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

[deomsh]

Thanks for testing my next quasi universal HDAICOUT.HDA with EAPD enabled (this version is CODEC Index=$0 only). All 200 lines are logged by HDAICIN.TXT. I only had to reduce the number of 'Power up!' lines a bit.

I am afraid I cannot do anything to fix your headphone issue, but maybe you can.
IF you where using a headset with three bands on the 3.5mm plug, try a real headphone with two bands.

[mrfusion92]

I actually always tested with an headset and also with external speakers. Never heard a single thing in both cases.

Well thank you very much for your help!

[deomsh]

Enjoy!

About your test with Colin McRae Rally: I see three possible issues:

1) Version of DirectX
2) Midi driver needed
3) Game needs WDM-driver.

Issues 1 an 2 can be fixed, but 3 not: HDA2.DLL is not a WDM-driver

[mrfusion92]

DirectX can't be the issue. I alway install DirectX 8.1 in 98SE and the game works okay in another Win98 PC.

How can I install the midi interface?

EDIT: Or perhaps dx 8.1 and HDA driver isn't a good match?

Edited July 9, 2023 by mrfusion92

[deomsh]

About midi: you can try Yamaha S-YXG100plus soft synth, see https://msfn.org/board/topic/178295-audio-driver-for-realtek-hd-audio-hardware-testing-thread/?do=findComment&comment=1245427

Driver is somewhere on Vogons.

In my experience: first comment out HDA2.DLL in SYSTEM.INI before installing Yamaha S-YXG100plus soft synth. Afterwards set wavehda=HDA2.DLL as LAST entry in SYSTEM.INI [drivers] and reboot.

BTW setting Yamaha S-YXG100plus soft synth to DirectSound output is rather tricky, but after a while you will succeed. But @sifonium who introduced Yamaha S-YXG100plus soft synth to this thread had other experiences/ solutions.

Edited July 10, 2023 by deomsh
typo: not HDA2DLL, but HDA2.DLL

[Dave-H]

1 hour ago, mrfusion92 said:

I actually always tested with an headset and also with external speakers. Never heard a single thing in both cases.

Well thank you very much for your help!

Just my tuppence worth, if there is not even a click or pop from the headphones when the machine starts up, that sounds to me like a hardware issue.
Are you plugging the headphones into a socket directly on the motherboard, or is it on the case somewhere?
If the latter, you should check the physical connection between the socket panel and the motherboard.

[mrfusion92]

13 hours ago, deomsh said:

About midi: you can try Yamaha S-YXG100plus soft synth, see https://msfn.org/board/topic/178295-audio-driver-for-realtek-hd-audio-hardware-testing-thread/?do=findComment&comment=1245427

Driver is somewhere on Vogons.

In my experience: first comment out HDA2.DLL in SYSTEM.INI before installing Yamaha S-YXG100plus soft synth. Afterwards set wavehda=HDA2DLL as LAST entry in SYSTEM.INI [drivers] and reboot.

BTW setting Yamaha S-YXG100plus soft synth to DirectSound output is rather tricky, but after a while you will succeed. But @sifonium who introduced Yamaha S-YXG100plus soft synth to this thread had other experiences/ solutions.

Installed the soft midi driver and it works because now I can play midi files but that game still refuses to output any sound, so I guess it needs WDM drivers.

13 hours ago, Dave-H said:

Just my tuppence worth, if there is not even a click or pop from the headphones when the machine starts up, that sounds to me like a hardware issue.
Are you plugging the headphones into a socket directly on the motherboard, or is it on the case somewhere?
If the latter, you should check the physical connection between the socket panel and the motherboard.

The socket is on a daughterboard with other connections (USB and ethernet) and everything else works. But indeed I never tested the headphone output under WinXP with proper drivers, so it is entire possible that it is faulty.

[Dave-H]

5 hours ago, mrfusion92 said:

The socket is on a daughterboard with other connections (USB and ethernet) and everything else works. But indeed I never tested the headphone output under WinXP with proper drivers, so it is entire possible that it is faulty.

Even if the other connections work, there could still be a bad connection on the headphones.
If the motherboard and daughterboard are connected by connectors which can be unplugged, unplug them and clean the contacts and plug them in again, making sure that the connectors are seated properly of course.

[deomsh]

8 hours ago, mrfusion92 said:

Installed the soft midi driver and it works because now I can play midi files but that game still refuses to output any sound, so I guess it needs WDM drivers.

I found WDM nowhere mentioned in case of the 1998 version. But I have no new ideas.

If you run DxDiag, you will see HDA Sound is running in Software Emulation mode. At least in Prince of Persia 'Sands of Time' this was not a problem to get sound with HDA2.DLL (only Windows game I ever tried to play; together with USB the reason I once left my 'beloved' Windows 95 OSR1a).

With DirectMusic you can test access to the YAMAGA SGX Driver too (at least in DirectX 9.0c).

[mrfusion92]

3 hours ago, Dave-H said:

Even if the other connections work, there could still be a bad connection on the headphones.
If the motherboard and daughterboard are connected by connectors which can be unplugged, unplug them and clean the contacts and plug them in again, making sure that the connectors are seated properly of course.

There is only one flat cable. I will clean it up next time I will open the netbook which may happen soon because...

18 minutes ago, deomsh said:

I found WDM nowhere mentioned in case of the 1998 version. But I have no new ideas.

If you run DxDiag, you will see HDA Sound is running in Software Emulation mode. At least in Prince of Persia 'Sands of Time' this was not a problem to get sound with HDA2.DLL (only Windows game I ever tried to play; together with USB the reason I once left my 'beloved' Windows 95 OSR1a).

With DirectMusic you can test access to the YAMAGA SGX Driver too (at least in DirectX 9.0c).

I tried to install DirectX 9.0 and it broke everything! XD now system hangs just a little bit after the desktop shows up. I will try reinstall 98 from scratch and follow a proper order for everything (I think dx9 -> yamaha sgx -> hda drivers should be the best).

[mrfusion92]

Reporting back after the re-installation with DirectX 9. Everything works as before, no headphone output and no sound in Colin McRae Rally.

I booted a drive with Win XP and I can confirm that headphone jack works perfectly with the correct HDA drivers. By the way, with SBEMU program under DOS I can select headphone output and it works (yeah I didn't think to test that before).

[deomsh]

Good to know, at least you have DirectX 9.0c now (I presume).

In the datasheet it is not fully clear if enabling headphone amplifiers is needed to enable headphones. 'Normally' this is not needed, codecs can be rather stubborn however.

But you can try. Open HDAICOUT.HDA in some text editor and change ALL $0..70740 lines to 707C0.

First line is now:

$00270740;AC_VERB_SET_PIN_WIDGET_CONTROL;out_enable

Should become:

$002707C0;AC_VERB_SET_PIN_WIDGET_CONTROL;out_enable

Etcetera.

BTW watch if you use Notepad the extension is still .HDA (Notepad will try to add .TXT).

Reboot needed of course.

[mrfusion92]

Sorry for the late reply, got involved with another notebook (an IBM Thinkpad 701c).

Tested also that changes in the HDA file but still nothing

[deomsh]

No problem.

Sad activating the headphone amplifier made no difference, but on the other hand this is 'good'.

But it seems to be a real issue with codec ALC269, according to various sources. So far I found no cure.

You can try the same HDAICOUT.HDA (with 707C0 or 70740 version) and comment out with a semicolon BOTH reset lines (first two lines at the beginning of the file).

The reset lines will set al widgets to their default state. Maybe you are lucky that another state of headphones has been set after boot.

Edited July 14, 2023 by deomsh
addition

[gab24]

On 5/16/2023 at 5:56 PM, sifonium said:

Great news - the sound works now with the Index=0 HDAICOUT! Bravo!!

 

I tried it first with the L driver version, and it worked, so I haven't tried the others. I uploaded the K one to gdrive.

Then I experimented with the widget configs to try to get the sound out of the speaker instead of the headphones, and after a couple of variants, I realized that it made no difference what I write, whatsoever. I could even change the Output widget to whatever number, and the sound was still here - but only through the headphones.

WAVEOUT volume control also has no effect, volume is always the same. 

I guess the reason could be that HDACFG.INI still has the CODEC Index=1, and the modem's VID and DID written in it. I tried to change those to the actual values, but Windows keeps reverting it to the modem ones.

I uploaded the latest test files to gdrive, folder "tests v3".

Do you have any suggestions on how to solve this? It would be great to have volume control, also sound on the speaker.

 

Notes:

- Whenever changing some hdacfg.ini config, or deleting the log files, the first, or couple of first boots end up in runtime errors. Then it gets normal.

- system.ini - when i have "wave=hda2.dll" instead of "wavehda=hda2.dll", Windows stopped adding the "wave=mmsystem.dll". Also having two of "wave=" seems to disable one of them.

- regarding the PCI memory thing from my last post - IntelHDA is showing a different memory address of the HDA card now (after I disabled all built in devices i could in bios). But I guess that's irrelevant.

 

MIDI:

I managed to install Yamaha S-YXG100plus soft synth, to work alongside as a Windows 98 MIDI driver - the Yamaha midi synth shows up in MM settings and can be used. That place was empty before, as the Windows MIDI driver didn't work with this HDA driver.

SYSTEM.INI settings for it:

;;wave=mmsystem.dll

;;midi=mmsystem.dll

;;midi8=sxgma.drv

;;wave8=sxgma.drv

;;mixer8=sxgma.drv

midi=sxgma.drv

wavemapper=*.drv

MSACM.imaadpcm=*.acm

MSACM.msadpcm=*.acm

WAVE=HDA2.DLL

 

First few boots I got blue screens, but then it stabilized.

 

So, my conclusions about the SYSTEM.INI config and the HDA driver (at least in my case) are:

- there should be just one "WAVE=" entry, and just one "MIDI=" entry - no "WAVEHDA=", "WAVExxx=", "MIDIxxx="..

- if there is "WAVEHDA=" or "WAVExxx=" and no "WAVE=" entry, the system keeps adding it's own "WAVE=mmsystem.dll" which in my case can't coexist with the HDA driver. 

 

For information - both audio and Yamaha midi work with VDMSOUND in DOS mode, as well. There is some stuttering though, which is not present in Windows. But, I only tested Prince of Persia in DOS mode, and Doom95 in Windows, for now.

 

One more question - are there any settings I could play with to tackle the latency, or potential stuttering?

 

I'm really happy about the progress, cheers!

I use Windows 98SE local on my HP Pavilion dv5-1220ez Notebook, which released in 2008. The built-in audio device is: audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03).
Currently I am using the HDADRV9L driver with the file HDAICOUT.000 (it works with my headphones). So that I can hear the MIDI music of the Hover! game on my notebook, I installed the Yamaha S-YXG100plus soft synth MIDI driver and it works (i can hear MIDI-Music). I followed your installation procedure and i have after it no problems. But the MIDI-Music does only play for example in the Hover! game when all other sound effects are turned off. It does not play together. The other sound effects consist of .WAV files.

Edited July 8, 2024 by gab24