Audio driver for Realtek HD Audio Hardware? [Testing thread]

[retrofan011]

13 hours ago, deomsh said:

Thanks for your kind words. Good luck with your machine.

I have a question about your retro-machine: which disk are you using, a 'real' hard disk, or a (fast) SSD?

I ask this because the performance of Win98SE+HDA2.DLL was much better in Virtual Box 7 than in Vbox 6 after I upgraded. I first thought this was because of the new version of VBox, but when I had to make a clone of my SSD to a hard disk (because of bad sectors on the SSD), I tested by chance my setup from the hard disk. Now HD-audio was not 'good' anymore. After testing from the SSD again, the 'good' sound was there again.

My current theory is the read-speed can be important, but I didn't run any serious tests so far.

I use a regular Western Digital hdd 250Gb, connected to the SATA interface.

Of course, during the Win98 installation, I applied the R.Loew SATA patch.

CPU is Core2Duo 2.13Ghz, more than enough for all retro needs.

Currently I use a multi boot system with Win7, WinXP and Win98SE/DOS, on the same hard drive.

So far everything is working very well, the last uninstalled driver was the one for the integrated HD audio, but now that is also resolved.

[deomsh]

Thanks.

So nothing special.

Then there will be another reason for the difference in my case (in fact last time I tested Win98SE+HDA2.DLL on Virtual Box 6 was before I migrated my Windows 10 x64 system to SSD).

[mrfusion92]

Hi, I have an Asus EEE 1201K netbook with SiS chipset and Realtek HDA sound card.

I installed the drivers using the *.inf file provided in the first page of this topic. It installed correctly and everything loads at boot but I don't have any sound output.

Do I have to tweak some settings? I attached the ini and log files.

Thank you

HDAcfg.ini HDAICIN.TXT HDALOG.TXT

[deomsh]

I am not familiar with the values noted in HDAICIN.TXT. Special version of HDAICOUT.HDA?

Try my quasi-universal version, you will have to use the version in folder HDAICOUT.HDA\Use if CODEC Index=$0. Just copy to your Windows directory and reboot.

HDAICOUT.HDA.zip

[mrfusion92]

Thank you for your reply.

Sadly still doesn't work. HDA Sound is selectable as sound peripheral is Multimedia panel but everything else is greyed out.

I've attached the new log files.

HDALOG.TXT Hdaicout.hda HDAICIN.TXT HDAcfg.ini

[deomsh]

@mrfusion92 I did a long search first on your HD Audio Controller, will be SIS996(L). I found no datasheet, but also NO pci quirks in Linux ALSA sources. So for now we should assume the controller is 'good' with Watler's HDA2.DLL. So no pcipatchB in HDACFG.INI.

Luckily I found the datasheet of your Realtek codec ALC269, following values in HDACFG.INI are already good:

SleepingWidget=$02
OutputWidget=$02

But set:

VolumeWidget=$02

I found speaker (widget 14)  AND headphones (widget 15) both support EAPD with default '0'. So external amplifiers powered down.

Because speaker system looks quite complicated, lets try headphones first with following HDAICOUT.HDA (just rename).

BTW I only need HDAICIN.TXT

Hdaicout.hda.ALC269

[mrfusion92]

Very big improvements! Actually I got finally Windows sounds from speaker and not from headphones output (which I still tried and it is completly silent).

Out of curiosity I launched a game (Colin McRae Rally) and while it played sounds of the intro videos, it got silent in the game itself (just some crackling beeps when I think it tried to initialize the sound card).

 

[deomsh]

Great news. So EAPD is an issue.

But first I'd like to see HDAICIN.TXT

Edited July 9, 2023 by deomsh
typo

[mrfusion92]

Sorry, forgot to attach before. Here you go.

HDAICIN.TXT

[deomsh]

Thanks.

Headphone (Node=15h) does not respond to EAPD_ENABLE.

Seen the datasheet it's possible headphones are connected to Line-out (Node=1Ah).

So I added $1A to HDAICOUT.HDA.

I did some fine-tuning too regarding max output volume. Datasheet says 63dB in 1dB steps, so 3F.

HDAICIN.TXT needed again.

HDAICOUT.HDA.ALC269_v2

[mrfusion92]

Seems nothing really changed. Headphone still silent, sound is being routed always via speakers.

Also the sound volume applet doesn't open (It doesn't show up in the taskbar, I tried to launch directly sndvol32.exe), is it normal? Is there some other way to control volume level? Now it is really loud.

 

HDAICIN.TXT

Edited July 9, 2023 by mrfusion92

[deomsh]

Strange that headphones doesn't seem to connect.

Do you really hear nothing in your headphones, not the slightest crackle during startup?

About speaker volume: is now set to max. Watler's HDA2.DLL comes with WAVEOUT.EXE. Not working if copied to your Windows directory and set  VolumeWidget=$02 in HDACFG.INI?

[mrfusion92]

Yes, I confirm that the headphones are dead silent, not even the crackle.

And waveout indeed works, just a bit odd that I have to adjust manually the left\right levels but hey better than nothing!

[deomsh]

Two sliders are indeed uncommon. I use WAVEOUT.EXE only to set maximum volume if I use DirectSound aware programs. If they output to DirectSound their OWN volume slider will work.

I made a version of HDAICOUT.HDA that sent certain verbs to ALL widgets/ nodes 02h-1Fh, but included EAPD_ENABLE.

Please check if there is any difference with headphones. I need HDAICIN.TXT only.

HDAICOUT_EAPD_ENABLED.ZIP

[mrfusion92]

Still no sound over headphones. Is it a big issue? I really think I won't ever need the headphones output. But if you want to still try fix it I will gladly help testing anything you want.

HDAICIN.TXT