude 7.1)
[Windows WASAPI] Digital Output Device (HDMI) (High Definition Audio Device)

[AmigaFriend]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

PortAudio appears to work, at least device detection works (nothing else done yet. Sound card used: Auzentech Prelude which includes native ASIO support)

Great news Toni! Keep the good work and let's if we can test this sometime in the near future.

[Toni Wilen]

Very alpha PortAudio WinUAE attached.
Put the dll in same directory as winuae or to plugins-directory.

Notes:

Does not check if channels or frequency is supported. Check the log.
Exclusive modes (WASAPI, maybe ASIO, probably depends on sound card) may only support 48000Hz. Check the log again
In my quick tests WASAPI seems to be the best, tested with both Prelude and HP laptop with some crappy integrated sound. WASAPI is Vista SP1 (Vista RTM had some bugs)/Windows 7 only.
Attached portaudio.dll is logging enabled, it is not official release.

EDIT: portaudio updated, WDM-KS support included (it was commented out, perhaps it is broken, can't test because apparently it does not work in Vista/W7 anymore)

WDM-KS (Windows XP) not enabled, got only compilation errors. Perhaps some non-bleeding edge portaudio.dll works better..

[AmigaFriend]

Toni, you work fast. Many thanks for PortAudio features Will test them ASAP!

[Retroplay]

\WinUAE\plugins\portaudio_x86.dll failed to open 14001
portaudio_x86.dll failed to open 14001

This happens to me in WinXP SP3.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

http://www.winuae.net/files/b/portaudio_x86.zip, unpack to plugins-directory.

Have you done this Retroplay?

[Retroplay]

Originally Posted by TheCyberDruid

Have you done this Retroplay?

Yup.

[TCD]

Works fine here with XP SP3 So you made a folder called 'Plugins' in the WinUAE main folder and put the DLL in there? (just to make sure there is no typo or something alike)