I am planning an eye-tracking study with audio stimuli, and I therefore need a hardware/software combination with a very low sound latency. The ePrime website suggests using an ASIO compliant soundcard. I'd like to buy a laptop that directly comes with such an ASIO compatible soundcard (instead of buying an external one). Does anybody know if this exists?
Hello, Paolo,
I am in a similar situation, as even the manufacturers of digital audio workstation software seem to write their requirements aimed primarily/specifically for desktop PC's.
For laptops, seems the overall consensus on most of the audio sites is a (freeware, I believe) driver named 'ASIO4ALL' (http://www.asio4all.com/) [1]. However, the caveat is that some people have 100 % success, others have 0%, and others fall somewhere between. I haven't tried it yet, but that is my intention.
The following is a post I found during my search. I have done a 'copy and paste', just to include the author's credits:
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mandrake
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Re: HP (Envy) laptop Beats Audio and ASIO January 23, 14 2:24 AM (permalink)
I've had excellent results with ASIO4ALL. I've been using that little gem for many, many, years now. I've used it with an hp, a couple of acers, a dell, and currently with my lovely Toshiba laptop. Its a quad core haswell i7. The p75-a7200. I paid $700 for it! Really awesome computer, not just for the price. Its light, ez to upgrade the ram and HD, lasts ok on battery, lovely 17 in screen. It even has an extra empty bay for a second HD. I sometimes use the HDMI output and run a long cable to my 55 inch tv and its just awesome to arrange that way. Mostly though, its just the laptop, a midi controller and headphones (except when Im making final mixes). I'm running the latency at the lowest setting (64 samples with the onboard, 48 when I use my USB soundcard) and doing complete songs on it. I haven't touched the latency setting at all running a bunch of vst and fx. Its handled everything I've tried to throw at it without a problem. I even keep the wifi on. In fact, I'm about to have a track released that I did entirely on this laptop using just the onboard audio with ASIO4ALL and an m audio controller (though I did check the mix on my studio monitors). I've been using computers with music productions since 1999. So I am really impressed with how times have changed. Incredible.
From: http://forum.cakewalk.com/HP-Envy-laptop-Beats-Audio-and-ASIO-m2973600.aspx
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My Google search string was "what is the equivalent of asio on laptops"
I ran across your question externally, but I am also on ResearchGate (James Whitney, Amalfi Acoustics)
Maybe you have already solved your problem (if so, please email me your solution !) - if not, maybe some of the above will help.
Good luck !
Jim
[1] http://www.sibelius.com/cgi-bin/helpcenter/chat/chat.pl?com=thread&start=367242&groupid=3&&guest=1
Hi James,
thanks a lot for the infos and the links!
In the end, I opted for PsySchope on Mac, a combination that is supposed to give a low sound latency. I would have preferred to use E-Prime on Windows, but I finally gave up the idea because I was not 100% sure about laptop models that woud satisfy the criteria and I couldn't afford to make a mistake...
Anyway, it's quite probable that this problem will arise again in the future. So, thanks again for the infos!!
Paolo
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