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Old 08-21-2018, 09:50 AM   #44
karbomusic
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack Winter View Post
AFAIK RME was very unimpressed with using USB as the latency was far to high, so they proceeded to write their own driver that uses the USB hardware but a different protocol thus achieving far better results.

The misery with usb soundcards on Linux is that there are no drivers, just the generic class 2.0 audio specification that adds alot of latency. I do believe that most windows users actually have the same issue as most card manufacturers don't bother doing as RME did...
That matches my memory of it; it's not an OS thing. I mentioned similar in a recent thread where there is a difference between a SC manufacturer who's sole purpose in life is audio interfaces vs. some company in the music business that decides to sell their own "branded" interface - the latter is almost always some hodgepodge of existing designs which in turn use windows (or the mac equivalent) of generic class compliant drivers - which come with a latency penalty.

That said, when someone does it right (RME in this case), USB is clearly capable of real-world workloads. PCI can beat it but in my experience of just "getting on with the job" so to speak, I don't notice the fact that my RME USB/Firewire isn't PCI even when recording 24 simultaneous tracks over USB2.
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