Weird ASIO behaviour?

[daftcombo]

Hi,

I have the lastest drivers for my Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 2nd Gen. In Foobar2000, I have the ASIO component installed and chose "Focusrite [ASIO]" as the output.
In the past, when I chose ASIO (with other DACs, with which I had to use ASIO4All if I remember correctly), when a song was playing in Foobar2000, I couldn't hear sounds in Firefox or anywhere else.
Now, I can listen to songs in Foobar in ASIO and at the same time play a video in Youtube.
I don't understand... ASIO is supposed to work as an exclusive output, isn't it?

If I choose ASIO4All, I can't play sound in Firefox while music is playing in Foobar. is it different from other ASIO methods?

 

[laurelkurt]

Good question! I too am in the dark. Following.

 

[bennetng]

ASIO is supposed to work as an exclusive output

Not necessarily as there are multiclient ASIO drivers. It is a feature, not a bug.
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/mus...io-interfaces-fully-multi-client-drivers.html

 

[daftcombo]

Not necessarily as there are multiclient ASIO drivers. It is a feature, not a bug.
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/mus...io-interfaces-fully-multi-client-drivers.html

Super-clear explanations that I couldn't fine alone, thanks!

 

[Vincent Kars]

Mixing is done in general by converting to float, mix, dither and convert back to integer.
Makes me wonder if this interface is bit perfect even when a single stream is playing.

 

[bennetng]

Floats are common on software, not so common on hardware (e.g. interfaces with additional FPGA/DSP chips). Even the lowest float is 32-bit which is fully compatible with 24-bit integer so bit-perfect up to 24-bit without dither is entirely possible for a single stream. There are 16-bit floats but they are generally used in GPU or AI, not audio.