If you are busy today, please skip down to my question, I will put it in bold for ease of locating that
But first, the good news:
Today I've tried the latest VM version (3.0.1.8), and all is looking great: I have the x64 version working by default, Macro buttons launching to foreground, rightclick in virtual bus to make more room for apps, all very nice! It even remembered almost all of my settings when I re-installed, it was a smooth process from the last time I did an upgrade and windows forgot everything.
I wondered what other nice features may have been added, so I went though the change log and saw some nice additions, such as the eject button working during recording (this will really streamline the recording process, thanks!) and fixes for he remote API (thanks, I am working on an app using that API right now) and upgrade for the master EQ (I use this for AutoEQ to make my headphones sound great).... but I also saw this one:
My questions:10- SYSTEM SETTINGS: Engine Mode and WDM Input Exclusive mode has been removed.
I have always used both of these features. Honestly I do not know what swift mode does (I think it was always a secret
) but I had enabled it during my attempts to reduce latency to the minimum (for gaming, and to monitor my voice through my headphones which is critical for me and very hard to talk when your own voice is delayed in your ears). Advice here was to try it and of course not use it if there were problems, but I never had any problems. I wonder what effect losing 'swift mode' will have?Related to this, I always used input exclusive mode, to get the smallest buffers from that microphone so that the monitoring delay was as small as possible.
As it happens, I have a new PC and the driver is a little buggy and I was trying to get exclusive mode to work again. Obviously I can't continue with that now, and I wonder if it will ever be possible to reduce my microphone's input latency to the levels I enjoyed in the past. I do wonder why these features were removed?
I have a feeling that there will be nothing to worry about here, you guys know what you are doing
But if you could educate me a little, to gain some insight into your intentions here, that would really be appreciated!Cheers,
Cas
PS With the settings I use, my latency is so low that it is barely even audible. Even without ASIO drivers, with WDM my latency is at 160 samples (3ms! ... and perhaps with the new PC it can even go lower?) for my output and my microphone even in shared mode is only 528 samples (11ms, still barely audible) This post is not a complaint about bad performance! I just am curious, that's all
PPS I would have to roll back to the old version to confirm this, but I'm pretty sure I'm seeing increased CPU time with the new version? I seem to recall that CPU time on the previous version was around the same as Argus Monitor (my fan control app, always running ) and MSI afterburner (GPU monitoring/control app, also always running) but now, it is about 8 times that. Could the be related to 'swift mode'? Perhaps I am just mis-remembering.