Ok, i'm writing this up in the hope that someone will find this helpful, as i've spent 2 years trying to get this to work, and it's only with Zoomer88's divine wisdom, that he talked me through all of this. THANK YOU!!!!
WARNING : This is my own experience, your mileage may vary. BACKUP YOUR PC FIRST and ensure you know how to restore from it. I take no responsibility for this.
I would appreciate someone verifying this and that I have got the steps right. They are based on my experience, and I am sure they can be simplified. I would also hope it could be rolled up into an installer such as the AAF pack at some point, as this includes the Realtek USB Driver.
It should also work on a ALC4080 solution, but I can't check that.
Goal : Use an onboard Realtek USB SPDIF to play DTS over SPDIF to speakers.
My setup :
I recommend these tests :
Troubleshooting :
WARNING : This is my own experience, your mileage may vary. BACKUP YOUR PC FIRST and ensure you know how to restore from it. I take no responsibility for this.
I would appreciate someone verifying this and that I have got the steps right. They are based on my experience, and I am sure they can be simplified. I would also hope it could be rolled up into an installer such as the AAF pack at some point, as this includes the Realtek USB Driver.
It should also work on a ALC4080 solution, but I can't check that.
Goal : Use an onboard Realtek USB SPDIF to play DTS over SPDIF to speakers.
My setup :
- Asus Zenith II Extreme - ALC1220 / S1220 Realtek USB OnBoard Audio
- Logitech Z906 DTS Speakers with SPDIF input
- Windows 11
- OnBoard Audio installed with AAF DCH Optimus Audio driver installed, but not working in 5.1
- Creative Sound Blaster Z with DTS Connect, working in 5.1, which I want to remove.
- I had AAF installed, which I removed. You may not need to do this.
Uninstall AAF Audio using steps as detailed with the drivers using the standard instructions :
Before installing this modified driver, be sure to remove any and all residues from previous Realtek audio drivers or even if there are residues from previous versions of my mods, if they persist. For this you will need the DriverStoreExplorer (by @lostindark). Remove any drivers whose "Provider" is "Realtek", "Dolby", "DTS", "Creative", "A-Volute", "AAF Optimus", etc in the "Sound, Video and Game Controllers", "Extensions", "Software Components" and "Audio Processing Objects" device categories.
- Reboot
- Install the standard Realtek USB audio drivers, in my case these were "Realtek USB Audio Driver V6.3.9600.2342 For Windows 10/11 64-bit." from the Asus support page for my motherboard.
You should locate your own.
- Locate the "APO Driver [2.10.6]", and install with only the following options. You might get an antivirus warning, you will need to decide on how you want to proceed.
- "FX Configurator 2.0.5.1"
- "DTS Connect APO 6.0.0000.6".
- Reboot
- Go to the Sound Control panel in Windows and select "Realtek Digital Output" as your default audio and run a speaker test, you should get audio from L & R speakers only. If the name is different, note down the name, as you'll need it for steps below.
- Go to the start menu and open "FX Configurator"
- From "FX Configurator", in the Endpoints selection, select "[Active] Realtek Digital Output (Realtek USB Audio) {xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxx}"
You will see that under Effect Configuration, that Local FX APO and Global FX APO are empty.
- Select Product Config Tool from the ACTION list, it's near the bottom.
- From the top selection, pick "3rd Effects Only", it should be already selected.
- From the Products list, select "DTS Connect (SPDIF)" and press "Apply Product Settings to Selected Endpoints".
This will populate Local FX APO and Global FX APO.
- Make sure "Disable All Enhacments" is not checked under the Effects Configuration.
- Close FX Configurator and Reboot
- If all goes well, open the Sound Control Panel, go to the Properties for the "Realtek Digital Output", you set all the options to match the screenshot :
View attachment 284052
Specifically, make sure :- "Set as default sound device" is set to "Is default for audio"
- "Format" = "DTS Interactive"
- "Audio enhancements" = "Device Default Effects".
This is VERY important, you won't enable the DTS encoder without this set. In my screenshot, it shows "AAF Optimus Effects" underneath it.
If this is missing, you might need to install and uninstall AAF to get this.
- Click Test, you should hear audio from L & R speakers only. Windows does not allow you to select 5.1 speakers for SPDIF endpoints, so it only tries to play stereo.
- Done
I recommend these tests :
- Using Chrome or Edge Chromium, search google for "Fraunhofer test with multichannel AAC" and play the video "HE-AAC Channel ID - With H.264 Video". You should hear audio correctly played back from the surround speakers.
- VLC Player will correctly play a DTS test file in 5.1, but for some reason it will not play DD files in 5.1. I used the "DTS-HD_MA_SOUND_CHECK_51", which played back correctly.
- I played Forza Horizon 4, which correctly played audio in 5.1 when the audio was set to Home Theatre.
Troubleshooting :
- I had some strange issues with 5.1 not working correctly, even though DTS Interactive was set. so what I did was
- From the FX Configurator, I selected the "Realtek Digital Output" Endpoint, and pressed "Jump to FxProperties Key"
- RegEdit will open to "Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\MMDevices\Audio\Render\{xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}\FxProperties", where the xxxx numbers match the id of the "Realtek Digital Output".
- I deleted the entire key and child objects "Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\MMDevices\Audio\Render\{xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}"
- Reboot
- Go back to Step 4 in the original guide above and perform all steps again.
- If the "Audio Enhancements" section is missing from the "Realtek Digital Output" properties section try :
- Go to FX Configurator
- Press "Rebuild All Audio Endpoints"
- Reboot
- Go to the "Realtek Digital Output" properties panel and try again.
- If the "Audio Enhancements" section is missing from the "Realtek Digital Output" properties section try :
- Install the "AAF DCH Optimus Audio" from the "Realtek DCH Modded Audio Driver for Windows 10/11 - Including Realtek USB Audio Devices" thread.
- Reboot
- Make sure audio works
- Then go back to Step 1 at the very beginning of this guide.
- If you're unsure if 5.1 is working, I disconnected the L & R speaker wires and retest the audio.
WARNING : DON'T LET THE WIRES TOUCH EACH OTHER, in my case, I just disconnected the Negative/Black wire.
- Tidal does not playback 5.1 on Windows, even though it says Atmos, it doesn't work. This is a limitation of the Tidal app.
Although Tidal does playback Atmos tracks through 5.1 if you have it linked to your Plex account and play it back through the Windows Plex Media Player. - Plex via a web browser does not playback in 5.1. The "Plex for Windows" (not Server), which is on the Microsoft Store or downloadable from Plex, works fine in 5.1 DTS & DD
- VLC Player, Dolby Digital files don't play the surround channels, whereas DTS is fine. I'm sure this is a long standing bug in VLC.
- I can't see how to enable Dolby Digital Live Encoder, but as it is a much lower bitrate than DTS Encoder, so I can't say I'm worried.
- The Realtek Audio Control Panel was missing for me, I located a link to the "Realtek Control Panel UWP" for the Microsoft Store and downloaded it.
The 5.1 options are still missing, which made the control panel completely useless, so I wouldn't bother. - The "DECODE" light on my Logitech Z906 speakers will only light when it's playing audio. Btw, this is how I know that my PC is sending DTS Encoded audio.
- It's not possible to select a 5.1 speaker configuration anywhere, but it is working.
- Zoomer88 recommends disabling DTS Neo PC, by opening RegEdit and changing "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Analog Devices\DTSAPO. Just set the DTSEnableNeoPC to 0."
- Updating the Realtek Driver, or a Major Windows Upgrade such as 22H2 to 23H2, will probably remove the settings, and you may need to perform the FX Configurator steps again.
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