Unlocked Realtek HD Audio Drivers Windows 7 & 8 (With Dolby Digital Live and DTS Interactive)

[dvojinov]

Yeah that sucks. Before I found this patcher, I was about to give in and get a sound card.

Sorry thing is, up until a couple years ago I always used a Creative sound card. When I built this rig, I figured I would try mobo audio. It just keeps getting better, and I'm sick of fighting Creative's drivers. Can't say I've been disappointed really at all in the audio coming from my mobo. But now it seems we have to fight motherboard drivers and Windows 10. I guess there's just no winning with audio drivers and Windows...

thats a complete mess , problems with Windows 10 specially after Creator release , problems with ASUS on board audio drivers not regular updated , problems wit ASUS Xonar range cards ..drivers still BETA from 2015 ??? , Creative seems to work best however they also dont update their drivers and software suite on regular basis and no one else left on the market ..complete crap !

 

[mbrogz3000]

Hi All - new member, but I am legit.

I have an MSI MPower Titanium, Z170 board with Realtek audio (very nice board!) - for various reasons, I did not need the Dolby 5.1 working until now.

I have followed dvojinov's page instructions for both of his modified driver sets.

What happens is - Dolby Digital becomes active within Windows 10 desktop and web use - all audio is played fine in 5.1 channels. But when I try playing games like Titanfall 2, or Overwatch, or Battlefield 1 or GTA5....the DDL drops out then re-enables randomly many times within a minute. I'm about ready to toss in the towel and just buy a new SoundBlaster Z w/ service plan for when starts acting up...I've spent more than $100 of my free time trying to get this working - rather than playing games. Anyone else have this problem with this same motherboard, but still managed to work through getting the modified driver working?

 

[dvojinov]

Hi All - new member, but I am legit.

I have an MSI MPower Titanium, Z170 board with Realtek audio (very nice board!) - for various reasons, I did not need the Dolby 5.1 working until now.

I have followed dvojinov's page instructions for both of his modified driver sets.

What happens is - Dolby Digital becomes active within Windows 10 desktop and web use - all audio is played fine in 5.1 channels. But when I try playing games like Titanfall 2, or Overwatch, or Battlefield 1 or GTA5....the DDL drops out then re-enables randomly many times within a minute. I'm about ready to toss in the towel and just buy a new SoundBlaster Z w/ service plan for when starts acting up...I've spent more than $100 of my free time trying to get this working - rather than playing games. Anyone else have this problem with this same motherboard, but still managed to work through getting the modified driver working?

that's strange I play SW Battlefront 1 and 2 , Euroturck Simulator 2 , GR Wildlands I admit there are some POPS and CLICKS and it appears like the audio get cut off for a millisecond but never fails completely ,I noticed some driver release have more some less of this anomaly but this is following Realtek for quite a long time throughout all platforms as far as I remember .
I agree SB Z would be the best choice I have OMNI and there is absolutely no such behavior ,however I like DTS sound more then DOLBY and OMNI only supports Dolby Digital Live so Im kinda cursed with this POP/Clicks from Realtek ..it is most obvious during game play ,sometime more sometime less in some occasions even clean however it is with us for along long time.and more obvious on higher resolutions like 4K I have no idea why but it appears so to me .
I'm now on 4K and experience more of this then on HD resolution before..weird !

 

[mbrogz3000]

that's strange I play SW Battlefront 1 and 2 , Euroturck Simulator 2 , GR Wildlands I admit there are some POPS and CLICKS and it appears like the audio get cut off for a millisecond but never fails completely ,I noticed some driver release have more some less of this anomaly but this is following Realtek for quite a long time throughout all platforms as far as I remember .
I agree SB Z would be the best choice I have OMNI and there is absolutely no such behavior ,however I like DTS sound more then DOLBY and OMNI only supports Dolby Digital Live so Im kinda cursed with this POP/Clicks from Realtek ..it is most obvious during game play ,sometime more sometime less in some occasions even clean however it is with us for along long time.and more obvious on higher resolutions like 4K I have no idea why but it appears so to me .
I'm now on 4K and experience more of this then on HD resolution before..weird !

I just tried following Mr. Spoon Handle's process (who derived his process from this thread's process!) which did in fact work fine about 1 year ago on an earlier version of the realtek drivers - its not working now though; doesn't display the DDL option.

They I can't remember why, but I ended up updating the drivers at some time in Feb or Mar 17....I may have forgot that I had modified drivers! At that point, the DDL never worked the right way ever again, and I went back to the standard drivers. Its just a shame, this MSI board has all the sound layout real estate isolated away, and on a corner of the board - I think it even has a boarder wall trace - its an 'ok' design without going to a separate board. Never had any clicks or pops like on other boards from years ago.

Yep - definitely throwing in the towel. All this uninstalling, reinstalling, and restarting caused my motherboard to change the multiplier from 45 to 10, on its own. So my system quietly decided to run at 800 MHz...and refused to let me change the multiplier back in the BIOS until I shut everything off then restarted. It never does that! Definitely wasted well more than $100 of my time this afternoon so the order for a $100 SB Z w/ 3 year replacement (which I never buy) is now placed. Bye bye realtek!

So I spent a little more time on this - and discovered that my MSI MPower Z170A Titanium likes to sometimes randomly change or drift only 'some' settings within the bios when un-installing the sound drivers. This has happened in the past. I re-set my multiplier to 45x100MHz - and confirmed that all four cores were back running at 4.5 GHz in windows (after installing the standard sound driver pack). Then I stepped through dvojinov's process again, using the first driver pack. After installation, my freaking cores in windows had automatically changed to 3.9, 3.9, 3.9 GHz, and 800 MHz - like wtf!! Also, all the boot options re-appeared...so I had to remove all of them and boot only off the SSD! And...my memory lost the XMP setting! So I fixed the boot order, turned XMP back on, and set the multiplyer to 45 again - the settings actually kept.

Tried Titanfall 2 - boom - no stuttering and I have my DD 5.1! Sounds soooo nice!

 

[grich]

I find selecting Dolby instead of 2 channel results in popping noises when I start playing a media file, or when I unpause a movie - I am using an optical cable. Selecting 2 channels results in less of the popping noises. I've tried half a dozen driver sets with the same issue. I'm seeing even worse results with the Win10 Creator's Update where the pops and crackles seems more of a design than an anomaly.

When did realtek started sucking this badly? They've been at this game for more than 10 years now, but cant even make a decent sound driver.

 

[dvojinov]

I find selecting Dolby instead of 2 channel results in popping noises when I start playing a media file, or when I unpause a movie - I am using an optical cable. Selecting 2 channels results in less of the popping noises. I've tried half a dozen driver sets with the same issue. I'm seeing even worse results with the Win10 Creator's Update where the pops and crackles seems more of a design than an anomaly.

When did realtek started sucking this badly? They've been at this game for more than 10 years now, but cant even make a decent sound driver.

Honestly they alway sucked just lately with later HD Codecs they became less sucking however I can't rember timframe or windows platform when there wasn't something going on wiyh this damn onboard audio. Sound quality specifically during DTS I or DDL improved dramatically but there is always sucking with somthing. Worse of all is they actually produce the chip or hardware then releasing core drivers and let the vendors like msi, asus, hp and other to actualy release and develop their own drivers, pretty messy.

 

[dvojinov]

I just tried following Mr. Spoon Handle's process (who derived his process from this thread's process!) which did in fact work fine about 1 year ago on an earlier version of the realtek drivers - its not working now though; doesn't display the DDL option.

They I can't remember why, but I ended up updating the drivers at some time in Feb or Mar 17....I may have forgot that I had modified drivers! At that point, the DDL never worked the right way ever again, and I went back to the standard drivers. Its just a shame, this MSI board has all the sound layout real estate isolated away, and on a corner of the board - I think it even has a boarder wall trace - its an 'ok' design without going to a separate board. Never had any clicks or pops like on other boards from years ago.

Yep - definitely throwing in the towel. All this uninstalling, reinstalling, and restarting caused my motherboard to change the multiplier from 45 to 10, on its own. So my system quietly decided to run at 800 MHz...and refused to let me change the multiplier back in the BIOS until I shut everything off then restarted. It never does that! Definitely wasted well more than $100 of my time this afternoon so the order for a $100 SB Z w/ 3 year replacement (which I never buy) is now placed. Bye bye realtek!

So I spent a little more time on this - and discovered that my MSI MPower Z170A Titanium likes to sometimes randomly change or drift only 'some' settings within the bios when un-installing the sound drivers. This has happened in the past. I re-set my multiplier to 45x100MHz - and confirmed that all four cores were back running at 4.5 GHz in windows (after installing the standard sound driver pack). Then I stepped through dvojinov's process again, using the first driver pack. After installation, my freaking cores in windows had automatically changed to 3.9, 3.9, 3.9 GHz, and 800 MHz - like wtf!! Also, all the boot options re-appeared...so I had to remove all of them and boot only off the SSD! And...my memory lost the XMP setting! So I fixed the boot order, turned XMP back on, and set the multiplyer to 45 again - the settings actually kept.

Tried Titanfall 2 - boom - no stuttering and I have my DD 5.1! Sounds soooo nice!

There is something going on there with fixed FSB,CPU multipliers , clk, and frequencies , I have set my hp OMEN to a fixed full power settings and the audio stuttering is definitely gone . However I find that dynamically applied fsb/core speed good thing as when not needed it doesn't run at full speed therefore saving energy also less heat in the system but it definitely influence the on board audio so it seems that Realtek isn't very clever with this dynamical driven system speeds and produce this click/pop audio stuttering effect . Looks like audio cards like Z for example or like my OMNI USB doesn't suffer from this s they possibly running on their internal stable clock therefore not influenced with fsb/core clock speeds like on-board audio and working stable .

Thanks for the tip it did work for me doesn't mean it will work for everyone .

 

[grich]

So I spent a little more time on this - and discovered that my MSI MPower Z170A Titanium likes to sometimes randomly change or drift only 'some' settings within the bios when un-installing the sound drivers. This has happened in the past. I re-set my multiplier to 45x100MHz - and confirmed that all four cores were back running at 4.5 GHz in windows (after installing the standard sound driver pack). Then I stepped through dvojinov's process again, using the first driver pack. After installation, my freaking cores in windows had automatically changed to 3.9, 3.9, 3.9 GHz, and 800 MHz - like wtf!! Also, all the boot options re-appeared...so I had to remove all of them and boot only off the SSD! And...my memory lost the XMP setting! So I fixed the boot order, turned XMP back on, and set the multiplyer to 45 again - the settings actually kept.

Tried Titanfall 2 - boom - no stuttering and I have my DD 5.1! Sounds soooo nice!

None of this changing of the bios settings by itself is considered normal, nor should it be possible by audio drivers. What I would suggest you do is reflash the firmware and restore to defaults, then reapply the settings. Yours is a special case - this type of thing rarely happens.

 

[miles]

Anyone can upload lastest driver which one can support Dolby pro logicIIx ?
I found many drivers didn't support it,
Or it has the Dolby Home Theater check box, but it did not actually work with pro logic......

 

[dvojinov]

Anyone can upload lastest driver which one can support Dolby pro logicIIx ?
I found many drivers didn't support it,
Or it has the Dolby Home Theater check box, but it did not actually work with pro logic......

it does actually work

 

[Elephant Rider]

OK, so actually after using what I did for a while, I noticed a few things. And the bottom line is... it didn't work as it appeared to.

I have 5.1 speakers hooked up to the analog output of the mobo, and optical out to a headphone amp that does Dolby Digital or Pro Logic. Everything sounded good through the headset. Last night I hooked up a new monitor with a different resolution and the audio went away. Rebooted and it worked. Then, listening to music didn't sound right. I tried a couple of games through the speakers too, and they didn't sound right. When checking the speakers in the Realtek panel, everything sounded right. When I switched to the headset everything sounded right. It was just on the analog speakers. It was only putting out the front channel, even though it was set to 5.1, but it was puttin out the front channel in 5.1, so it was missing a lot. While I was trying to figure out what was going on, I fired up Tomb Raider. Sounded fine through the headset, until I changed a video setting, then no audio. It's weird, I have a VU meter set up with Rainmeter and you could see the levels move, but no audio from anything. I rebooted and no audio at all, and rainmeter wouldn't even load. Uninstalled and went back to Creative. Pulled a 10-year-old X-Fi Titanium out and the drivers on Creative's site actually worked. They didn't work 2 years ago when I put this system together.

Long story short... I think Realtek's drivers are worse than Creative's, so I guess I'll take the lesser of the two evils. Can't believe that X-Fi Titanium actually worked. One thing I do like more with Realtek is the speaker set up. With 5.1 and an analog connection, I could use room correction and set the distance to each speaker and the level of each speaker. Creative doesn't offer that. But oh well, it actually sounds better on a 10-year-old sound card than on a 2-year-old mobo. Go figure. I think I'm done with mobo drivers from now on. Which sucks... Creative ain't much better... but at least it works... for now...

I'm still thankful for finding this thread, and for the fact that there people trying to make audio drivers better because it seems like no one else can.

 

[dvojinov]

OK, so actually after using what I did for a while, I noticed a few things. And the bottom line is... it didn't work as it appeared to.

I have 5.1 speakers hooked up to the analog output of the mobo, and optical out to a headphone amp that does Dolby Digital or Pro Logic. Everything sounded good through the headset. Last night I hooked up a new monitor with a different resolution and the audio went away. Rebooted and it worked. Then, listening to music didn't sound right. I tried a couple of games through the speakers too, and they didn't sound right. When checking the speakers in the Realtek panel, everything sounded right. When I switched to the headset everything sounded right. It was just on the analog speakers. It was only putting out the front channel, even though it was set to 5.1, but it was puttin out the front channel in 5.1, so it was missing a lot. While I was trying to figure out what was going on, I fired up Tomb Raider. Sounded fine through the headset, until I changed a video setting, then no audio. It's weird, I have a VU meter set up with Rainmeter and you could see the levels move, but no audio from anything. I rebooted and no audio at all, and rainmeter wouldn't even load. Uninstalled and went back to Creative. Pulled a 10-year-old X-Fi Titanium out and the drivers on Creative's site actually worked. They didn't work 2 years ago when I put this system together.

Long story short... I think Realtek's drivers are worse than Creative's, so I guess I'll take the lesser of the two evils. Can't believe that X-Fi Titanium actually worked. One thing I do like more with Realtek is the speaker set up. With 5.1 and an analog connection, I could use room correction and set the distance to each speaker and the level of each speaker. Creative doesn't offer that. But oh well, it actually sounds better on a 10-year-old sound card than on a 2-year-old mobo. Go figure. I think I'm done with mobo drivers from now on. Which sucks... Creative ain't much better... but at least it works... for now...

I'm still thankful for finding this thread, and for the fact that there people trying to make audio drivers better because it seems like no one else can.

I agree about the creative side , I just wonder does your new monitor comes with inbuilt speakers ? When I install new nvidia drivers every time when nvidia hdmi audio driver is installed during the process damn audio source switch to hdmi by default , same when I unplug/re-plug HDMI cable . To prevent that from happening I disable nvidia audio completely but that works only after the driver is installed .

 

[Elephant Rider]

I agree about the creative side , I just wonder does your new monitor comes with inbuilt speakers ? When I install new nvidia drivers every time when nvidia hdmi audio driver is installed during the process damn audio source switch to hdmi by default , same when I unplug/re-plug HDMI cable . To prevent that from happening I disable nvidia audio completely but that works only after the driver is installed .

When I install NVIDIA drivers I always choose custom and only install the GPU driver and PhysX software. But that doesn't keep those other audio drivers off. So yeah, I just disable any audio I don't use in the control panel. The monitor doesn't have speakers, but it does have HD Audio for headphones and a mic. So yay... now there's more audio drivers I won't use...

 

[POOTERMAN]

Guys really hoping you can help with some advice please. I'm using a Soundblaster XtremeMusic soundcard connected to a Logitech Z906 5.1 speaker system via analogue speaker connection. I want to experience Dolby Digital and DTS which i understand needs a digital connection to work but my soundcard doesn't have an optical out connection, just a dumb flexijack that needs a specific lead to work (I don't even know how I'd connect a 3.5mm jack output from my soundcard to an optical input on my sub!) Anyway, I connected an optical cable to the Realtek onboard SPIDF Out port on my ASUS motherboard and for the first time the 'decode' button lit up on my Z906 speaker controller and I experienced DTS for the first time! The only problem is that the sound quality from the Realtek HD onboard sound is really poor compared to the sound on my XtremeMusic soundcard. After reading through these forums all night I had hoped that the Soundblaster XFI MB3 software might have been the solution if it can modify the sound of your Realtek onboard sound to sound more like the Soundblaster quality. So my question is can the Creative XFI MB3 software be used to help shape the sound for SPIDF optical connections and not just for analogue speaker connections? Is there another way I can get DTS and Dolby Digital using the hardware that I've got and I'm just missing the knowledge on how to do this?? Oh and btw I'm using Windows 10 creators update incase that's important. Would really appreciate your help and advice guys and thanks so much for reading my post and for sharing all these awesome bits of info on these forums. Cheers

 

[dvojinov]

Guys really hoping you can help with some advice please. I'm using a Soundblaster XtremeMusic soundcard connected to a Logitech Z906 5.1 speaker system via analogue speaker connection. I want to experience Dolby Digital and DTS which i understand needs a digital connection to work but my soundcard doesn't have an optical out connection, just a dumb flexijack that needs a specific lead to work (I don't even know how I'd connect a 3.5mm jack output from my soundcard to an optical input on my sub!) Anyway, I connected an optical cable to the Realtek onboard SPIDF Out port on my ASUS motherboard and for the first time the 'decode' button lit up on my Z906 speaker controller and I experienced DTS for the first time! The only problem is that the sound quality from the Realtek HD onboard sound is really poor compared to the sound on my XtremeMusic soundcard. After reading through these forums all night I had hoped that the Soundblaster XFI MB3 software might have been the solution if it can modify the sound of your Realtek onboard sound to sound more like the Soundblaster quality. So my question is can the Creative XFI MB3 software be used to help shape the sound for SPIDF optical connections and not just for analogue speaker connections? Is there another way I can get DTS and Dolby Digital using the hardware that I've got and I'm just missing the knowledge on how to do this?? Oh and btw I'm using Windows 10 creators update incase that's important. Would really appreciate your help and advice guys and thanks so much for reading my post and for sharing all these awesome bits of info on these forums. Cheers

To be able to get DTS Interactive or DolbyDigitalLive you need ENCODED signal form your sound card and SPDIF or Optical Out

your X Fi Xtreme music is an older sound-card and what I could find out doesn't have OPTICAL OUT but does have SPDIF via FlaxJack which require a special cable usually provided with the Soundcard in the bundle and looks like this :

You will then need an SPDIF CABLE to connect both sides , END of 3,inch to COAXIAL cable to your SPDIF Coaxial input on your Z-906 witch is marked ORANGE and just beside 2 OPTICAL inputs .
Example of SPDIF coaxial cable to interconnect the two sides:|

So, that is for starter NOW you established DIGITAL LINK using SPDIF cables and connectors and a DIGITAL ENCODED signal like DTS Interactive , Dolby Digtal Live , DTS or Dolby can be send form your Audio card to your Z906 Speakers .

Then it comes to Software , Driver , adjustments , defaults ...

SBMB3 cant do shit with DTS Interactive or Dolby Digital Live ..it is not designed that way and does not use any ENCODERS or is able to ENCODE any signal to send over SPDIF or OPTICAL OUT .

 

[mbrogz3000]

None of this changing of the bios settings by itself is considered normal, nor should it be possible by audio drivers. What I would suggest you do is reflash the firmware and restore to defaults, then reapply the settings. Yours is a special case - this type of thing rarely happens.

Yes - definitely not normal at all and I believe its the MB's audio section. I wasn't insinuating that its the unlocked drivers which the greater part of the community here is using with fine results ( I read most of this post last week). There was a new FW build (v 1.4) for my MB, which I did flash, but I still had the same effects. This board does not like when the user uninstalls and re-installs audio driver for the built-in audio - and it doesn't like it when the user disables and re-enables the integrated audio in the bios either.

Another case I experienced this past week - my MB has a 'game mode' overclock setting, which is a simple and conservative overclock setting of 4.2 GHz for the i5 (and something else for the i7); its for folks who don't know how to overclock. All I did was open the bios menu for the integrated audio, and flip from disable to enable to disabled again - upon reboot, this 'game mode' button setting became enabled and overrode my stable 45 x 100MHz setting. So long story short:

If you have the MSI MPower Z170A Titanium - and you use any unlocked realtek drivers, be sure to record your bios settings on paper, follow an unlocked driver install process, then make sure to set all your bios settings back to what you recorded on paper.

I have now since upgraded the audio to an SB Z - if you care about audio quality, this is a fantastic sound upgrade with painless DDL / DTS setup.

 

[dvojinov]

Yes - definitely not normal at all and I believe its the MB's audio section. I wasn't insinuating that its the unlocked drivers which the greater part of the community here is using with fine results ( I read most of this post last week). There was a new FW build (v 1.4) for my MB, which I did flash, but I still had the same effects. This board does not like when the user uninstalls and re-installs audio driver for the built-in audio - and it doesn't like it when the user disables and re-enables the integrated audio in the bios either.

Another case I experienced this past week - my MB has a 'game mode' overclock setting, which is a simple and conservative overclock setting of 4.2 GHz for the i5 (and something else for the i7); its for folks who don't know how to overclock. All I did was open the bios menu for the integrated audio, and flip from disable to enable to disabled again - upon reboot, this 'game mode' button setting became enabled and overrode my stable 45 x 100MHz setting. So long story short:

If you have the MSI MPower Z170A Titanium - and you use any unlocked realtek drivers, be sure to record your bios settings on paper, follow an unlocked driver install process, then make sure to set all your bios settings back to what you recorded on paper.

I dont understand how an audio driver can influence motherboard bios at all ???

 

[dvojinov]

Im definitely off this Realtek boat , ordered Sound Blaster Z and it will be delivered in the next few days . Once I got it inside and setup Im going to disable Realtek from the motherboard bios and use only SBZ . This will reduce significantly or possible end my activities here and updates on my page.
ZBest

 

[Peterson]

Worked 100% DDl - DTSi
[Driver File used: realtek_hda_8295_DTSi_DDL_experimental]

Motherboard: Fatal1ty 990FX Killer
Audio: Realtek ALC1150 115dB SNR DAC Direct Drive
ASIO4All > Receiver 5.1

I'll soon test > Realtek_HDA_6.0.1.8308_DTSi_DDL_WHQL (25/11/17)

 

[dvojinov]

I'm glad it worked for you

 

[Kipz]

Can someone point me in the right direction? I've installed creators update, stupidly, and now it's broken, I've tried buying a Xonar u7 but when using DDL I get awful static pops whenever sound phases in and out? Is there a better external sound card that I should try?

 

[dvojinov]

Sound Blaster Omni 5.1works perfectly but has only Dolby Digital Live encoder. Forget Asus, damn lazy fucks they never update their drivers.

Can someone point me in the right direction? I've installed creators update, stupidly, and now it's broken, I've tried buying a Xonar u7 but when using DDL I get awful static pops whenever sound phases in and out? Is there a better external sound card that I should try?

https://us.creative.com/p/sound-blaster/sound-blaster-omni-surround-5-1

far better then U7

 

[Kipz]

Sound Blaster Omni 5.1works perfectly but has only Dolby Digital Live encoder. Forget Asus, damn lazy fucks they never update their drivers.



https://us.creative.com/p/sound-blaster/sound-blaster-omni-surround-5-1

far better then U7

I was going to get that one too then got swayed by.the u7. God damn. At least I know which one to get now.

 

[dvojinov]

So that's it for time being folks. my Creative Sounblastrer Z arrived tpday and in 10 minutest I got awesome DTS Interactive ,NEO6 , Dolby Digital Live and SBX working like charm in harmony together when I want ,how I want , no questions asked, no more messing with modifying drivers , disable this , enter that , change this registry ...it was just install the card in the machine , power up ..install latest drivers , reboot ..BOOOM !!! working , kicking , playing..after so long torture with Realtek ..tears came to my eyes out of joy !
Have fun people and all the best luck !

 

[Elephant Rider]

Maybe I need to get one of those. When I first installed this old X-Fi, it worked great. I could switch between analog and digital and everything was perfect. Now... somehow... it only works when Windows is set on Speakers (analog) and I get both analog and digital out at the same time. Which is fine... I guess... I don't have to switch between the two, just power off whichever I'm not using. But I can't control the volume for the digital out. It just stays one level. Which is fine... I guess... The amp it runs to can control the volume. But it's just weird. It was working, then it wasn't, and I didn't change anything... Even though it actually works right now, as in outputting what it's supposed to, it just seems... ghetto...