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

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 with the enhancements talked about in this thread.

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That's awesome! Yes, I would love to have that on my rig! Why can't I have nice things? Is it because I went with AMD? It does seem like Intel rigs have the better sound options? Conspiracy?

own3mall said:

Is it because I went with AMD?

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No, same issues on Intel.

If I'd buy a new computer today, I'd go with a high end Asus motherboard. They're mostly reliable, has high end components and high end audio components. All new MBs has some early adoption issues in the UEFI firmware, but usually Asus fixes the issues pretty fast. AMD or Intel does not really matter. Whichever suits my needs better at the moment.

If I needed really high end audio gear, I'd go look for some external audio cards.

Anyways, most audio effect presets are total garbage...I rarely use anything beyond high bitrate settings because I need it for audio production...

Hi,
Yeah installing realtek driver console from ms store, why is this a realtek issue and not ms issue being in the store it should be certified by ms right lol
I never had issue in general with realtek driver until ms overly complicated the driver process for realtek console, about the most important part of the driver and it's likely just about UI changes

Either way I finally got console installed on win-10 and 11 and haven't had any issues except for having to get it from the stupid ms store to get console for the equalizer to adjust and save profiles.
Only surprise is on win-10 on my x299 rig asus realtek driver installed like it does on win-7 with the console in action center area for quick access so I didn't have to get it from the ms store

Odd thing is on windows 11 best I can do is pin the console to taskbar same on my z490 rig for 11 and 10 so go figure
.
I have intel nic.

own3mall said:

That's awesome! Yes, I would love to have that on my rig! Why can't I have nice things? Is it because I went with AMD? It does seem like Intel rigs have the better sound options? Conspiracy?

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Hi,

You have an ASRock Nahimic 3 motherboard, so, you need Realtek Audio Drivers (UAD - ASRock NH3) from your motherboard support page.

However, if you still want to use legacy/outdated HDA drivers when your motherboard is designed to use modern UAD drivers, and that you would love to have Realtek HD Audio Manager, you can try this :

Download Realtek High Definition Audio Drivers (HDA - ASUS ROG/TUF/PRIME DTS&RTK) (Flagged ASUS but work also with other manufacturers, unlike UAD drivers which are specific for each manufacturer) from the first post of this thread : [DRIVERS] Realtek Audio (Intel 6x/7x/8x/9x/1xx & AMD Legacy 6xx/7xx/8xx/9xx).

Follow scrupulously your CLEANUP process then your INSTALL process from ASUS ROG/TUF/PRIME Realtek motherboards category from the same thread.

Also for information :


As reminder, of all that I offer in my firmware/drivers threads listed in my index thread in my signature (even though they are AIMed for ASUS motherboards), only the UAD audio drivers are ASUS specific.

MoKiChU said:

Hi,

You have an ASRock Nahimic 3 motherboard, so, you need Realtek Audio Drivers (UAD - ASRock NH3) from your motherboard support page.

However, if you still want to use legacy/outdated HDA drivers when your motherboard is designed to use modern UAD drivers, and that you would love to have Realtek HD Audio Manager, you can try this :

Download Realtek High Definition Audio Drivers (HDA - ASUS ROG/TUF/PRIME DTS&RTK) (Flagged ASUS but work also with other manufacturers, unlike UAD drivers which are specific for each manufacturer) from the first post of this thread : [DRIVERS] Realtek Audio (Intel 6x/7x/8x/9x/1xx & AMD Legacy 6xx/7xx/8xx/9xx).

Follow scrupulously your CLEANUP process then your INSTALL process from ASUS ROG/TUF/PRIME Realtek motherboards category from the same thread.

Also for information :

​

As reminder, of all that I offer in my firmware/drivers threads listed in my index thread in my signature (even though they are AIMed for ASUS motherboards), only the UAD audio drivers are ASUS specific.

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Can 't thank you enough for posting these details.

I have as ASRock mobo that hasn't had audio driver updates since Sept of 2021. I went to your thread here and tried the install on my own, but I guessed the wrong driver version -- which of course, did not work.

When I did it this time, using the version you mentioned here, it worked GREAT!

Again, many thanks for this work on your part.

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.

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Yes, its been killing me since I use surround sound, and acoustic audio cancelation, so I can play a game in surround sound and stream it, and use the mobo mic jack to filter out PC audio and background noise, ever since the Microsoft imposed draconian walled garden "universal drivers" landed I have not found one motherboard to work right with this setup that works fine on my 1150/1151/am3 motherboards. And of course no 200$ sound card supports it either...

Anyone with a patron that makes custom drivers? I'm to the point I'll toss 200$ at the problem...

I got tired of Realtek as well. On my desktop I use Mokichu's on this forum...they work well for Asus. On my Dell XPS 9510, and several previous laptops I got tires of all the extra services for the audio enhancements (Waves Maxxaudio for Dell). It was a PIA but I was able to get rid of everything, and added the registry entry to have Windows Update stop looking for drivers (or else it adds it all back at some point). Now I just download the latest Realtek UAD drivers from Microsoft Catalog. They work well and there is no difference in sound quality (for me anyway) to when Waves was active.

UAD Drivers are only for Windows 10 64 bit or more recent

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many UAD drivers work with at least Windows 10 x64 build 15063 (v1703 or Creators Update) and all Windows 11 releases

version 6.0.9524.1 & newer UAD driver versions require minimum Windows 10 x64 build 16299 (v1709 or Fall Creators update)
the INF files for 6.0.9524.1 have a section that changed from [AzaliaManufacturerID.NTamd64.10.0...15063] to [AzaliaManufacturerID.NTamd64.10.0...16299]

BobD said:

Probably the black background is due to selection of DARK mode in Settings Personalization etc. See mine.
View attachment 55273

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nope. it's still black on my friend's asus board regardless of DARK mode windows settings - changing them in personalization (light or dark) makes no difference

plus, you're using realtek audio console (a separate uwp app from ms store), BobD.
my friend's Asus board is using Realtek HD Audio Manager, (the old realtek audio manager app NOT from MS store)

own3mall said:

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

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I have two MSI notebooks . One from 2017 (GT73vr Titan) and this one (GE76 Raider).
Both have Nahimic installed and I really like this app. I also have klipsch promedia 2.1
connected to both and the sound , whether music or games is just perfect. Many options
to adjust plus the EQ is also available. The one thing I would advise against is that, when
connecting 7.1 headphones, you have to turn off surround Sound in Nahimic otherwise
they will clash and produce horrible sound as the headphones have their own app.

MoKiChU said:

Hi,

You have an ASRock Nahimic 3 motherboard, so, you need Realtek Audio Drivers (UAD - ASRock NH3) from your motherboard support page.

However, if you still want to use legacy/outdated HDA drivers when your motherboard is designed to use modern UAD drivers, and that you would love to have Realtek HD Audio Manager, you can try this :

Download Realtek High Definition Audio Drivers (HDA - ASUS ROG/TUF/PRIME DTS&RTK) (Flagged ASUS but work also with other manufacturers, unlike UAD drivers which are specific for each manufacturer) from the first post of this thread : [DRIVERS] Realtek Audio (Intel 6x/7x/8x/9x/1xx & AMD Legacy 6xx/7xx/8xx/9xx).

Follow scrupulously your CLEANUP process then your INSTALL process from ASUS ROG/TUF/PRIME Realtek motherboards category from the same thread.

Also for information :

​

As reminder, of all that I offer in my firmware/drivers threads listed in my index thread in my signature (even though they are AIMed for ASUS motherboards), only the UAD audio drivers are ASUS specific.

Click to expand...

Thanks, this works. Is there a way to Disable Front Panel Jack Detection? It looks like there isn't... everything is perfect now with these drivers except that I can't have my rear speakers and headphones output the same audio signal simultaneously at the same time (which is what disable front panel audio detection was for in the past). Windows 10 Version 2004 (19041.508) and Previous - How to Disable Front Panel Jack Detection - Realtek Audio

EDIT: Would still like to disable front panel jack detection, but actually, these drivers make PUBG sound worse, so they're not perfect. I don't know why as older drivers like this worked fine on older equipment.