Looking for a cheap audio interface with solid drivers?

[Joe90]

I need a cheap audio interface for my second PC. I will only be using this for loading up and checking projects then bouncing wav stems. No audio recording, no sending audio out and back in through outboard gear, the audio won't actually leave the digital realm at all other than for me to monitor via headphones/speakers.

So it doesn't need a preamp, it doesn't even need great converters as it's not gonna be converting anything, it just needs good solid drivers so I can load up a heavy project sent from my main PC and not having it slow down to a sputtering mess or crash on me.

I bought a behringer UCA202 assuming it would do the job, but it doesn't even have ANY drivers, it's just treated as a windows soundcard and has to be run via asia4all. So obviously I aimed TOO low with that one, but there's also no point in spending any more than I need.

Any suggestions?

[domzy]

Why don't you just use WASAPI (or waveout or directsound for that matter) with your existing soundcard?
I'm not sure why you'd need anything more if it's just for playback & you don't need low latency.

[ivansc]

domzy is absolutely right. You may even find that you can use that Behringer with WASAPI, too.

FWIW most lower end interfaces can use WASAPI & arrive at latency figures pretty damn close to the best that ASIO might offer.

P.S. don`t waste your time with ASIO4ALL unless you have no alternative. It is still essentially a kludge that fools the computer into thinking your built in sound card is a multitrack-capable one when it is not.