Realtek Audio is a mess. Why did they have to break it?

Remember when we had Audio Enhancements that worked? Why do Realtek's Audio drivers suck so much now?

Also, does anyone actually using Nahimic or some of these other "premium" trash audio companion apps?

When is Realtek / Microsoft going to acknowledge this issue? I'm so pissed that I have a new computer with worse audio than my last one:


Windows 11 / 10 have a sound driver problem.

I have Nahimic on an MSI laptop. I get the impression that it's a solution looking for a problem. I haven't had time to look at it but it seems like another bit of bloatware. I might persist with it because the machine doesn't get much use and I rarely use the sound.

There is definitely something going on with Realtek and drivers in general. Have had a lot of issues for a few years. This includes Audio and networking devices in particular. I had to replace my Realtek WiFi card on my laptop to an Intel one and all issues are gone.

I have dual Ethernet ports on my motherboard. I never even thought about using the Realtek one. I use the Intel one.
I haven't had any trouble with the Realtek Audio driver. I only updated the audio driver once, in August 2022.
Before that I was just running the audio driver that came on the motherboard driver DVD.

SlicEnDicE said:

There is definitely something going on with Realtek and drivers in general. Have had a lot of issues for a few years. This includes Audio and networking devices in particular. I had to replace my Realtek WiFi card on my laptop to an Intel one and all issues are gone.

Click to expand...

Intel is the way to go for WiFi cards. I had a realtek card in an old Lenovo laptop. It was a pain in the a.. but I couldn't swap it out because it was hard coded in the BIOS so I eventually dumped the machine.

own3mall said:

Remember when we had Audio Enhancements that worked? Why do Realtek's Audio drivers suck so much now?

Also, does anyone actually using Nahimic or some of these other "premium" trash audio companion apps?

When is Realtek / Microsoft going to acknowledge this issue? I'm so pissed that I have a new computer with worse audio than my last one:

Windows 11 / 10 have a sound driver problem.

Click to expand...

I have had Realtek audio and network components on nearly all of the last few laptops and desktops (3 or 4 of each) I have owned over maybe 12 years, never had issues with them, sound has always been acceptable to good, networking, wired and wireless just worked.

I am not saying there are not bad implementations of both hardware and drivers, not just for Realtek but all vendors, but there is a certain responsibility on the purchaser to research that the product they are about to buy will meet expectations, in all areas. There is also a lot of subjectivity as far as audio reproduction is concerned.

There is also the driver update issue, some people seem to think that constantly updating drivers will provide better performance when in reality, sometimes, performance decreases and even some functionality is lost. Again a bit of research is needed on the part of the owner.

Windows 11/ 10 do not have an inherent sound driver problem, there is a lot more to sound reproduction than just 'driver bad' including sound hardware, component isolation, connection types, speaker types, environment, hardware processing, software processing, and more.

It's nots an issue with the Realtek sound driver. The issue lies in that Realtek stopped including its HD Audio Control Panel in its driver package. The last driver package it was included in was 2017. Realtek continues to develop drivers, but leaves it up to the OEM's to develop their own enhancement apps now.
Here's the last driver that included it, but use it at your own risk as it was not developed for Windows 11. Even if you can get it to work, chances are an update might remove it anyway.

Yeah the issues I've had started to appear in Windows 10 and in Windows 11 in particular...I blame it on drivers not keeping up with changes in the OS. Never had problems in Windows 7 or older nor Linux.

glasskuter said:

It's nots an issue with the Realtek sound driver. The issue lies in that Realtek stopped including its HD Audio Control Panel in its driver package. The last driver package it was included in was 2017. Realtek continues to develop drivers, but leaves it up to the OEM's to develop their own enhancement apps now.
Here's the last driver that included it, but use it at your own risk as it was not developed for Windows 11. Even if you can get it to work, chances are an update might remove it anyway.

PC Audio Codecs > High Definition Audio Codecs Software - REALTEK

www.realtek.com

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, those drivers no longer work with the newest chipsets in 10 or 11 (dual boot, though 10 was shown in the video, it's the same on 11). Those were the drivers I used with my x370 motherboard without issues, but no dice on x670.

We don't need enhancement or companion apps from OEMs. We just need the functionality back from Realtek HD Audio Manager. No need to re-invent the wheel when it was already perfect before...

As illustrated in my video, the Nahinic enhancements sound so bad, it makes games unplayable.

Which motherboard do you have exactly? ...while at it, fill in all your computer specs in your profile. The more hardware details the better.

own3mall said:

We just need the functionality back from Realtek HD Audio Manager

Click to expand...

True, I miss it too, but we don't always get what we NEED or what we WANT. Sometimes it is what it is and nothing we can do will change it.

This might help get back some of the functionality for Realtek audio. MSI tells me to get the Realtek Audio Console (UWP program) from the Microsoft store. It might work for all Realtek audio. See the attached image which I copied from the MSI web site.

I wrote a little .NET Framework 4.0+ utility (that I've attached to this post) that re-enables the Enhancements tab for the selected audio device. I also added "Disable FP Audio Detection" functionality into it as well to more easily allow playing the same sounds through the rear speakers as the front headphones at the same time (simultaneously), but this piece won't work on the latest Realtek drivers since it looks like that setting has been totally removed / completely ignored. The old hex value that would disable front-panel audio detection doesn't work in the newest drivers. Your mileage may vary on that piece (the Disable FP Audio Detection), but re-enabling the Enhancements tab including Loudness Equalization should work just fine for the selected audio device.

On my System Two, when I plugged a speaker into my motherboard the Realtek HD Audio Manager software "magically" installed itself. And it came with the enhancements talked about in this thread.

When it comes to audio issues, especially Realtek problems, I've received great support on the Windows 10 Forums Sound & Audio section. There is also quite a lot of existing information there.


I think a dedicated Sound & Audio section on this forum would be good.

Scott, Your panel is from ASUS and colored blue. Mine is from MSI and colored red but mostly the same.

Scott said:

On my System Two, when I plugged a speaker into my motherboard the Realtek HD Audio Manager software "magically" installed itself. And it came withe the enhancements talked about in this thread.

View attachment 55188

Click to expand...

I have this exact stuff too on my system. It all just works...

own3mall said:

Unfortunately, those drivers no longer work with the newest chipsets in 10 or 11 (dual boot, though 10 was shown in the video, it's the same on 11). Those were the drivers I used with my x370 motherboard without issues, but no dice on x670.

We don't need enhancement or companion apps from OEMs. We just need the functionality back from Realtek HD Audio Manager. No need to re-invent the wheel when it was already perfect before...

As illustrated in my video, the Nahinic enhancements sound so bad, it makes games unplayable.

Click to expand...

I stopped using Nahimic on my desktop and went with FxSound.

BobD said:

Scott, Your panel is from ASUS and colored blue. Mine is from MSI and colored red but mostly the same.

Click to expand...

well the realtek hd audio manager app on my friend's Asus M5A78L-M LE/USB3 board is colored black instead of blue

Stigg said:

I think a dedicated Sound & Audio section on this forum would be good.

Click to expand...

I'm still wondering why that has not yet happened since this eleven forum was born more than a year ago

glasskuter said:

It's nots an issue with the Realtek sound driver. The issue lies in that Realtek stopped including its HD Audio Control Panel in its driver package. The last driver package it was included in was 2017. Realtek continues to develop drivers, but leaves it up to the OEM's to develop their own enhancement apps now.
Here's the last driver that included it, but use it at your own risk as it was not developed for Windows 11. Even if you can get it to work, chances are an update might remove it anyway.

PC Audio Codecs > High Definition Audio Codecs Software - REALTEK

www.realtek.com

Click to expand...

those 2017 realtek hda drivers are in a different driver format (aka. non-UAD/non-DCH or standard/legacy HDA) and were "general release" and/or "generic" versions (and are large size; almost bloated). the new/modern ones for w10/w11 are in modern UAD/DCH format and are OEM specific (and much smaller in size):



UAD > universal audio driver
DCH > Declarative Componentized Hardware

erpster4 said:

well the realtek hd audio manager app on my friend's Asus M5A78L-M LE/USB3 board is colored black instead of blue

Click to expand...

Probably the black background is due to selection of DARK mode in Settings Personalization etc. See mine.