Latest Realtek HD Audio Driver Version [2]

DooGie said:

@johngalt there is another source on the GitHub maintained by a guy called pal1000. He repackages the Realtek UAD drivers so they can be installed on a non UAD compatible system. I've been trying these out for a couple of months now with great success.

Releases . pal1000/Realtek-UAD-generic . GitHub

Ha! Let me see what he has available then. Thanks!

hehe said:

when you install generic hda version, does the realtek hd audio manager show your oem info? my mainboard is from gigabyte so it shows gigabyte over it. given its generic i thought it shouldnt have any branding?

The branding comes from other OEM stuff on your computer - e.g. my system is a homebrewed one, using an eVGA X58 Classified 3 mobo - and there is no branding on it at all.

asturias7 said:

My wife has an HP laptop and it doesn't have the brand on the Audio Manager. But, it's normal to see the OEM brand on other systems. So, no worries.

Btw, 6.0.8750.1 installs on my wife's laptop which has Win7 even though it's supposed to be for Win10 RS4...

Yeah, It's not always impossible to install drivers made for newer OSs on older OSs. And vice versa. I used to maintain a repository of Motorola USB (for mobiles) drivers for Windows 7, and I would extract the .CAB files and repackage them into a .ZIP so Win8x users could also use them, since the setup.exe used for Win7 refused to work on Win8x computers, even with compatibility set.

I assume that you simply installed the drivers via the setup.exe on Win7? Or did you have to go through a few hoops to get them installed?

DooGie said:

@johngalt there is another source on the GitHub maintained by a guy called pal1000. He repackages the Realtek UAD drivers so they can be installed on a non UAD compatible system. I've been trying these out for a couple of months now with great success.

Releases . pal1000/Realtek-UAD-generic . GitHub

One more thing - is this still a UAD driver, that works with the Microsoft Store version of the RealTek Audio Console?

And do you have to install his version every time, or once it is installed can you just update from the M$ catalog?

johngalt said:

One more thing - is this still a UAD driver, that works with the Microsoft Store version of the RealTek Audio Console?

And do you have to install his version every time, or once it is installed can you just update from the M$ catalog?

Yes it works Microsoft Store version of the RealTek Audio Console. After installing the driver you just have to go to the MS Store and check for updates and it should download it automatically.

Yes you have to install his version every time if you don't have a UAD compatible system. You can always revert to the generic HDA version though.

If you try it out and run into any installation problems just give me a shout.

Odd. Must have made it available for everyone then.

Maybe that will be a good point to base future tests on - regular releases that aren't pushed to either the Microsoft Update Catalog, or Windows Update, may be just beta builds that aren't meant for general consumption in the first place.

DooGie said:

Yes it works Microsoft Store version of the RealTek Audio Console. After installing the driver you just have to go to the MS Store and check for updates and it should download it automatically.

Yes you have to install his version every time if you don't have a UAD compatible system. You can always revert to the generic HDA version though.

If you try it out and run into any installation problems just give me a shout.

Oh, this is going to be fun.

I already like the regular HDA 8750. Now to compare it to the Generic UAD version.

Tomorrow. lol.

Homebrewed - yes, I built it myself, as I have all my machines for decades now (of course, I also use them for decades, so it's not that many machines). Yeah, that's why I mentioned my eVGA mobo - there was no custom branding on their stuff, when installing drivers, even with their GPUs - only custom branding was on their own software, like the E-LEEt software, the Precision OC / X1 / PrecisionX software, etc.

On this machine i haven't, yet, been able to use the UAD driver - until now, when @DooGie pointed me to a repackaged UAD driver. Since 8750 HDA sounds fantastic, I plan to, today, test the difference between the HDA 8750 and the repackaged UAD 8750 and see if there is a difference.

As for what is recommended - I've said this a few times already, but it bears repeating. These audio drivers produce different sounds for different people, and different people have different criteria for what they want to hear. For example, some people like the strong bass in certain drivers, while others have said that the very same drivers are too bass heavy. Me, personally, I like clarity and richness of sound first and foremost. I listen to a variety of genres of music, including a lot of things under the umbrella of Rock and under the umbrella of Electronica. I like listening to music at moderate to high volumes. So, clarity is a key - I hate when music gets distorted at low volumes, even if it is a live performance recorded on a crappy cell phone. And I rarely ever listen to music without EQ adjustments (my former settings that I always got mad at because they would get erased upon a new driver install I've now retired - RealTek's Powerful OOB setting is pretty close to how I was setting my own, and it makes life a lot easier when testing drivers instead of taking the time to set the EQ exactly each time, where human error may cause me to slip on a particular freq and thus make a certain driver sound better / worse than it actually does).

But, in the end, it's your call. If you like the HDA over the UAD, use it. None of us is going to get mad at you for doing so, I can promise you that