How can I get a custom Realtek UAD Driver + Audio Enhancer Support?

[jmnielsen7]

Two related but slightly different things here:

1. I need some orientation here from anyone in the online community here willing to help me please. How can I tell if I have a UAD driver for my HP Envy's Realtek audio chip (HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_10EC&DEV_0245) installed? Also, how would I install a modded driver to test my chip's full capabilities?

A post over on TenForums mentioned:

The Realtek Audio Console UWP app from the Microsoft store requires a UAD driver and does not work with a "traditional" Realtek HDA or nonUAD driver.

URL: https://www.tenforums.com/sound-audio/125936-determine-hda-realtek-driver-needed-your-audio.html

Ideally, since I want to experiment with my sound chip's capabilities I would like a modified/unlocked driver, and not the HP supplied audio driver which annoyingly locks me into only one Sample Rate for the OS currently. I've tried to "grok" the pinned forums about modded drivers so far, but I have little to no orientation to understand why you would install a "mod" (other than that it might unlock more settings?), what they do, and how to do it.

One further challenge is that there is little documentation for the chip I have. I don't even know what it is other than the HDAUDIO DEV ID shown by Device Manager above. Conventional wisdom would say Realtek = ALC and DEV = 0245 and thus that the chip is ALC245; but Googling that turns up precious little other than a driver page from a (shady?) third party site and this otherwise unexpanded upon post linking to a GitHub user page for alanfox2000 that is defunct/no longer has drivers. That is a fictional ALC chip number, is my conclusion.

2. Lastly, that first link to TenForums talks about support for Audio Enhancers like Nahimic, Conexant, etc and the driver Hex codes to look for that indicate driver support (e.g.
FF03 = Nahimic Integration / FF04 = Conexant (CXAPO) Integration). Here is the link again if you want to see the screenshots and the code list. Do the modded drivers mentioned in the pinned posts here at TechPowerup include support for those as well?

Any help orienting me here for how to get a custom driver that gives me unlocked settings + and audio enhancer support? Sorry for the Newbie questions!

"Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance, is the death of knowledge."

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Mods: Please point me to any appropriate reading I may have overlooked. I prefer to avoid blasting the forums with broad questions like this, but I've had some difficulty figuring out where to start.

 

[Ferather]

You should try without any Realtek drivers first (basic Microsoft ones), and then check extra sample rates show. You might need to unplug your ethernet/disable wifi then uninstall (stops Windows updates).
Confirming that more samples show after using just Microsoft (making sure no Realtek extensions are still installed), then either my DTS DCH driver or Alans AAF DCH driver should work.

I use pnputil to remove additional files, but you can also use Driver Store Explorer, first removing Realtek via Device Manager, and tick the delete driver.
If the sample rate is being locked by the Realtek policy, AAF might be the only driver that works, I think he still uses policy mods.

 

[jmnielsen7]

Thank you, Ferather! I have to demo something in my DAW tomorrow on this computer, but this weekend I can try blowing away the existing driver and then try the DTS DCH driver. I did remove the driver once, but given that it was connected to the internet it pulled a Microsoft supplied Realtek driver (which was clearly older from the timestamp than the one from HP which I had uninstalled) which did not change my Sample Rate settings though. I can try to go truly offline though and see what it does. Thanks again.

 

[erpguy53]

no probs

just remember to report any problems/issues (or success) when using either the AAF modded drivers or the DTS DCH drivers on your HP laptop, jmnielsen7

Lastly, that first link to TenForums talks about support for Audio Enhancers like Nahimic, Conexant, etc and the driver Hex codes to look for that indicate driver support (e.g.
FF03 = Nahimic Integration / FF04 = Conexant (CXAPO) Integration).

those FF03, FF04 drivers are the "old" traditional/legacy style Realtek HDA drivers that pre-date UAD drivers and were made for "older" PCs that are not supported by modern UAD drivers.

How can I tell if I have a UAD driver for my HP Envy's Realtek audio chip (HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_10EC&DEV_0245) installed?

there were also info in Ten forums on determining the DCH (UAD) Realtek driver