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Something I learned about GPUs with HD Audio

Mussels

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I haven't gotten a BSOD with my issue, just game lock up. After closing the game, I was fine.

that doesnt mean much. your CPU could be stable for 99.99% of processes - if that 0.001% is a game, the game crashes. if its a critical OS task, you get a BSOD - if its not critical, you get weird glitches and bugs (see all the youtube videos of bethesda games like fallout new vegas where physics goes spastic)


This IMO is the big reason why there are so many help threads with mixed responses. half the people say it worked, half the people say it rowked for a while, the other half say it never worked at all.

then you realise theres way too many halves, and that someones simply gotta be wrong. people want an easy, one step solution - and those are RARE. if audio settings caused game problems, it wouldnt start - like CoD2 and CoD4:MW without a mic on a modern sound card.
 
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that doesnt mean much. your CPU could be stable for 99.99% of processes - if that 0.001% is a game, the game crashes. if its a critical OS task, you get a BSOD - if its not critical, you get weird glitches and bugs (see all the youtube videos of bethesda games like fallout new vegas where physics goes spastic)


This IMO is the big reason why there are so many help threads with mixed responses. half the people say it worked, half the people say it rowked for a while, the other half say it never worked at all.

then you realise theres way too many halves, and that someones simply gotta be wrong. people want an easy, one step solution - and those are RARE. if audio settings caused game problems, it wouldnt start - like CoD2 and CoD4:MW without a mic on a modern sound card.

Any advice on my original issue I linked to in the post about a code 10 with high definition audio drivers in crossfire?
 

Mussels

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Any advice on my original issue I linked to in the post about a code 10 with high definition audio drivers in crossfire?


you're either installing drivers not meant for the card (the realtek HDMI drivers do NOT work with current AMD drivers or hardware), or the cards faulty.
 
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you're either installing drivers not meant for the card (the realtek HDMI drivers do NOT work with current AMD drivers or hardware), or the cards faulty.

For the cards, they are AMD's drivers, and Realtek is the onboard. What other driver/s or configurations would you suggest?
 

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For the cards, they are AMD's drivers, and Realtek is the onboard. What other driver/s or configurations would you suggest?

a clean uninstall of all the AMD drivers (except SATA, if you have an AMD chipset mobo) and removal of any possibly conflicting sound (realtek do provide an AMD HDMI driver, make sure thats not installed) install the latest AMD driver and leave it at that. you can always manually install the driver from the 'good' card to the bad one, and see how that goes.

you havent listed your system specs in your user CP, so i'm really stuck blindly guessing - and if you wanted all this sorted you should have made your own thread, not resurrected a years old, dead one with an almost entirely unrelated topic.
 
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a clean uninstall of all the AMD drivers (except SATA, if you have an AMD chipset mobo) and removal of any possibly conflicting sound (realtek do provide an AMD HDMI driver, make sure thats not installed) install the latest AMD driver and leave it at that. you can always manually install the driver from the 'good' card to the bad one, and see how that goes.

you havent listed your system specs in your user CP, so i'm really stuck blindly guessing - and if you wanted all this sorted you should have made your own thread, not resurrected a years old, dead one with an almost entirely unrelated topic.

I posted my specs on the other forum that I linked to. And it is related to this thread, or I thought, because of Skyrim locking up. I thought this lock up might be because of my sound driver issues like the OP.

Thanks for the advice too, I'll try it.
 

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even though i do disable the hdmi audio... but i just tried it since i use hdmi for my new monitor and well the audio is crap... but no problems otherwise.
 
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even though i do disable the hdmi audio... but i just tried it since i use hdmi for my new monitor and well the audio is crap... but no problems otherwise.

Audio was crap because you used crap speakers (on a monitor). Otherwise this "HDMI Audio" is actually just a passthrough. It does nothing to the sound processing, it just sends the soudn internally through PCIe of the graphic card and outputs it through HDMI..
 

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Audio was crap because you used crap speakers (on a monitor). Otherwise this "HDMI Audio" is actually just a passthrough. It does nothing to the sound processing, it just sends the soudn internally through PCIe of the graphic card and outputs it through HDMI..

that. even my TV's inbuilt speakers are garbage compared to proper ones, or even headphones.
 

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Audio was crap because you used crap speakers (on a monitor). Otherwise this "HDMI Audio" is actually just a passthrough. It does nothing to the sound processing, it just sends the soudn internally through PCIe of the graphic card and outputs it through HDMI..
yes and no.... :D i used the aux output of the monitors. monitor doesnt have speakers itself but it has a stereo output.
 
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Still, the sound was garbage then because monitor uses some cheap ass DAC units. The sound coming from the grpahic card was perfect until it entered the monitor which then converted digital signal into analog.

Not sure why you'd want to route sound this way instead of output it through soundcard. Any onboard these days will have much better DAC's than monitor where they stuff the cheapest possible crap they get hands on.
 

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Yup....As i said i just tested it. never used hdmi before. first time i got a flat screen. before this i had a CRT 17" XD
 

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Yup....As i said i just tested it. never used hdmi before. first time i got a flat screen. before this i had a CRT 17" XD

Well speakers on TV's and such pretty much always suck, it's always been like that.
 
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Well speakers on TV's and such pretty much always suck, it's always been like that.

wasn't quite as dire before flat screens though
 
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Just to add to the list of people who have issues with the AMD HDMI drivers.
If i don't disable the 6 disconnected hdmi audio devices they cause my sound control to lock up and also make the computer take forever to shutdown
I didn't have the problem with 6870's nor do I have the issue with my E-350 htpc
 
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Just to add to the list of people who have issues with the AMD HDMI drivers.
If i don't disable the 6 disconnected hdmi audio devices they cause my sound control to lock up and also make the computer take forever to shutdown
I didn't have the problem with 6870's nor do I have the issue with my E-350 htpc
Yeah it's def not consistently workable from one PC to the next. And for the record, I'm still getting no more audio problems and I never formatted, negating the comment that I had Windows file corruption. Like I said, some are just quick to assume user error on these things merely because they've had no issues on a completely different build.

I'm leaning more and more toward my next GPU being a high end Maxwell card by EVGA. They seem to be consistently better quality than these AMD variants, and they back their product well in the few occasions where they don't work properly.
 

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I am a bit of a nub when it comes to PC audio, for fear of derailing the thread just a little, can I ask opinions on the quality of GPU HD audio? I am assuming if I have a decent (and spare) Denon AV Receiver lying around and it has HDMI in and Out ports I could use this method with the GPU direct in to the receiver thru HDMI..... what kind of quality should I be expecting? Will it match or better a SPDIF connect between my soundcard into the receiver? Again apologies for slight derailment!
 
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I am a bit of a nub when it comes to PC audio, for fear of derailing the thread just a little, can I ask opinions on the quality of GPU HD audio? I am assuming if I have a decent (and spare) Denon AV Receiver lying around and it has HDMI in and Out ports I could use this method with the GPU direct in to the receiver thru HDMI..... what kind of quality should I be expecting? Will it match or better a SPDIF connect between my soundcard into the receiver? Again apologies for slight derailment!
According to Mussels, and I have no reason to think he's wrong, you have to have an AVR that supports LPCM lossless passthrough to get 5.1 HDMI Audio from PC to speakers going through an AVR. I'm not sure you'd get the same effect/quality with SPDIF. It might only carry a 5.1 encoded signal which the AVR would decode as Dolby Digital or DTS, whichever your soundcard supports. As far as I know the only way to get true uncompressed 5.1 audio from PC to speaker via an AVR is the HDMI out from your GPU, and again, the AVR has to support 5.1 LPCM passthrough. My entry level Yamaha doesn't, but it's also an older model that doesn't even have software calibration.

So as far as sound difference between HDMI from GPU and SPDIF, it would probably be lossless ("HD")vs compressed (DD, DTS). The reality is though, in games it's not as big a difference because all game audio is compressed anyway. To give you an example, I use the "Straight" option on my Yamaha when gaming with headphones, which disables all sound processing and lets the straight PCM lossless stereo signal through. Though it's lossless HD at that point, it's only slightly better than with processing, and it's because game audio starts out compressed anyway.
 
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