The wasapi exclusive thing is very normal or it's what it should be. Exclusive means all other applications can't access the interface. It pretty much acts like asio.
And as after installing driver asio works just fine I don't see anything wrong here. Just as it should be. Wasapi shouldn't be a part of the design. So it may break.
So you can use windows audio for casual use and asio for critical use.
Hi! I agree that WASAPI is just classic microsoft not caring enough . They could continue to accept audio streams from "shared-mode" applications and just seamlessly discard them when an "exclusive-mode" application enters the field. No need to crash the DirectSound applications or spit erros at them, which they spit at their users in turn. From my point of view as a programmer, that's just some lazy coding on Microsoft's behalf. Poor handling of WASAPI in Foobar2000 also kinda serves as evidence that the API is not as simple to use and foolproof as it should be. Oh well, it's microsoft, what can we do
By the way, ASIO applications work fine alongside DirectSound applications, I can hear sound from both at the same time, so I guess either the ASIO driver or the hardware does the mixing. Sample rate dictated by an ASIO application is reflected in Windows' sound control panel, though still can't be changed from there manually. So, in this regard, WASAPI is nothing like ASIO, actually it's much worse
I partly agree with your point about ASIO+DirectSound, but the problem here is it will only work as long as RME continue providing support in the form of updated drivers for the never-ending stream of Windows updates. I learned that the hard way when my E-MU 1616m just refused to work anymore on the recent 1903 windows "feature update". And E-MU is defunct, so there will be no new drivers
On the other hand, I've seen reports somewhere earlier in this thread that at least with the latest firmware the ADI-2 DAC should work fine "driverless" on Windows, including manual selection of output formats for DirectSound, up to 32/384. That isn't the case for me, sadly, which is slightly disappointing
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