PsychPortAudio, Soundblaster ZxR, and ASIO4ALL not working

1
Hi,

I am having trouble getting PTB-3 to work with a Creative Soundblaster ZxR PCI sound card and the ASIO4ALL driver on a Windows 7 desktop PC. If I select the ASIO driver as the sound device and then play a sound using Psychtoolbox I hear nothing. I have modified latency biases, made sure that the portaudio_x64.dll file is there, uninstalled and installed all software involved, but to no avail. I have searched the web and the PTB forum, but haven’t been able to find a solution (which I fear is trivial, apologies in advance!).

Thanks,

Tobias
2
Hi Mario,

Again, thank you very much for your support!

I tried almost everything (un-/reinstalling software; disabling the preinstalled AMD and Realtek sound devices in the Windows Device Manager; checking that the Creative ZxR does indeed have an ASIO driver via the Device Manager, and it does), but to no avail; PTB still says that there is no ASIO capable soundcard installed.

I finally downloaded a trial version of Cubase to see whether Cubase would detect the Creative ASIO driver, and it does. Cubase also comes with its own "Generic Low Latency ASIO driver”; after installing Cubase, InitializePsychSound now detects an “ASIO capable soundcard” and lists the Cubase "Generic Low Latency ASIO driver” as the driver it is using, and the latency and jitter (or lack thereof) are much improved (on the order of 3.5-4 ms latency and < 1 ms jitter, measured with an oscilloscope against a parallel port trigger)! I am not sure I understand why or how PTB would even find the Cubase ASIO driver, not to mention use it, but not the Creative ASIO driver? Can you put these puzzle pieces together?

If all else fails I am willing to pay for Cubase just for that ASIO driver, but I’d rather go with the Creative ASIO driver to have one less layer of complexity.

Your help is greatly appreciated,

Tobias





PsychPortAudio would automatically select the ASIO driver if there is one, ie., it would select the sound card from the 'GetDevices' list which uses ASIO. Also it will report use of ASIO at startup.

If it says it couldn't find one then the driver is missing or something else is broken on your system. You'll have to search the internet or docs of your card for troubleshooting tips. Maybe installing ASIO4All somehow damaged something. Or maybe you need to enable it somewhere with some setup tool for your card.

-mario



On Jul 21, 2015, at 9:36, Tobias Overath <otobias@...> wrote:

Hi Mario,

Thank you so much for your reply. Mea culpa for not realizing that the ZxR comes with an ASIO driver. Do you happen to know whether this is the default driver or how I would make sure it’s using the ASIO driver, because when I select either the 'Primary Sound Driver’ or the ‘Speakers (Sound Blaster ZxR)’ as the sound device after the PsychPortAudio(‘GetDevices’) command (those are the two most relevant, though I am happy to send you all of them if you think this would be useful), I get the warning from PTB that it “could not find any ASIO capable soundcard in your system”.

Thanks again,

Tobias




You don't need ASIO4All for that soundcard. That card comes with native ASIO drivers, which is what you should use. ASIO4All is just a hack for people who don't have proper sound cards. In your case it is likely actively harmful and may be the cause of your problems.

If nothing works, post the full Matlab output of, e.g., PsychPortAudioTimingTest.

best,
-mario


On Jul 17, 2015, at 17:26, Tobias Overath <otobias@...> wrote:

Hi,

I am having trouble getting PTB-3 to work with a Creative Soundblaster ZxR PCI sound card and the ASIO4ALL driver on a Windows 7 desktop PC. If I select the ASIO driver as the sound device and then play a sound using Psychtoolbox I hear nothing. I have modified latency biases, made sure that the portaudio_x64.dll file is there, uninstalled and installed all software involved, but to no avail. I have searched the web and the PTB forum, but haven’t been able to find a solution (which I fear is trivial, apologies in advance!).

Thanks,

Tobias


3
xx---In PSYCHTOOLBOX@yahoogroups.com, <otobias@...> wrote :

Hi Mario,

Again, thank you very much for your support!

I tried almost everything (un-/reinstalling software; disabling the preinstalled AMD and Realtek sound devices in the Windows Device Manager; checking that the Creative ZxR does indeed have an ASIO driver via the Device Manager, and it does), but to no avail; PTB still says that there is no ASIO capable soundcard installed.

I finally downloaded a trial version of Cubase to see whether Cubase would detect the Creative ASIO driver, and it does. Cubase also comes with its own "Generic Low Latency ASIO driver”; after installing Cubase, InitializePsychSound now detects an “ASIO capable soundcard” and lists the Cubase "Generic Low Latency ASIO driver” as the driver it is using, and the latency and jitter (or lack thereof) are much improved (on the order of 3.5-4 ms latency and < 1 ms jitter, measured with an oscilloscope against a parallel port trigger)! I am not sure I understand why or how PTB would even find the Cubase ASIO driver, not to mention use it, but not the Creative ASIO driver? Can you put these puzzle pieces together?

-> No, sorry. You could set PsychPortAudio('Verbosity', 10) and post the output here to verify it really doesn't detect the card. But if it really doesn't detect it, i don't know. I don't think we ever had a case where a properly setup ASIO driver wasn't detected, and the detection code comes from Steinberg's original ASIO SDK itself, so obviously should be correct. You could try installing the card on a separate Windows machine which never had any ASIO driver installed, and see if that makes a difference. Or reinstall your operating system from scratch.

-> Currently i don't have any access to any Windows machine or ASIO soundcard to debug ASIO related problems, so i won't tinker with our ASIO support. My Windows runs in a virtual machine, with broken sound and various other broken and tedious things. Even just recompiling PTB mex files every two months is a frustrating exercise.

If all else fails I am willing to pay for Cubase just for that ASIO driver, but I’d rather go with the Creative ASIO driver to have one less layer of complexity.

-> You can also ask on Creative Labs support forums, after all you are their customer, so should get some support.

-mario





PsychPortAudio would automatically select the ASIO driver if there is one, ie., it would select the sound card from the 'GetDevices' list which uses ASIO. Also it will report use of ASIO at startup.

If it says it couldn't find one then the driver is missing or something else is broken on your system. You'll have to search the internet or docs of your card for troubleshooting tips. Maybe installing ASIO4All somehow damaged something. Or maybe you need to enable it somewhere with some setup tool for your card.

-mario



On Jul 21, 2015, at 9:36, Tobias Overath <otobias@...> wrote:

Hi Mario,

Thank you so much for your reply. Mea culpa for not realizing that the ZxR comes with an ASIO driver. Do you happen to know whether this is the default driver or how I would make sure it’s using the ASIO driver, because when I select either the 'Primary Sound Driver’ or the ‘Speakers (Sound Blaster ZxR)’ as the sound device after the PsychPortAudio(‘GetDevices’) command (those are the two most relevant, though I am happy to send you all of them if you think this would be useful), I get the warning from PTB that it “could not find any ASIO capable soundcard in your system”.

Thanks again,

Tobias




You don't need ASIO4All for that soundcard. That card comes with native ASIO drivers, which is what you should use. ASIO4All is just a hack for people who don't have proper sound cards. In your case it is likely actively harmful and may be the cause of your problems.

If nothing works, post the full Matlab output of, e.g., PsychPortAudioTimingTest.

best,
-mario


On Jul 17, 2015, at 17:26, Tobias Overath <otobias@...> wrote:

Hi,

I am having trouble getting PTB-3 to work with a Creative Soundblaster ZxR PCI sound card and the ASIO4ALL driver on a Windows 7 desktop PC. If I select the ASIO driver as the sound device and then play a sound using Psychtoolbox I hear nothing. I have modified latency biases, made sure that the portaudio_x64.dll file is there, uninstalled and installed all software involved, but to no avail. I have searched the web and the PTB forum, but haven’t been able to find a solution (which I fear is trivial, apologies in advance!).

Thanks,

Tobias