3 ms·

I'm sure the windows audio stack is many times more complex, and it's pretty opaque. OEMs also love to include all kinds of audio related bloatware, which make

by bux93 2y ago

I'm sure the windows audio stack is many times more complex, and it's pretty opaque. OEMs also love to include all kinds of audio related bloatware, which makes getting audio hardware to work reliably(!) quite challenging. The HP laptop I'm typing this on has an "Intel microphone array" (just 2 mics) which has it's own intel drivers, but there's also some HP control panel, realtek and 'sound research' branded stuff, Fortemedia SAMsoft effects(?), Intel smart sound... If I'm recording seriously, I usually just go to the device manager (devmgmt.msc) and disable as much as I can and enable devices in a trial-and-error way to see what the minimum is to get audio to work again. Otherwise, all kinds of 'enhancements' end up in the audio path.

hparadiz 2y ago
If Windows could do what Linux can out of the box VoiceMeter would not exist.
- simoncion 2y ago
  I assume you meant VB-Audio's "Voicemeeter"? If so, yeah, that's solid software, and it's NUTS that Windows hasn't made it unnecessary yet. (For those who may be reading this comment and wondering what the shit this software is, go give it a look. (I use it regularly and don't do Pro Audio stuff... I just want to be able to independently adjust relative volumes of groups of software (like Voice Chat and Video Games).) If the software's feature set looks intriguing, do give it a try and use Voicemeeter Potato. IIRC, all "flavors" of Voicemeeter have the same trial period, and I can't think of any reason to not use the the "flavor" with the most knobs and interconnects.)
p_l 2y ago
Intel Smart Audio is the worst, it takes over normal USB Audio devices and does its own weird processing on top, resulting sometimes with "hilarious" crashes. And on corporate laptop you might not be able to disable its driver :/ Fortunately, it's too dumb to deal with devices that are behind more hubs than the root one...

by bux93 2y ago

hparadiz 2y ago

If Windows could do what Linux can out of the box VoiceMeter would not exist.

simoncion 2y ago
I assume you meant VB-Audio's "Voicemeeter"? If so, yeah, that's solid software, and it's NUTS that Windows hasn't made it unnecessary yet. (For those who may be reading this comment and wondering what the shit this software is, go give it a look. (I use it regularly and don't do Pro Audio stuff... I just want to be able to independently adjust relative volumes of groups of software (like Voice Chat and Video Games).) If the software's feature set looks intriguing, do give it a try and use Voicemeeter Potato. IIRC, all "flavors" of Voicemeeter have the same trial period, and I can't think of any reason to not use the the "flavor" with the most knobs and interconnects.)

p_l 2y ago

Intel Smart Audio is the worst, it takes over normal USB Audio devices and does its own weird processing on top, resulting sometimes with "hilarious" crashes. And on corporate laptop you might not be able to disable its driver :/ Fortunately, it's too dumb to deal with devices that are behind more hubs than the root one...