Fixed my floaty mouse (Realtek onboard audio driver)

[astroasis]

okay I literally made an account to post my experience with this whole thing!

I had this issue on 2 PCs - stutters, mouse floaty, input delays, keyboard disconnecting/reconnecting then delays etc. - only thing shared between the two PCs after rebuilding new one, was monitor and my audio interface. I thought I was crazy after a year and getting a new PC.. thinking the whole floaty mouse feeling might just be me, however i went through every step using chatgpt looking at my settings recently.

I took the time to check everything since it made no sense it was happening to 2 PCs. One had 3070 and second 5080.

Through testing initially maybe i thought it was the monitor and then shifted the idea to this realtek audio issue. Ive tried uninstalling realtek audio apps but it didnt help so I used chatgpt to do better tests specifically for my setup. Turns out the issue is my audio interface + the realtek audio situation. Ive tested this on 2 DACs one was a scarlett 2 and second volt2 - basically not sure if uninstalling the realtek apps does anything but I had to check ALL audio sources. First noticed the main realtek, then nvidia audio and then the audio interface drivers. essentially windows doesnt like it when theres more than one but the MAIN issue was this RtkAudUService64. even after uninstalling realtek, and disabling nvidia audio (since im not using hdmi audio i dont need it) that realtek service is running constantly!

Basically had TWO audio systems fighting:
* Realtek motherboard audio
* Universal Audio Volt 2 USB audio
* NVIDIA HDMI audio also installed

During PC or game usage:
* CPU/game asks for low latency
* Volt 2 asks for low latency USB audio
* Realtek service wakes up/scans devices
* Windows audio stack refreshes

That can cause:
* DPC latency spikes
* USB controller delays
* input polling delays

Again I think its important to check your OWN pc setup and peripherals to really fix your issue but if nothing youve tried fixed these input delays and stutters, try checking audio systems in general and disabling services you dont need especially the realtek one. Also in game/app/windows settings if using a DAC just select it and not use windows default so it doesnt try to process accidental multi audio systems on random programs..

Hope this helps anyone out there and I can answer more questions if needed.

lol this was one of the things i tried back in 2017/2018, didnt help but good luck

[kyube]

Using Realtek drivers is the opposite of what you want to do.
See the audio latency discussion thread, where each audio solution is tested in terms of DPC usage and latency in WASAPI shared mode.

[vnb]

Using Realtek drivers is the opposite of what you want to do.
See the audio latency discussion thread, where each audio solution is tested in terms of DPC usage and latency in WASAPI shared mode.

that link was an interesting read, thank you for sharing.

I happen to have bought a Asus B850 with ALC4080 and upon using it i noticed an audio delay that is particularly easy to notice when shooting guns in-game.

My previous board had a ALC897 and after looking closely at the numbers in your link, ALC 4080 seems to average around 140ms of audio delay while the ALC897 sits around 30-40ms of audio delay.

In my opinion that is a huge difference, that could negatively affects our performance in competitive games (having a constant 100ms audio delay...)

Guess the new board is going to be returned...

[kyube]

that link was an interesting read, thank you for sharing.

I happen to have bought a Asus B850 with ALC4080 and upon using it i noticed an audio delay that is particularly easy to notice when shooting guns in-game.

My previous board had a ALC897 and after looking closely at the numbers in your link, ALC 4080 seems to average around 140ms of audio delay while the ALC897 sits around 30-40ms of audio delay.

In my opinion that is a huge difference, that could negatively affects our performance in competitive games (having a constant 100ms audio delay...)

Guess the new board is going to be returned...

See this for mobos with proper codec & good layer count: https:// rentry.co/mbrg
I do suggest using 3.5mm monitor out on a Nvidia GPU though.
It's significantly lower DPC usage.

[vnb]

that link was an interesting read, thank you for sharing.

I happen to have bought a Asus B850 with ALC4080 and upon using it i noticed an audio delay that is particularly easy to notice when shooting guns in-game.

My previous board had a ALC897 and after looking closely at the numbers in your link, ALC 4080 seems to average around 140ms of audio delay while the ALC897 sits around 30-40ms of audio delay.

In my opinion that is a huge difference, that could negatively affects our performance in competitive games (having a constant 100ms audio delay...)

Guess the new board is going to be returned...

See this for mobos with proper codec & good layer count: https:// rentry.co/mbrg
I do suggest using 3.5mm monitor out on a Nvidia GPU though.
It's significantly lower DPC usage.

do you happen to know if 3.5mm monitor jack is also low latency on AMD GPU? i can't find any results online.

Weirdly enough i think not all ALC4080 implementation are equal. I went back to a MSI B850 with ALC 4080 and it's significantly lower latency than my previous Asus B850, but definitely not as low as the ALC897.

i remember using the X670E Taichi Carrara last year with the ALC 4082 and it was definitely the worst audio implementation i have ever used. the latency was so high that even when watching people speaking in videos, you could notice that their lips are not in-sync with the words that comes out (kind of like cheap bluetooth earphones)

[kyube]

do you happen to know if 3.5mm monitor jack is also low latency on AMD GPU? i can't find any results online.

It's higher DPC usage than Nvidia output & a bit worse than PCH-based Realtek codecs.
From data I've collected on RX580 (which should use the same driver as RDNA-based GPUs) the total audio latency through WASAPI shared mode was also higher than Nvidia audio or PCH-based audio.

Weirdly enough i think not all ALC4080 implementation are equal. I went back to a MSI B850 with ALC 4080 and it's significantly lower latency than my previous Asus B850, but definitely not as low as the ALC897.

i remember using the X670E Taichi Carrara last year with the ALC 4082 and it was definitely the worst audio implementation i have ever used. the latency was so high that even when watching people speaking in videos, you could notice that their lips are not in-sync with the words that comes out (kind of like cheap bluetooth earphones)

ALC408x is USB-based, as seen with .etl files.
When discussing DPC usage & PCH-based codecs (ALC897,ALC1220,ALC1200), it's entirely platform related.
As in, it depends on the motherboard chipset generation.
They all fall within the same performance generally, as seen in the ALTresults rentry.
Nvidia audio is the outlier.

[vnb]

do you happen to know if 3.5mm monitor jack is also low latency on AMD GPU? i can't find any results online.

It's higher DPC usage than Nvidia output & a bit worse than PCH-based Realtek codecs.
From data I've collected on RX580 (which should use the same driver as RDNA-based GPUs) the total audio latency through WASAPI shared mode was also higher than Nvidia audio or PCH-based audio.

Weirdly enough i think not all ALC4080 implementation are equal. I went back to a MSI B850 with ALC 4080 and it's significantly lower latency than my previous Asus B850, but definitely not as low as the ALC897.

i remember using the X670E Taichi Carrara last year with the ALC 4082 and it was definitely the worst audio implementation i have ever used. the latency was so high that even when watching people speaking in videos, you could notice that their lips are not in-sync with the words that comes out (kind of like cheap bluetooth earphones)

ALC408x is USB-based, as seen with .etl files.
When discussing DPC usage & PCH-based codecs (ALC897,ALC1220,ALC1200), it's entirely platform related.
As in, it depends on the motherboard chipset generation.
They all fall within the same performance generally, as seen in the ALTresults rentry.
Nvidia audio is the outlier.

i just stumbled on an old note i made while i was testing audio latency on different motherboards.

--Sapphire B850m Nitro+ (ALC 897)

Stock windows driver : 39ms (low std dev)
Realtek driver : 35 ms (low std dev)
Apple USB type C DAC through ASM1543 chipset : 74ms

--Asus B850-E Rog Strix (ALC 4080)

Stock windows driver : 99ms (mid std dev)
realtek driver : 149ms (high std dev)
Apple USB type C DAC through ASM4241 chipset : 82ms
Apple USB type C DAC through direct CPU-Type C port : 61ms

I find it quite funny how Realtek drivers lower the latency on ALC897 but it gets higher on ALC4080? Also ASMedia chipset adds lots of latency on USB type C compared to a Type C that is wired to the CPU. After taking a quick glance at the link you shared : https://rentry.co/ALTResults I see that my results are not too far off other users

[nolag]

Tested this with my Latency Measuring Tool, saw no difference in inputlag.

Maybe it caused driver conflicts on your system and that's why you noticed an improvement when uninstalling it.