***************************************************************************** Important Suggestions to the ARC88 Driver Version 3.00 ***************************************************************************** Contents: 1. NEW: The first installation of the ARC88 and related drivers 2. NEW: Update from older drivers to this driver version 3. How to unistall all driver components ? 4. What's new? 5. Attention: Windows System Sounds 6. Attention: Multicard Users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. NEW: The first installation of the ARC88 an related drivers ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * If you want to install a ARC88 for the first time, then go ahead as follows: - Switch off your computer and open the cover. - Put one or more (max. 4) ARC88's into free PCI slots. - Close the cover and switch on you computer. - Start Windows95/98 amd follow the instructions on the screen. - First, the Windows operation system may not find a driver, because it doesn't exists at the root directory of you installaton disk. - Search for the language directory of you choice und click "Ok." - Under Windows95b/c it may happen, that you have to choose the correct installation directory once again. - Now you can choose a specific driver for installation. Choose here "ARC88 Sound System v3.00 English (NEW)". That's right if you have no ARC88 driver installed. - After you have installed the drivers, the ARC88 Sound System is ready for action. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2. NEW: Update from older drivers to this driver version ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * If you have an older driver already installed the go ahead as follows: - Choose "Properties | Driver | New Driver" within the windows device manager. - Follow the instructions on screen. - Choose the directory of the new driver files. - Do not install the default driver but the Update-Driver which you can find within the list of alternate drivers: "ARC88 Sound System v3.00 English (UPDATE)" - Follow the instructions on screen. - Restart windows. - After windows has rebooted the ARC88 Sound System is ready for action. * You can update your older drivers by the old method too. First uninstall the old driver like described in the next section. Then install the new driver like described under 1. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3. How to unistall all driver components ? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * If you want to uninstall all driver components so go ahead as follows: - Start Windows and remove the ARC88 entry from device managers device list. (recommend for users with ONE card ONLY) O R - Start Windows in SAFE MODE (recommend for users with MORE THAN ONE card) - Start the ARC88 Deinstaller (ARC88UI.EXE), which is located in root directory of you installation disk and (after a successful installation) in windows system directory. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4. What's new? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Version 3.00: * ASIO 2.0 Support * Installation problems on some AMD K7 systems solved. * Windows start/shutdown problem solved. * Warning/Error messages about Sample/Device Conflicts default changed to disabled. If you encounter problems like these: - Your Playback/Reocord doen't start - Your Playback/Record takes the wrong samplerate - Your applikation reports an error like "Unknown external error" the turn the error messages on! (ARC88 Manager - Settings) * New DirectSound option "Available devices limited to:" implemented: (see ARC88 Manager - Settings - DirectSound) If you use an application which is not capable to determine a DirectSound Playback Device, now you have the opportunity to setup your desired device here. But - this device will be the ONLY one which you can use by DirectSound! Choose "No device available" if you don't wish a DirectSound support at this card. This option is very(!) important for the Sampler Output of NemeSys GigaSampler! Choose your GigaSampler Output HERE and take care that no other application is using this GigaSampler Device - whether or not GigaSampler is running! Proper DirectSound Setup for NemeSys GigaSampler: - Set Latency manually to 3ms or 4ms (exactly) Version 2.09 * Now you can NOT reach the ARC88 Mixer via Control Panel. You can find an appropriate icon at the Windows Taskbar. Use a double click at this icon to start the ARC88 Manager. * The "Setting Panel" moved to the main window of the ARC88 Manager (previous ARC88 Mixer) * DirectSound Support (see Arc88 Manager - Settings - DirectSound) * Important DirectSound Option "Restrict Playback Format" implemented: (see Manager - Settings - DirectSound) In interaction of some DirectSound Applications and the DirectX System it may occur, that the hardware driver is used with another sample format by DirectX that requested by the application. A realtime sample format converting is the consequence. This may have a negative influence to the sound quality and the overall system performance. So, if you get the impressiom that it didn't sounds like you expect (like a bad format converting), please close your application, open the Arc88 Manager and set the sample format you need in "Settings - DirectSound - Restrict Playback Format". This setting forces the DirectX System to use the hardware driver with this sample format only. Therefore a realtime format converting by DirectX will not happen. But, if an application uses another sample format than you have set, the realtime format converting of DirectX will be done again. * Now you can disable the error messages about Device Conflicts (Not supportted Digital Record & Play), like the messages about Sample Rate Conflicts. Please see Arc88 Manager - Settings. This is useful when using programms which does a functionality test with all available wave devices. (eg. emagic Logic Audio, Steinberg VST) But please note that this doesn't remove the cause of such messages. If an error occurs and you have switched off the error/warning messages it is much harder to find its cause. * New PunchIn- and AutoRecord Monitoring (see Input sections of Arc88 Manager) Meaning of the monitor switches: - "On": switchs the input signal of the channel pair to the appropriate output - "OnPunch": like above, but does it first if an application starts a punch recording session. This feature is implemented in Samplitude only. - "OnRec": like above, but does it first if an application starts a recording session. - "MutePlay": if active, the playback signal of an application will be removed from the ARC88 output when one of the monitor modes mentioned above starts. Else, the playback signal and the monitor signal will be mixed together. (Not new: all monitoring is supported by the hardware and thats why handled without any latency ("zero latency monitoring")) * Independent Record Devices - see Settings - Synchronization (makes multiple separate recording session with single record devices possible) * Additional procedures to check successful hardware initialization at windows start Version 1.20 * System "Freeze" problem, caused by an incompatibility between some mainboards and the souncard hardware (PCI controller) solved. Version 1.19 * IRQ Sharing The ARC88 now is able to share a IRQ with other PCI components. That means of course other ARC88, Prodif PLUS and Prodif 96 PRO too. Except from IRQ Sharing are PCI components which doesn't support IRQ Sharing (the most of it support it). * Developers Only: waveOutSetVolume, waveOutGetVolume, waveOutGetPitch, waveOutSetPitch can now be called per DevId too. Version 1.18 * Bugfixing and optimizing of asynchron operation of the playdevices. Version 1.17 * The ARC88 Mixer is now completely implemented as a 32 Bit Application. * The ARC88 Mixer bug with 3 ARC88's fixed * The sytem menu of the ARC88 Mixer windows has been extended. Through this menu now you can manipulate all setting which previos only could be manipulated by the check boxes at the bottom of the mixer windows. The visiblity of these check boxes now can be switched on or off by the menu entry "Show windows control area". * The ARC88 mixer functionality has been extended by a "Total Recall". Use the menu entry "Save settings" to save all audio settings and the visiblity of the single window sections of the mixer window under any names. Use the menu entry "Load settings" to get back all this settings. The system menu of the window "ARC88 Mixer Manager" consists of equal menu entries. Use this function to save or load the settings of ALL (also not visible) mixer windows AND their's window position, size and visiblity of the window sections. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4. Attention: Windows System Sounds * After the first installtion of an audio device driver, Windows NT switchs on the Windows System Sounds per default. The system will playback these sound if a message box appears or a windows will be minimized or maxminized. The use of this system sounds may cause some problems in conjunction with running audio applications. * Per default the driver takes care of a synchron start and stop of all devices of the Arc88. This is a really important feature for each multichannel harddiskrecording program but it may cause conflicts with the windows system sounds. If a running playback- or recording session will be interrupted by a system sound (because of a message box or window actions) the playback- or recording session will STOP too and the related audio application will hang (under specific circumstances) in a undefined state. You can solve this behavior by switching off the system sounds (Control Panel->Sounds) or by deactivating the Start/Stop Synchronization Option of the Arc88 driver. (see Arc88 Manager - Settings - Synchronization) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5. Attention: Multicard Users * If you get an error message at windows start which shows an harware initialization error, please remove ALL card from you computer and test each card alone. This is the only safe way to find out the defect card! Please request your hardware dealer to Exchange of the defect card against a new one. * NEVER disable or remove a Arc88 entry from windows device manager's list! This may cause problems in interaction with the Arc88 Manager and Driver. System crashs may be the consequence. This problem will be solved in the next driver update. * Please install a driver update ONLY like described under 2. Leipzig 07-31-2000