Why is standard sound mixer on W11 worse than XP !!!!

jimbo45 · Jan 30, 2023

Hi folks
Back in XP days the basic built in sound mixer was far more sophisticated than the W11 one. I thought OS'es were meant to improve -- not Regress.

Cheers
jimbo

DigitalGoat · Jan 30, 2023

The OS provides some basic interaction but the majority of what you see is exposed to the OS through the drivers, if the options are not made available to the OS you will have limited control.
Integrated sound devices are particularly frustrating as the hardware or that revision of it may only be used on one revision of a motherboard, so why put the effort into making good or exceptional drivers for it.

There are also many different suppliers of sound hardware making lots of revisions and drivers that expose more or less to the OS and the user.

jimbo45 · Jan 30, 2023

DigitalGoat said:
The OS provides some basic interaction but the majority of what you see is exposed to the OS through the drivers, if the options are not made available to the OS you will have limited control.
Integrated sound devices are particularly frustrating as the hardware or that revision of it may only be used on one revision of a motherboard, so why put the effort into making good or exceptional drivers for it.
View attachment 51350

There are also many different suppliers of sound hardware making lots of revisions and drivers that expose more or less to the OS and the user.

Good answer but there's a load of mobos out there - particularly laptops that have integrated sound cards - surely people like INTEL could have decent sound mixers for their integrated CPU's.

Cheers
jimbo

ThrashZone · Jan 30, 2023

Hi,
MS pretty much neutered realtek driver also but this was way back in win-10 unless you get at the funky ms store.
And yep still can't use it ms store download/ install stuck lol

ThrashZone · Jan 30, 2023

Only good thing is wmp equalizer still works

jimbo45 · Jan 30, 2023

ThrashZone said:
Only good thing is wmp equalizer still works
View attachment 51363

Good one

Cheers
jimbo

ThrashZone · Jan 30, 2023

Hi,
Yeah wmp's just isn't as easy to get to as realtek was always sitting on the action center.

Also realtek I could save profiles for different types of music. i think wmp can to haven't tried yet.

DigitalGoat · Jan 30, 2023

I fail to see that any of this is MS's fault, they don't make the drivers, just include the ones submitted to them by the manufacturer. There were fewer solutions available probably in the days of XP so MS could take the time and effort to write a software interface that worked, but now there are way too many chips and you need to research before buying to not be dissapointed.

The realtek app I showed in my post was downloaded through the MS store and works perfectly (Asus board), allows control of each port, levels, balance, effects an equaliser and more.
It was the same for my previous machine with a Realtek + Creative Labs chip (Intel board), so two different integrated audio solutions with varied functions exposed through the drivers.

glasskuter · Jan 30, 2023

I have integrated Realtek Audio. When I go to settings>system>sound and click the arrow to the right of my speakers, additional sound settings open up.

Thomas4 · Jan 30, 2023

It's really not that complicated, they're getting rid of their competent coders and hiring kids to work ox XBox - you know, their modern Colecovision toy.
And the older employees are trying to understand as to why when you click to empty the Rubbish Bin, even when you cleared the "Display delete confirmation dialog" button, the confirmation button still appears.
Maybe that's why even they're not stupid enough to use their own products and for their backend and use Linux instead.

Winuser · Jan 30, 2023

jimbo45 said:
Hi folks
Back in XP days the basic built in sound mixer was far more sophisticated than the W11 one. I thought OS'es were meant to improve -- not Regress.

View attachment 51349

Cheers
jimbo

MS may not be able to do it, but 3rd party apps can. FxSound is a good program. Download FxSound - Boost Your Sound On Windows

Thomas4 · Jan 31, 2023

If Microsoft were a car company, everyone would be back to driving a Stanley Steamer.

Stigg · Jan 31, 2023

jimbo45 said:
Hi folks
Back in XP days the basic built in sound mixer was far more sophisticated than the W11 one. I thought OS'es were meant to improve -- not Regress.

View attachment 51349

Cheers
jimbo

Because a lot of stuff in Windows 11 has been dumbed down to cater for dummies.
But some of Microsoft's decisions with Windows 11 have even dumbfounded the dummies.

Hazel123 · Jan 31, 2023

To be honest I sometimes think nothing is as good as XP! Apart from increased security.

jimbo45 · Jan 31, 2023

Hazel123 said:
To be honest I sometimes think nothing is as good as XP! Apart from increased security.

Far better desktop etc -- love the old "Black Luna theme" and nice Jaguar pic. !!!

Running XP still as a VM.

cheers
jimbo

Ghot · Jan 31, 2023

Just a pic I found on the internet.

But... System Two in My Computers... is still assembled and still working. One of these days, I'll fire it up and take some pics and screen shots.

ThrashZone · Jan 31, 2023

Hazel123 said:
To be honest I sometimes think nothing is as good as XP! Apart from increased security.

hi,
Yeah just needed 64bit

ThrashZone · Jan 31, 2023

DigitalGoat said:
I fail to see that any of this is MS's fault, they don't make the drivers, just include the ones submitted to them by the manufacturer. There were fewer solutions available probably in the days of XP so MS could take the time and effort to write a software interface that worked, but now there are way too many chips and you need to research before buying to not be dissapointed.

The realtek app I showed in my post was downloaded through the MS store and works perfectly (Asus board), allows control of each port, levels, balance, effects an equaliser and more.
It was the same for my previous machine with a Realtek + Creative Labs chip (Intel board), so two different integrated audio solutions with varied functions exposed through the drivers.

Hi,
Well ms made the realtek console be installed "not from asus realtek drivers package as it always was" but only from ms store so yes it is ms's bad if ms store gets messed up, which mine was lol "oddly I've never ever used the crapapp" and I was finally able to get the silly console from the store and it works and can be pinned to taskbar at least :shush:

It's an unnecessary complication that did not exist before.

glasskuter · Jan 31, 2023

Way back early in Win10 days, I remember jumping through hoops to get the Realtek control app back. Even then, the only way I was finally able to do it was to use a very old Realtek driver package (a Windows 7 driver) that included the app. This tells me the problem is not in Windows 11 but that Realtek abandoned development of the app when Windows 10 came out (8 years ago) They are only developing the drivers now. Some manufacturers like Dell took the Realtek driver and packaged it with their own audio control panel app (Dell Audio) to give their buyers an audio control panel. On the newer systems I've seen Dell no longer does this either.