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Can Cakewalk work with onboard Realtec audio?


gmp

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Realtek does seem to keep upping their game. I think their target market is high-end gamers that spend thousands on video cards, and probably need the latest HD audio to go with.

My current desktop motherboard has the Realtek S1220A. "It also features an unprecedented 120dB signal-to-noise ratio for the stereo line-out and a 113dB SNR for the line-in, providing pristine audio quality. Additionally, a new impedance-sensing circuit automatically adjusts gain to ensure the optimal volume range for your headphones".

I've disabled it in the BIOS. 😁

Edited by abacab
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The issue with recording using an on-board Realtek device isn't the Realtek chip itself, it's the other circuitry on the motherboard surrounding it. If not designed with recording in mind, it can leave it susceptible to interference from other parts of the motherboard.

I've had had interference from USB/serial devices (e.g. moving the mouse) and also the power supply when using a laptop.

Motherboards with separate line/mic inputs tend to perform better with the line input, but to my ears its still lacking on some motherboards.
 

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I've specifically tweaked wasapi to work well with realtek. the main advantage of onboard audio codecs in wasapi is that unlike usb they support the windows 10 low latency wasapi support via IAudioClient3. This means that they will support latencies in shared mode that go down to less than 10 msec. I've had acceptable performance at 3msec buffers. Many consumer grade usb devices won't even go that's low.

Of course if you already own a pro audio interface and it's convenient to use you wouldn't choose onboard audio. If you want to use a guitar or mic input portably guitar rig is a nice inexpensive solution and it does work even in wasapi shared mode, allowing you to record guitar while outputting from your onboard audio device in a laptop scenario.

It's all about having choices.

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Here's a question- All of my laptops and desktops only show " High Definition Audio Device" in any place that I investigate. Is this a W10 generic driver issue? In other words I have no clue who actually made the on board sound chip. I could have a realtech and not even know this unless I go and look up what my mobo is and so forth. 

The reason I ask is possibly the very pour performance experience  with on board audio is due to not having the proper driver installed. 

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High def audio device is the Microsoft supplied driver that wraps several chipsets including realtek. 
You can find out what onboard chipset you have via the MSINFO system info utility.

My info looks like this.
 

If this is a custom built PC I think by default Windows 10 will use HDAUDIO.SYS. This should be ok generally since it supports the Win10 low latency audios stuff  but you may be able to get a manufacturer driver that has better support.

msinfo.PNG

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10 hours ago, John Vere said:

Here's a question- All of my laptops and desktops only show " High Definition Audio Device" in any place that I investigate. Is this a W10 generic driver issue? In other words I have no clue who actually made the on board sound chip. I could have a realtech and not even know this unless I go and look up what my mobo is and so forth. 

The reason I ask is possibly the very pour performance experience  with on board audio is due to not having the proper driver installed. 

CPU-ID is a free, mature and well known utility application that will poll all your motherboard chips as well as accessories and display a report of what you have.  The application is less than 2 MB.  You can download the app  here:  CPU-ID

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Hey Jim thanks for that, I downloaded it and ran it on this office computer and then I googled what it say's my Mobo is Asrok H97Pro4 and under audio the good news is this

Audio: Realtek ALC892 7.1-Channel High Definition Audio CODEC; Supports Premium Blu-ray Audio

So now I will see if there is a proper driver for this as I have a feeling it's running on a W10 generic. I know I had huge issues with the graphic card and it was because of this after I installed W10 I had to get the proper Nvidia driver and all was good after that.

I built this machine from scratch using mostly on sale parts. I added the graphic card so I could use it for watching movies on a TV.  The on board didn't have HDMI.  I don't really use it much for a DAW but it's nice to edit stuff on. 

 

Update- Well that was a dead end as the driver is dated 2015 and say's Vista.. 

Edited by John Vere
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