# Which ASIO driver to use from several installed?



## Kevin Fortin (Nov 16, 2017)

Over the years I have accumulated five or six ASIO drivers on my system [FL Studio's, ASIO4ALL, Magix's, Generic low-latency driver (from Cubase?), plus the one for my Lexicon Alpha audio interface].

Is the one that goes with the audio interface usually the best one to use, or is there even any significant difference between that and one of the others?

Thanks!


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## rrichard63 (Nov 17, 2017)

I've been hoping that someone with more detailed knowledge than I have would respond. Please take my opinion with a whole shaker full of salt.

In general, you should use the ASIO driver developed for your audio interface unless you have a specific reason to do otherwise. Specific reasons might include (1) your hardware doesn't have an ASIO driver so you need to use (e.g.) ASIO4ALL as a wrapper around its standard Windows driver, (2) you want multi-client operation and the standard driver doesn't provide that, (3) your standard driver is buggy and isn't being updated any more, (4) you are using virtual ports (audio or MIDI) that don't support ASIO by themselves and you need a wrapper around them.

EDIT: I responded in terms of Windows because that's what I use. Mac users may have different requirements or face different obstacles.


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## nicholificus (Nov 17, 2017)

Generally speaking, use the ASIO driver provided by the manufacturer of your interface. ASIO4ALL is great for when your sound card doesn't have an ASIO driver, but avoid this when possible as it's really just interacting with the Windows driver.


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