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HDMI audio works for some games and not others

KMook
Beginner
5,465 Views

Hello,

I am having the same issue as thread ( )... Unfortunately the link provided to follow (towards the end by Alberto) is referencing one specific game and thus does not help the community with the underlying issue affecting other games.

For example I have a game that will recognize and use the Realtek sound card when there are headphones plugged into my NUC7i5BNH, but does not recognize any sound card when just using the Intel Display Audio with hdmi. This is using the latest 15.65.4.4944 (23.20.16.4944) display driver. However if I uninstall it, reboot, and install 15.45.19.4678 (which has the Display Audio driver 10.22.1.100) the game recognizes the Display Audio and works as it should.

This issue was introduced at least 5 months ago and needs to be fixed. At this point I can no longer update my display and audio drivers ever again, which isn't acceptable. Please provide us (your loyal customers) an update and ETA on resolution so our expectations can be properly set.

If you need more logs please let me know what to provide.

Thank you

Ken

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19 Replies
RonaldM_Intel
Moderator
2,839 Views

Hello Lentash,

I believe this is the same issue that was reported here: /thread/116636 No HDMI Audio in Fallout 4 even though the games are different. We closed this since it was determined that this issue is actually coming from the games code. You see, when the application launches, the driver does a 'modeset' with a max delay of 8 seconds (max time defined by the HDMI specification) during which the audio gets disabled. It is at this point that the application checks for audio presence (shows disabled), hence audio drop occurs. The application(s) that run into this problem need to be updated so they detect the audio for more than 8 seconds upon launch. The reason why this issue doesn't occur on previous drivers is because due to a code bug, they were taking longer than 8 seconds for 'modeset'. However this was actually undesired behavior since it affects plenty of other scenarios.

Intel has been reaching out to most developers so they can look into this and fix their code, but if you have a list of affected applications or games please let us know so we can attempt reaching out to the respective devs as well.

By the way, a temporary workaround I have observed is making sure that the game resolution matches the one set in Windows* (e.g. in the game settings set 1920x1080 if that is the one you have in Windows*).

Best Regards,

Ronald M.

KMook
Beginner
2,838 Views

Hi Ronald,

Thanks for the reply. Can you enlighten me on the 8 seconds you are referring to? Are you saying that a game has 8 seconds to properly detect the audio driver/device, and if it doesn't in 8 seconds then the audio is disabled? If so then that isn't the issue as the game immediately says there is no audio device installed when using the newer drivers...

Thanks

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RonaldM_Intel
Moderator
2,838 Views

I believe the mode set starts from the moment the code is loaded into the OS processes table, but I'll double check with our devs first.

The issue does seem the same as driver 15.45.4678 is the one not showing this behavior while any newer does. Also worth considering is that this only occurs with some games and apps, while others work just fine (circling back to the actual app/game code). Do you have a list of apps/games showing this behavior?

In the meantime, can you make a small video where we can see the issue (perhaps using a smartphone's camera) just to be sure we are looking at the same?

Best Regards,

Ronald M.

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KMook
Beginner
2,838 Views

Thanks. The current game I am having the issue with is an older game (total annihilation) so there won't be any chance on having the game changed/updated.

However to note I can run the game (on a desktop PC) using an Nvidia video card with their latest drivers and via HDMI it has no issue detecting the audio device/drivers.

I can make a video sure, how would you like me to get it to you?

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KMook
Beginner
2,839 Views

Hi Just checking in.

Thanks,

Ken

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RonaldM_Intel
Moderator
2,839 Views

Hi Ken,

Sorry I completely missed the email notification from your last reply!. I guess you could upload the video to any sharing site (e.g. Youtube, Dropbox).

The fact that the same game runs on different hardware is most likely because they have a higher time defined for modeset. The max time defined by the HDMI specification is 8 seconds, but going higher than that has shown undesired behaviors in other scenarios for us.

I understand that getting an official patch for an older game is practically impossible, thus I'll advocate to see if we can work around this situation, though confidence level is low at the moment.

If I have any update or news on this situation I'll post them here.

Best Regards.

Ronald M.

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KMook
Beginner
2,839 Views

Hi Ronald,

I took two short vids using a screen capture utility (fyi the game is actually full screen but the capture shows it as smaller).

https://1drv.ms/f/s!AK5y7FA-UQv7fg Microsoft OneDrive - Access files anywhere. Create docs with free Office Online.

Thanks

Ken

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KMook
Beginner
2,839 Views

@ Ronald_Intel

Please let me know if you got the videos ok, or if you need anything else.

Thanks!

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RonaldM_Intel
Moderator
2,839 Views

Hi Ken,

I got the videos, thank you for taking the time to make and upload them.

It definitely appears that we are facing the same situation that was debugged by our engineers already. I'll present this again to our dev team, and check if we can implement any kind of work around, but as I said previously confidence level is low at the moment.

I'll update this thread if I have any news or update.

Best Regards,

Ronald M.

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KMook
Beginner
2,839 Views

Ronald_Intel Thank you, I appreciate the help and support.

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HZull
Novice
2,839 Views

Hey Ronald,

as described here in - I have some games that are affected by this. How do I properly contact Telltale games about the Lego Star Wars games mentioned there? Those seem to be old titles and I doubt they are working on those. Do you have a bit more clout to get their developers to fix this? Thanks!

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MAkta1
Beginner
2,839 Views

Hi Ronald,

I'm facing the same issues mentioned by the original poster with a few older games that I'm playing currently. I'll open a new post about it later but I just wanted to leave my feedback here as well.

I use an MSI GS60-6QE laptop with an external monitor connected via DisplayPort.

OS : Win10 Home, Ver.1803 / Build:17134.286

iGPU : Intel HD Graphics 530, Driver: 24.20.100.6286

dGPU : nVidia GTX 960M Driver: 411.70

 

Games that have this issue just do not output game sounds through DisplayPort to external Monitor (whose sound is controlled by Intel Display Audio) despite the fact that it is the default playback device. They immediately switch to whichever playback device available in the list except the external monitor.

Incidentally, I can verify your observation that matching game and desktop resolutions solves the problem. However, in addition to resolution, refresh rates have to be exactly the same too, as I try to demonstrate below for individual games.

There are currently three games I'm playing that are affected by this problem.

Rayman Origins (2012) : If I disable all other playback devices except external monitor I can get game sounds from monitor, otherwise game switches to other playback devices.

Mark of the Ninja (2012) : Matching game resolution to desktop resolution doesn't solve the problem. Game uses 60Hz as refresh rate. I had to modify .ini file to force the game run at 144Hz to match the monitor.

Prince of Persia (2008) : This game either runs at my desktop resolution and with 24Hz which is unplayable or has tobe run at a custom resolution to be able to play at 144Hz. In either case since desktop resolution AND refresh rate don't match to in-game settings game sounds don't come out of external monitor. Even if I disable all playback devices except external monitor there is still no sound coming through DisplayPort/monitor.

 

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itsme
New Contributor I
2,839 Views

I see same issues with Display Audio (over DP). If a modeset is involved (other 'lower' fullscreen resolution than desktop) then audio in not available.

some games can restart the sound subsystem, but most of them do not have this feature.

I see this issue also with games using openal-soft dll https://github.com/kcat/openal-soft https://github.com/kcat/openal-soft .

Why disable audio at all when a modeset occurs? I can undestand that this might be needed if user switches to another display, but just changing resolution on the same device does not change its audio capabilities.

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Wvand1
Beginner
2,838 Views

Does anyone has a solution/workaround for this problem. I have a NUC8i5BEK with the latest drivers and BIOS. And I have the same problem. My HDMI audio output is selected as default. But with most old games I don't get any sound trough HDMI in fullscreen mode. If I plug in my headset all games work with sound, sound is coming trough my headset. Also all of the games have sound in windowed mode trough HDMI.

 

A few examples:

Quake: No HDMI sound (works with headset)

Blade Runner: Error message "No direct audio driver found". If I plug in headset I won't get the error message and the sound is working trough HDMI.

Star Wars Episode 1 Racer: No sound (works with headset).

Sid Meier's Pirates! Gold Plus: No sound (works with headset).

 

And there are many many more. Most games come from GOG or steam.

 

I can see if I switch with ALT-TAB that the HDMI output is removed (it doesn't show anymore at the SOUNDS playback section).

 

The oldest graphic drivers are from 11 july 2018 (24.20.100.6194) so I can't test if older drivers also have this problem.

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itsme
New Contributor I
2,839 Views

Quake: do you use a modern source port engine or the old outdated versions bundled by GOG?

Try

quakespasm it's a very capable engine, fixed many bugs in the original releases and as a plus it tries to stay close to the original's look and feel as close as possible. It is also capable to recover audio if you really want to play with at a lower fullscreen resolution than your desktop. My old NUC 6i5syh system is more than capable to let me play Quake with 2560x1440 resolution. 

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HZull
Novice
2,839 Views

The Intel graphics driver developers have an unpractical reading of the HDMI spec.

 

According to the spec, the HDMI audio device should be "disabled" during a resolution mode switch for a few seconds. If the game that wants to use the HDMI audio device tries to initialize sound during this brief period and cannot find it enabled, the game fails to start or falls back to analog output.

 

The Intel developers' opinion is that this is a problem with the game, not with the driver.

 

A workaround is to avoid the resolution change by using the same screen resolution for the Windows desktop and the game(s). (But as an example, this workaround doesn't help with Lego Star Wars The Force Awakens, which always does a resolution switch to show an intro cutscene.)

 

A pragmatic fix would be simply mute the HDMI audio device on the computer instead of disabling/removing it - that should also adhere to the HDMI spec but fix this issue - and I have suggested that on this forum here.

 

I had been told on this forum that the developer team will look into doing that, but haven't heard back since then and was told wait for release notes announcing this fix. So far, nothing. @Ronald_Intel​ - are there any news on this? I would love love love to have this fixed, as my son and I love the Lego Star Wars games and really want to play it on the home cinema setup in glorious sound.

Wvand1
Beginner
2,839 Views

Thanks for answering this. You explanation makes it very clear what the problem is. Explains why the games works normal in windowed-mode because it does not need to change the resolution. To bad many older games still switch resolution with cutscenes. And many games there is no way to change the resolution. I hope this will be fixed soon. But looking at older posts its will take some time.

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itsme
New Contributor I
2,839 Views

there might be hope that this will be fixed in a new upcoming gfx driver version. This issue is mentioned as a known issue in the newest driver's release notes.

Driver version 26.20.100.7158

 

 

  • Some games may not have audio when using Intel Display Audio in full screen mode when the resolution is different than what is set in Windows or Intel Graphics Command Center. 

 

 

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AZhel1
Beginner
2,839 Views

Disgusting work of specialists. The theme already exists for a year, and no one has yet solved the problem. If you do not know how to create graphics, let Nvidea and Amd do this.

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