User's Guide
DIGI96 © RME
13
12. Operation under ASIO 2.0
12.1 General
As Steinberg is the inventor of ASIO we have chosen Steinberg's Cubase VST as example on
how to use and setup our cards in ASIO operation.
Our ASIO driver supports any
combination of cards from the
DIGI96 series. Important: Mul-
tiple cards MUST be synchro-
nized among themselves! This
may be done by using the
input signal (having a common
clock source, for example a
digital mixing desk), several
synchronized devices or the
RME Word Clock Module.
Start the ASIO software and
select ‘System’ from the Audio
menu. Select 'DIGI96 ASIO'
as 'ASIO device'. The button
'ASIO Device Control Panel'
opens the 'RME DIGI Settings'
dialog (see chapter 9, Configu-
ration).
The Enhanced Zero Latency mode of the DIGI96 series enables the 'ASIO Direct Monitoring'
feature of the ASIO 2.0 standard to be used. Please note that in this mode neither routing nor
pan are supported so the input signals will only be routed to the same output channel. Other
VST mixer settings have no effect. Due to the limited numbers of tracks (2) it often is more
convenient to NOT use ADM, but the Cubase mixer at a low latency setting.
12.2 Buffer Size - Latency
The Buffer Size value in the RME DIGI Settings dialog determines the latency (in this case the
delay) between the audio application and the DIGI96 series as well as general system stability.
The higher the value, the more tracks can be recorded and played back simultaneously and the
longer the system takes to react.
In RME DIGI Settings, ASIO, 4 different buffer sizes are available: 6 ms 24 bit, 11 ms 16 bit,
23 ms 24 bit and 46 ms 16 bit.
There is a simple relationship between the resolution of the ASIO host (Cubase etc.) and the
driver. If one of both is set to 16 bit the resolution is limited to 16 bit. Bits 17 to 24 will be trun-
cated. So when the driver uses 16 bit and Cubase is set to 24 bit only 16 bit will be transferred
to Cubase. When the driver uses 24 bit and Cubase is set to 16 bit, the additiona information in
bits 17 to 24 will be lost. As the real latency depends on the used sample rate the values are
different for different sample rates:
Choice
Buffer size
Resolution
44.1 kHz
48 kHz
88.2 kHz
96 kHz
46 ms/16 bit
2048 s
16 bit
46.4 ms
42.7 ms
23.2 ms
21.3 ms
23 ms/32 bit
1024 s
32 bit
23.2 ms
21.3 ms
11.6 ms
10.7 ms
11 ms/16 bit
512 s
16 bit
11.6 ms
10.7 ms
5.8 ms
5.3 ms
6 ms/32 bit
256 s
32 bit
5.8 ms
5.3 ms
2.9 ms
2.7 ms
