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Asus Xonar AE
bicarus edited this page 2026-08-09 03:34:11 -07:00
Table of Contents

Introduction

Asus Xonar AE is an audio card used by some configurations of Bemani PC. Namely:

  • IIDX Lightning Model (Heroic Verse and up)
  • IIDX old cab (only the ones that installed the PCB upgrade for "J:E:A" kit during IIDX Resident. Resident and up)
  • SDVX Valkyrie Model cabinets

It is also used in Konami's consumer gaming PC line, ARESPEAR, marketed for use with Infinitas.

The main purpose of this sound card is to use its ASIO capabilities in 7.1 channel mode.

Before you order one...

Caution

Read this section before purchasing Xonar AE; it's not a good general purpose sound card.

As described here, it will work great with games that officially use this card, which is just IIDX, SDVX, and GITADORA (Arena Model).

It also seems to work well with PC rhythm games with ASIO support, such as Infinitas, DJMAX, and EZ2ON.

You will also not be able to directly capture audio when ASIO is in use. You are able to adjust Windows audio volume, however.

Do not buy this card if you must use SPDIF (optical out) - it won't work properly with IIDX/SDVX.

Lastly, do not purchase other products in the Xonar line thinking they will work similarly; they will not, as they use completely different chipsets or have different set of output channels! Do not buy Xonar DG, Xonar SE, or Xonar DSX and expect it to work exactly the same as the AE.

Known Alternatives to Xonar AE

Xonar U7 is confirmed to work following the instructions on this page, as it uses the same chipset as Xonar AE (CM6632AX/E).

Set up instructions

Setting up the hardware

The card has the following ports in order:

Mic/LineIn, Headphone, Front, Rear, Center, Side, SPDIF Out(Optical)

The jack configuration depends on the game. For most scenarios, plugging speakers or headphones into Front jacks will work. For game-specific configuration, read the bottom of this page.

Warning

SPDIF (optical out) cannot be used for this scenario, as it is stereo only. If you need optical out, do not buy this card.

Setting up the driver and Sonic Studio software

  1. Install the official driver from Asus.
  2. Reboot when prompted.
  3. Open the Sonic Studio app that was installed. You can enable or disable audio effects, or switch between Speakers and Headphones mode.
  4. To adjust ASIO buffer size, right click on Sonic Studio tray icon and click on Open ASIO settings. It's usually fine to leave it at 4ms.

Sonic Studio will attempt to automatically switch between Speakers mode and Headphones mode when headphones are plugged into the headphones jack. You may want to avoid this when the game is running; YMMV.

Game-specific instructions

IIDX

Spice will automatically detect the audio card and use ASIO. Leave -iidxasio as blank, and -iidxsounddevice as the default or asio, NOT wasapi.

Option 1) Standard PC setup (LDJ or TDJ)

Plugging into the Headphones jack and putting Sonic Studio Headphones mode will work fine. Plugging speakers (or headphones) into Front jack will also work with Sonic Studio in Speakers mode.

Option 2) Arcade-like experience with speakers + headphones and volume control (TDJ only)

  1. Put Sonic Studio into Speakers mode.
  2. Plug in speakers to Front.
  3. Plug in P1 headphones to Side, and P2 headphones to Rear.
  4. In SpiceCfg, bind any unused key to P1 Headphone or P2 Headphone in the Buttons tab. Press ..., Edit, and then enable Always On. This effectively tells the game that headphones are always plugged in, without having you press a key down the whole time.
  5. Open up the subscreen, go to Sound option, and use the headphone volume buttons at the bottom to change the volume for each player.

Note

According to the cabinet manual, center out is used for the bass platform and the woofers.

Tip

For the headphone volume controls to work, make sure you do not enable the Increase Game Volume patch, because the point of that hex edit is to bypass any volume limiting done by the game, which makes the headphone volume control not work! The unfortunate downside is that it might be a bit quiet, but to compensate for this, you can use -volumeboost option.

LDJ with headphone out?

Old LDJ cabs do not have a headphone jack, so the game doesn't have native volume controls. If you saw old cabs with headphone jacks, those are after market modifications with an audio splitter.

In SDVX

In SpiceCfg, leave -sdvxasio as blank. The game will try to use ASIO first, and if that fails, fall back to WASAPI. Both KFC (Nemsys) and UFC (VM) modes will work.

Option 1) Standard PC setup with speakers

  1. Put Sonic Studio into Speakers mode.
  2. Right click on Sonic Studio, and click on Open ASIO. Set Bit-Depth to 24 bits. Issue 122.
  3. Plug in speakers to Front.

Option 2) Standard PC setup with headphones

  1. Enable SDVX ASIO Two Channel Audio (-sdvxasio2ch) option.
  2. Put Sonic Studio into Headphones mode.
  3. Right click on Sonic Studio, and click on Open ASIO. Set Bit-Depth to 24 bits. Issue 122.
  4. Plug in headphones to Headphones.

Option 3) Arcade-like experience with speakers + headphones and volume control

  1. Put Sonic Studio into Speakers mode.
  2. Right click on Sonic Studio, and click on Open ASIO. Set Bit-Depth to 24 bits. Issue 122.
  3. Plug in speakers to Front.
  4. Plug in headphones to Rear.
  5. In SpiceCfg, go to Buttons tab, find Headphone row, click ..., Edit, and then enable Always On. This effectively tells the game that headphones are always plugged in, without having you press a key down the whole time.
  6. To adjust headphone volume in-game:
    • For KFC, press 7 to increase the volume and 1 to decrease the volume - the same keys you bound for entering the PIN. This only works after you selected a mode.
    • For UFC, on the subscreen, go to Options, and tap on the volume adjust buttons.

Note

According to the VM cabinet manual, side out is used for lower left/right speakers, and center out for the woofer.

GITADORA Arena Model

Cab uses Xonar but it's a bit more complex than IIDX/SDVX. See this wiki page

pop'n music High Cheers (pikapika pop-kun model)

Cab does not use Xonar or ASIO at all! It expects Realtek audio with WASAPI Exclusive @ 44.1kHz.

You can still use your Xonar AE, but if you want Exclusive, you'll need to set WASAPI Exclusive Buffer Size (-exclusivebuffer) to 16, otherwise audio will play in slow motion. If you still get glitches and crackles, increase it to 20.

Troubleshooting

Headphones become quieter / muted when I card in

Check in-game headphone volume settings and increase it.

Headphone volume levels are supposed to be saved on your game profile (on EA server side) and loaded when you sign in.

Game is too quiet

In IIDX you can use the Increase Game Volume patch. Doing so will disable the ability to adjust headphone volume via the subscreen. There are also VEFX sliders you can adjust in an attempt to make the game louder.

In SDVX access the test menu and increase the volume from 20 to 30. It'll help a little bit.

You can also try to adjust the headphone impedance settings and the equalizer in Sonic Studio.

You can also try WASAPI/ASIO Boost Audio Volume (-volumeboost) option.

Some PC games refuse to play sounds

Sonic Studio makes some games really unhappy and will refuse to play any sound. Blizzard games are known to do this. Into the Breach does this as well, along with handful of other games.

Try completely closing Sonic Studio from the tray icon and launch the game again - this resolves it for most of them.

Some PC games refuse to launch (anti-cheat detecting Sonic Studio)

Some games with anti-cheat will detect Asus Sonic Studio as "vulnerable" and refuse the launch the game.

Valorant is known to do this (reddit post).

Try completely closing Sonic Studio from the tray icon and launch the game again - this resolves it for most of them.

Sound is garbled in spice-supported games

For native ASIO supported games (newer IIDX and SDVX, GITADORA) this shouldn't happen - make sure you carefully follow the steps above, as they have been thoroughly tested by the community. Check the logs - if you see WASAPI initialization messages, then you did something wrong (possibly dirty DLL that is patched to use WASAPI and not ASIO).

For other games that use WASAPI Exclusive, like Gitadora (pre-GWD), pop'n HC, etc - this happens because these games are negotiating the minimum buffer size supported by the device (usually 3ms) and end up with buffer underrun. To fix this, try setting WASAPI Exclusive Buffer Size (-exclusivebuffer) to a reasonable number like 16. If you still hear buzzing, increase it until you don't.

Running IIDX/SDVX results in no sound, slowing to a crawl, and audio completely dies after (ASIO crash)

Try running ASIO Driver Tester to rule out ASIO issues.

A user has reported that bit depth of 24 bit was causing the card to crash, and changing to 16 bit fixed it, at least for IIDX.

Incomplete driver installation

If you can't get the device to work in IIDX, or if the driver's ASIO context menu doesn't work, the driver may have been installed incorrectly. This seems to happen very often on Windows 11 especially.

Try the following sequence:

  1. Uninstall ASUS XONAR AE AUDIO DEVICE from Settings
  2. Reboot Windows
  3. Run the Xonar installer
  4. Reboot Windows
  5. Reboot Windows (again!!)

... and now it hopefully works.

FAQ

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IIDX

SDVX

GITADORA

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