ASIO started in the 90s, long time before MS introduced wasapi in Win Vista. Until wasapi there was no low-latency direct-access driver model in windows.
IMO today wasapi exclusive is a better option. It allows the same direct access to the soundcard DMA buffer (provided the driver does so, but that's up to the vendor, the wasapi excl. layer allows it). It allows one process to communicate with multiple audio devices, unlike ASIO whose original client library uses static variables for the connection and multiple accesses need to be hacked (e.g.
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/diana-a-software-distortion-analyzer.315785/post-7121977 ). But IMO most importantly it does not bind the capture and playback into one bufferSwitch callback like ASIO which disallows reliable use of different capture and playback devices, running with independent clocks (e.g.
https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...est-spec-adc-chip-currently.13469/post-871503 )