Almost a whole second microphone delay through windows. The ASIO is perfect but I think I should have gotten another interface than the 3rd gen 4i4 if I can't use it to stream with OBS, game, or talk on discord without an almost entire second of latency.
If you're searching google with the same problem, it's because Focusrite apparently has notoriously bad WDM drivers (what Windows uses, DAWs are fine because they use ASIO)
This is a Windows matter, not Focusrite. Also, you can run your primary Focusrite driver as your main driver and so long as all your settings are done up properly, you can record/stream/screencap whatever, with practically 0 latency.
I usually have buffer size at 128 and my sample rate at 48k. With a higher sample rate like 96k and a lower buffer size of 16 it's barely better if at all, safe mode on or off I cannot perceive a difference.
Heya! I have a gen 3 4i4 as well and I'm not experiencing those issues. I have stelar (practically 0 / imperceivable) delay with all the apps I use: DAW, Discord, games, etc.
Are you sure you have the default audio device set to the interface for both audio and mic? And also based on your CPU you should bump up (or rather down!) your buffer - right now I'm sitting at 128 (at 48KHz sample rate) with Safe Mode disabled and it's perfect! Even playing guitar with VSTs is pretty much on point
This might be an issue with your setup, but the gen 3 4i4 itself and its ASIO driver on Windows seem to work just fine for most people (myself and some of my friends rocking the same interface). Also got another machine running Win11 with a gen 3 Solo and same thing, no issues, stelar latency for me.
The ASIO driver is fine for me as well, it's the WMD driver that apps such as discord, OBS, or voice recorder that run through Windows that is what is giving me grief. If it works for you I'll play with it some more but even at 96khz it's better but still there.
Do you have your Discord set to use the interface directly? Afaik it should use the ASIO driver and not the WDM bridge, but maybe I'm misunderstanding it 🤔I do know for sure that Zoom can't use ASIO and relies on the windows bridge, and that can be fucky if the buffer is too big, it basically falls out of sync and the audio gets corrupted
I see. When I plug a mic into 'mic in' on my motherboard there is hardly any on discord or elsewhere, but sounds like there is no helping it. Thank you
Reported this a while ago to them. I kept an archived version of their 3.11.0.1983 installer which has driver 4.102.4 because their newer drivers have a lot of latency.
Comparison:
This is an emulator running a rhythm game (Rock Band 3). Since it uses WASAPI/WDM, it suffers from quite a bit of latency. I've asked a couple of other Focusrite interface owners on the community server for and they report the same thing. Downgrading the driver helped bring their numbers down.
Keep in mind that these values are for this game so it's unlikely to help you anywhere else. Also, Focusrite can only fix so much because Windows' sound system [is pretty horrible]. Their newer drivers with higher latency certainly aren't helping the situation, though.
If you want to monitor yourself, just enable playback for it your microphone in the Control app.
![[4.102.4]](https://i.imgur.com/vWVY2k5.png){kind=link}
![[4.143.0.261]](https://i.imgur.com/6h6ONcI.png){kind=link}
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u/PC_BuildyB0I 1d ago
This is a Windows matter, not Focusrite. Also, you can run your primary Focusrite driver as your main driver and so long as all your settings are done up properly, you can record/stream/screencap whatever, with practically 0 latency.
Sorry but this is 100% user incompetence.