Important Hints to the Marc A driver version 2.06 for Windows 2000/XP

1. System Requirements
2. New Installation
3. Driver Update
4. What's new
5. MME, DirectSound and "Classic MME"
6. Software Sampler and Synthesizers

1. System Requirements

Microsoft Windows 2000 SP3 or Windows XP
Microsoft DirectX 9

2. New Driver Installation

2.1 Windows 2000

Start your PC after installing your hardware.
Log in using administrator privileges.
Windows automatically recognizes at startup the newly installed device and starts the Hardware Wizard.
During the start of Windows the Hardware Wizard searches for new drivers. Click "Next" to start the search.
Enable the “Search for the best driver for your device” option and confirm by clicking "Next".
Insert the supplied CD in your CD-ROM drive.
Confirm the next dialog with „Next“
Confirm the next window also with „Next“
Ignore the message „Digital signature not found“ and continue the installation with „Yes“
Windows copies the driver files and installs the Marc A.
After finishing the installation click "Finish”. The driver will be enabled and the Marc A is ready to be operated without having to restart the system.

2.2 Windows XP

Start your PC after installing your hardware.
Log in using administrator privileges.
Insert the supplied CD in your CD-ROM drive.
Windows automatically recognizes at startup the newly installed device and starts the Hardware Wizard.
Enable the option „Install Software automatically“ and confirm by clicking „Next“.
Ignore the next message and click „Continue“
Windows copies the driver files and installs the Marc A.
After finishing the installation the Marc A is ready to be operated without having to restart the system.

3. Driver Update

Ensure you are logged on with administrator privileges
Uninstall the driver software by using the program "ma_nt5_ui.exe". You can find the current version of this program in the driver setup folder.
Restart Windows
Logon with administrator privileges again. Now, the Windows Hardware Wizard starts with a new driver installation. Please refer 2. New Driver Installation

4. What's new

Version 2.06:

System requirements changed
- Windows 2000 service pack 3 solves some problems with the Microsoft Kernel Mixer
- DirectX 9 ensures that DirectSound devices are not shown as "emulated"
Driver's setup procedure cleans some audio related registry keys. Thus, it prevents/solves some effects of a Windows Installer anomaly, which may cause some problems with audio/midi devices
No IRQ usage anymore
- The IRQ number still can be found in the windows device manager but it is not used by the hardware or driver.
- The hardware IRQ can be used exclusively by other system components.
- IRQ incompatibilities with any other system cannot appear anymore
Support of WDM-Audio Kernel Streaming
Thus, "real" WDM-Audio applications like Cakewalk Sonar are able to work with extremely low latencies.
More details you can find at MME, DirectSound and "Classic MME"
Support of DirectSound
Support of Windows Volume Control (Windows Mixer Device)
Support of Tascam GSIF
You can use additional settings within the Marc A Manager software to setup the GSIF latency manually.
CPU load during recording/playback reduced once again
ASIO Error Messages reviewed/changed
Marc A Manager
- The main window, which were used to open the inputs and outputs windows, is now replaced by a menu. Just right click the manager icon in the taskbar to open this menu.

- When changing the preferred device in the recording and playback device lists of the Windows control panel, in some cases the manager loses it's connection to the driver. Thus, the input and output windows could not be opened anymore. Solved.

- New option to control the sample rate when no audio application (including the Windows system) is using the Marc A. Now you can choose whether the card should keep the last used sample rate (default) or it should switch to a standard sample rate. Please see the appropriate settings in the manager software at "Synchronization".

Version 1.13:

Record CPU load, caused by the Marc A PCI bus transfer, decreased by 30%
ASIO: performance improved when using less than all playback devices of one card
ASIO: When using an ASIO application, the driver overrides user's clock and start/stop
synchronization settings with appropriate values. (these user settings are applicable for MME applications only). Now, the driver restores the user settings again, when the last ASIO application has finished.
Marc A Manager Software now uses the registry branch "HKCU" (User related) to store it's settings.
Improvements for using two Marc A simultaneously.

Version 1.11:

ASIO: posible error "Init: No driver or no devices present!" solved
ASIO: You are now able to choose "Internal" clock as clock source even in the case that ADAT record devices are enabled. In this mode you must ensure that the external connected device is working in clock-slave-mode! If your external connected device works as clock master, then you are obligated to choose "ADAT input" as clock source or playback/recording produce drop outs and/or general failures.

Version 1.10:

This version is compatible to Windows XP
Start/Stop Synchronization of record and playback assured
MME: synchronous buffer return improved

Version 1.01:

Because of legal reasons the name "Prodif" cannot be used anymore. The existing hardware and related drivers are now part of the
product "Marc A".

Version 1.0:

All ;-)

5. MME, DirectSound and "Classic MME"

5.1 MME und DirectSound:

Audio applications, who do not use ASIO, GSIF or direct WDM-Audio, now communicate with Microsoft MME or Microsoft DirectSound drivers instead of communicate with the MARIAN drivers directly. The Microsoft drivers in turn communicate with the MARIAN drivers.
For audio applications, who use these Microsoft drivers, apply:

They can playback simultaneously using one playback device. The Microsoft Kernel Mixer mixes the playback signals of the applications into one stereo stream and routes it to one physical output device. If playback takes place with different sampler ate, the Microsoft Kernel Mixer converts the sample rate of the playback streams to the highest sample rate required.
Hint: You can improve the quality of this conversion! (See Control Panel | Sounds and Audio Devices | Audio | Sound Playback | Advanced | System Performance)
The described simultaneous playback of different applications fails, if the output device is already in use by ASIO, GSIF, "Classic MME" or direct WDM-Audio.
The number of the available recording and playback devices is limited:
- under Windows 2000 to 10 devices each (20 channels)
- under Windows XP to 32 devices each (64 channels)
This limitation applies to the number of all audio devices installed in the system.
You can use "Classic MME" or ASIO to walk around this limitation.
The minimum possible latency is limited to app.. 30ms through the Microsoft Kernel Mixer architecture.
Use ASIO or GSIF to walk around this limitation.
Some audio applications show additional audio devices with theirs names appended by "(3+4)" or "(5+6)". This is caused by an anomaly of the Microsoft MME/DirectSound system. Please ignore these devices and do not use them.
Some audio applications require the MARIAN driver because of its additional hardware support functions:
- Hardware Punch In Monitoring
- Hardware Pitch Support
- Hardware Audio Signal Routing
- Hardware Audio Signal Level Measurement

These functions are not supported by the Microsoft drivers. Please supply this audio applications with the "Classic MME" devices.

5.2 "Classic MME"

The MARIAN driver enables you to use the MME driver interface of the previous driver versions in addition to all other driver interfaces. From now, we call this interface "Classic MME". You can activate "Classic MME" within the Marc A Manager settings at "Audio Options". If this driver interface is active, then you get additional recording and playback devices with the appropriate device lists. These devices have the name suffix "(MME)".
The "Classic MME" device have these advantages:

The number of the recording and playback devices available is NOT limited (see above)
These devices support the MARIAN hardware support functions (see above)

6. Software Sampler and Synthesizers

Software samplers and synthesizers normally supply MIDI output devices for other audio applications who want to use the software sampler as an instrument. If such an application starts, then normally this application opens the MIDI output devices and this in turn causes the software sampler to initialize its audio engine with the configured audio outputs.
THIS OCCURS EVEN IF YOU HAVE NOT STARTED THE SOFTWARE SAMPLER APPLICATION.

In the described situation the software sampler and the other audio application may conflict, if they use the same audio output. You can use the Marc A with different audio applications at the same time but never the same output device simultaneously.

Therefore this hint:

First start the software sampler/synthesizer and setup an audio output device which will NOT be used by the other audio application. Start the audio application (sequencer) afterwards.
If you start an ASIO or GSIF application the first time, then it will use the device "Marc A 1-2" for recording and playback.

The Windows Multimedia System also supplies a software synthesizer called "Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth". This synthesizer has also a MIDI output port with the same name. Since there is no explicit setup for the output device, the "Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth" always uses the standard playback device configured in "Control Panel | Sounds and Multimedia | Audio".