Multichannel output on Windows and MME
I've been working on a multichannel synthesis engine for an installation which needs to run unattended for some days.
The only way i encountered for proper multithreading in windows with max msp has been to create a standalone for every single top level patcher that contains audio signals, and communicating this standalones with the main control patcher using udpsend/udpreceive. (Unfortunately poly is not an option, and for some reason separating the audio processes in independent top level patchers recalled through pcontrol is not properly distributing audio processing in multiple cores, that's why i finally compiled every single top patcher as a standalone, and that is giving good results in terms of multicore CPU performance)
Because now what i have is a bunch of standalones that need to run in parallel, seems like ASIO is not an option, because no more than one application can access the ASIO drivers at a time.
Thus, it looks like MME is the way to go, as it allows for multiple requests from different aplications
BUT
I'm finding that in Windows MME just allows for a stereo pair, and not multichannel audio.
It has been a long nightmare to optimize the multithreading using standalones, just to find out that MME is not working properly with multichannel...
Have any of you encountered a similar situation or has a clue on how to solve this?
EDIT: the native ASIO drivers from my soundcard can be requested from multiple standalones, but when using the same asio drivers for every standalone, the multithreading performance is gone. This doesn't happen with the MME drivers
ommmmm
After fighting for hours with this whole thing, the best solution i found was to use Ableton Live M4L as a host for my 4 audio engines, and let Live do the multithreading management. This is by far the best solution i found, and although i would have preffered having a max standalone solution, it seems its not possible in windows...