Trouble with WDM Realtek digital output

[tox]

Yes, that seems to be the current situation.

Latest official post from Microsoft -

Maurits [MSFT] replied on

Microsoft

Thanks to all those who filed problem reports on the Creators Update/Windows 10 1730/15063! We think we know the root cause and we're working on a fix.

And the thread to follow is here

[tox]

Another Update:

Microsoft have published the fix in the latest fast ring Insider update. I can confirm that DTS Interactive and Dolby Digital Live now work correctly in Windows with this build. Unfortunately the problem that this post is referring to still exists and it goes away once a standard 2 channel stereo format is selected as the default format.

Edit: The problem seems to have disappeared entirely in build 16193 so I don't think there's anything for you to fix after all.

Thanks anyway.

[zapoqx]

I wanted to update this since I know before the creator's update, I was one of the ones with the issue as well.
I saw (albeit a little late) that a cumulative update was released a couple of days ago. This update had one thing specific:

Addressed issue where, after installing the Creators Update, audio output through external decoders no longer works.

So I installed it today. Now Mind you, I do the method of the hacked realtek drivers so that it works with my decoder box. Upon doing so, I found that 2 things:

1. I was able to get sound to work in 5.1 over Optical.
2. I was about to jump for joy thinking that this resolved using WDM.... UNFORTUNATELY, it seems when its on WDM, my box decoder doesn't switch to DDL Format. If I switched to MME, it does switch to DDL format, yet going back to WDM, it switches back to standard. Meanwhile, if I do go through WDM, while my realtek format setting doesn't change, it is playing the 5.1 test sound in Stereo mode to my headset.

Though for me using the hacked drivers, I may end up updating to see if that fixes it (MAYBE) and allow me to use WDM. I'll attempt to keep up-to-date on my findings. So there is progress and back to testing the issues at hand.

[zapoqx]

Alright, update here... unfortunately no. In fact, I managed to bring it back to where it has been at the start of the issues so WDM gets distortion and the 1056 buffer when in Optical.

[CaptaPraelium]

Sadly, the same here also, after the recent patches there has been no change.

[tox]

I can also confirm that the problem still exists.
I've had enough of insider builds now so back to the release build for me, at least until Microsoft break it again.

[CaptaPraelium]

Just tested on fall creator's update, no joy

[VictorienXP]

I have the same issue (distorted audio) on the optical digital output with DTS Interactive when using WDM (No issue with MME (except channel count but I think this is a general issue with MME and this is not a really bug issue anyway))...
Obviously I want to use the 5.1 audio and I have no issue when I'm not using DTS Interactive but if I'm not using it I'm stuck on stereo...
My motherboard is the Asus X99-DELUXE, my optical cable is connected to the Yamaha RX-V471. I'm using Windows 10 64 bits version 1709 (but this issue is here since severals years and older Windows 10 builds).
I think I use the latest version of VoiceMeeter Banana: 2.0.3.9 (And again this issue was on older versions of VoiceMeeter aswell).
So yeah this is not a really big issue since MME can work, but the issue is more that MME has more latency so if WDM can work properly for 5.1 optical it would be cool...

Windows.PNG

VoiceMeeterOpticalWDM.PNG

VoiceMeeterOpticalMME.PNG

I've got another issue, not really directly related to VoiceMeeter but when I'm using DTS Interactive, the RX-V471 goes into what I'm calling "sleep mode" (check the photos to understand what I mean) when there is technically no sound... This is an issue with certain musics/sounds, because there is a huge latency for it to be "rearmed" again... So it skip sounds or music parts on some rare musics (which is not that rare with me)...
No sound:

And when there is sound:

For this I've found a solution called SPDIF Keep Alive utility https://github.com/handruin/spdif-ka but I've got issues to make it correctly work with VoiceMeeter since I'm 100% using VoiceMeeter for volume control (Windows and devices are always at 100% or 0 dB)...
The latest downloadable build of spdif-ka doesn't include device selection but by checking the commits I've seen this may have been implemented, so I tried to compile it but of course for now I can't manage to make it work... I though if I just select the optical out directly this issue might be resolved, but I can't test it and I don't know/remember if MME is exclusive, because it's the only reason this might not work at this point...
So that's why I was wondering if VoiceMeeter can maybe have a built-in SPDIF Keep Alive thingy for that matter...
I should maybe do another topic for this issue alone but I wanted to do a big reply on my biggest issues with SPDIF...

[CaptaPraelium]

Yep, that looks like the same issue, right down to the 1056 buffer.

Your other issue should go in another thread but to give you a short answer here, you could just employ the same method as the app, just create a wav file with no sound and play it on a loop.

[Vincent Burel]

I'm sorry about this problem, but did not find the time to test this use case yet...
it's in our list!