Re: Acer laptop+Realtek HD = no full duplex

[Michael Tippach]

For all these afflicted by the problem that you cannot use input and output at the same time with (a number of) these machines - here's an update:

I finally got my hands on a machine that exposes the problem. Preliminary investigation leads to the conclusion that the design is completely fucked up almost beyond any reasonable repair.

It appears that in order to be able to put a "True5.1" sticker on the case, they fudged the Realtek WaveRt miniport to perform Dolby Digital Live encoding (marketing blurp for software AC3 encoding) . In turn sacrificing any remainder of WaveRT compliance this thing may ever have had.

Bottom line: There's two possible workarounds -

• Use the MS in-box HD audio driver instead. I have tried it. It works, but you may have to set up your mic inputs etc. using the Windows mixer. This is the preferred solution.
  
• Wait for the next ASIO4ALL release to contain a workaround improving the situatioin somewhat.
  

[jdawkins]

I'm glad there's finally something to read up on about this problem, i have a fairly dumb question thou, how do i set my laptop to use the MS in-box HD audio driver?

I've searched online and it says Device Manager but under 'Sound, video and game controllers' all i see is

ManyCam Virtual Webcam Video Capture Driver
NVIDIA High Definition Audio
Realtek High Definition Audio

and i don't see anyway i can "switch on the fly" to anything, and in the Playback and Recording Devices settings there's only the Realtek HD Microphone/Speaker/Stereo Mix/Digital Output options to choose from. please help, thank you.

I'm really pissed off with this deadly Realtek + Acer + Vista combo, first I can't monitor my microphone output (can barely hear it unlike my XP days) so i was going to use softwares like Audacity to monitor but there's latency and i still can't use ASIO4all. am i really not getting anywhere until i get the money for external soundcards? urgh.

[Michael Tippach]

A test version supposed to work with the stock Realtek driver on Acer laptops is here: www.asio4all.com/debug/ASIO4ALL_2_10_English.exe

Latency likely is not as great as could be, but at least it should work. In order to get the sub 10ms round trip figures your system is likely to be capable of, you have to switch to the MS in-box driver.

Apr 12, 2010 0:16:42 GMT @jdawkins said:

I'm glad there's finally something to read up on about this problem, i have a fairly dumb question thou, how do i set my laptop to use the MS in-box HD audio driver?

ManyCam Virtual Webcam Video Capture Driver
NVIDIA High Definition Audio
Realtek High Definition Audio

Select "Update Driver" for the Realtek. Then let Windows display a list of compatible drivers (or what that choice item is called). There should be an "HD Audio Device" or "High Definition Audio Device" choice. Select that, instead of the Realtek.

You may now have to re-do configuration of inputs and outputs, like adjusting Microphone boost on the _correct_ Mic input, and, and, and...

[jdawkins]

Thanks Michael.

I tried the MS in-box HD audio driver first but it was a fail; no stereo or stereo mix and it's taking the audio input from my in-built laptop mic rather than the directional mic i had plugged in.

I changed back to Realtek HD and tried the test version, was happy to find that it's actually working, no latency at all (6ms with all the settings at minimum or turned off and ASIO buffer size at 128, only Realtek HD output and Mic input are checked).

Only one problem, the volume is really soft, i had to turn up the track volume to max and even apply an equalizer audio effect filter to barely hear it, so if i record vocals or anything ontop an intensive instrumental i can't hear the vocals at all. as usual, everything's fine when i switch back to Direct X.

i'm pretty sure it's not my audio settings. infact, i feel like it's at the same volume as what i'd get when i accidentally record with Stereo Mix instead of Microphone set as default without enabling the monitoring in my softwares (there seems to be no way to increase the really low default windows mic playback volume for Acer + Realtek + Vista). i know this is a test version so hopefully this is something that can be resolved somewhat. great job so far, respect to you.

[jdawkins]

Okay, an update. I was wrong about the MS in-box HD audio driver, it did have stereo and the reason why i was getting audio from my in-built laptop mic instead was because i didn't set the mic input settings on ASIO4all. I changed from HD Audio Microphone to HD Audio Mixed capture and it worked quite fine.

Thanks a lot, everything's well now, you can say this problem is fixed save for the fact that we have to use the in-box HD audio driver, and we don't get Stereo Mix. Other than that, i wonder what's the other disadvantages of using the in-box HD audio driver instead of Realtek HD?

[Michael Tippach]

Apr 13, 2010 23:03:17 GMT @jdawkins said:

Other than that, i wonder what's the other disadvantages of using the in-box HD audio driver instead of Realtek HD?

As indicated above, I had a look at one of these machines. They're touting "Dolby Digital Live" and "True 5.1" as far as features, even though the analog out is just ordinary stereo, like on just about any other laptop.

What this is supposed to mean, IMHO, is that the Realtek WDM miniport on these machines performs software AC3 encoding (This is what "Dolby Digital Live" essentially means), enabling you to listen to 5.1 audio via the S/PDIF out.

Using the MS in-box driver, you're losing that functionality (of which you probably didn't even know it existed). Plus it seems that the jack detection appears to not work the same way, i.e. with the MS in-box driver you may have two independent outputs, e.g. "Speaker" and "HP", treating the built in speakers as an independent output device. Likewise, as far as the built in Mic vs. the Mic. input jack.

One may even consider this a plus.

[jdawkins]

Yes, it's been great so far. I guess i'll be keeping this as default, only changing to Realtek HD when i need to record Stereo Mix for things like screen capture recordings and Ventrilo, and switch back to MS in-box HD when i'm doing my productions. Guess i won't need to buy an external soundcard for now, but hope there'll be some full solution to this someday.

Once again, thanks. You're great, keep up the good work.

[paulcoelho]

Hi, I'm not sure this is related, but I'm trying to connect a PSR295_3 to an ACER 3000 laptop in Midi mode so I can call up 'instruments' on the software I am using, (Sequel). When I play the notes everything sounds fine, but when I playback the recording the notes are 'echoed' or 'duplicated' after the first few notes have been replayed. e.g if I play the notes:
C D E F G A B C, it will play back as C D E F G A B C
C D E F G.
I'm tearing hair out here that I don't have, having spent most of my half term break trying to sort this out. I am also using the PSR295_3 driver. Having written this down it looks like I'm confused!!!!! Any suggestions / answers anybody?? Thanx in anticipation.

[thomascoolberth]

Using the MS in-box driver as noted above solved a problem I had of connecting a Fender Mustang amd into Ableton Live. Now the ASIO recognises the amp and I think I see input going into the channel but I can't monitor anything unless I have the MS in-box driver selected in the asio window also.

When I do that I totally lose the input signal from the amp.

[guest]

same setup (mustang, ableton) same problem i.e. no duplex until I tried ASO4all 2.11. Beta but it fixed the problem for me

[Linley]

Hi. Is there any update to this? I'm experiencing the same problem, getting no sound running Sibelius 7 through ASIO4ALL 2.0 on an Acer Satellite running Windows 7 with Realtek speakers and a Yamaha Clavinova. Thanks.