After installing Equlizer APO DTC Neo:PC option is gone in Realtek HD Audio Manager
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Hello,
First thanks for an amazing piece of software!
I recently bought a motherboard with onboard audio which supported DTS Neo:PC, whichs is a function to apply DTS Neo processing, which mixes the stereo audio to 5.1, great when watching non 5.1 content.
However, after I installed Equlizer APO, this option is no longer visible in Realtek HD Audio Manager. Previousely I also could do "room correction" there; i.e. setting distances to each speaker to account for sound propagation. This option is also gone.
It feels like installing Equilzer APO changed the sound card driver. How can I change it back? Will Equilzer APO still work if I do?
Best Regards
After re-installing the sound card driver, the Neo options and room corrections come back, but then Equalizer APO does not work. If I reenable APO again, the Neo options are gone again aswell. How can I use APO and still use the functionality of the Realtek drivers?
Probably, the Realtek software checks which APO is set for the sound device and then disables functionality because it does not see its own APO. This is strange, as APOs are normally part of the driver and are therefore not expected to be changed.
Equalizer APO has to replace the original APO so that it can actually work. However, it saves the GUID of the original APO and calls the original APO before doing its own work, so the functionality of the original APO should be preserved.
Maybe, the Realtek software is only looking at one of the APOs set in the registry. There is the pre-mix (LFX) and the post-mix (GFX) APO. If you are willing to edit the registry manually, you could try this out by yourself:
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\EqualizerAPO\Child APOs\{Some GUID} and copy the value of the {d04e05a6-594b-4fb6-a80d-01af5eed7d1d},1 value for the LFX APO. Then go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\MMDevices\Audio\Render\{Same GUID as above}\FxProperties and set the value you copied as the value for {d04e05a6-594b-4fb6-a80d-01af5eed7d1d},1 . If you are using Windows 8.1, you need to reboot now. Then open the Realtek HD Audio Manager and see if the option appears. If it doesn't, you can try the same with the {d04e05a6-594b-4fb6-a80d-01af5eed7d1d},2 value and see if the option reappears.
Edit: If you are using Windows 8.1, you might need to use {d04e05a6-594b-4fb6-a80d-01af5eed7d1d},5 instead of {d04e05a6-594b-4fb6-a80d-01af5eed7d1d},1 and {d04e05a6-594b-4fb6-a80d-01af5eed7d1d},6 instead of {d04e05a6-594b-4fb6-a80d-01af5eed7d1d},2
Last edit: Jonas Dahlinger 2014-10-18
It works!
After changing {d04e05a6-594b-4fb6-a80d-01af5eed7d1d},2 the options for DTS: Neo PC and Room Correction came back in the Realtek HD Audio Manager. I had to manually run Configurator.exe in the EqualizerAPO installation folder and install APO again for "Speaker" and now I am rocking both DTS: Neo PC with room correction and full parametric EQ on all channels via APO! No need to ever buy a new Home Cinema Reciever! :D
Many many thanks!
Sigh, I celebrated too soon. This fix needs to be applied each time I reboot the computer. I.e after each boot I need to:
Why is this? How can I make it permanent?
Maybe the Realtek HD Audio Manager only reads the values when it is loaded at startup. So when you change the values later to make E-APO work, it is already loaded and still thinks that its APOs are set. When you reboot, Realtek HD Audio Manager finds the values from E-APO and refuses to show the DTS: Neo options. So you set its values again and reboot.
Maybe you can try to restart the Realtek HD Audio Manager (completely close it, so that the tray icon is gone, maybe by task manager). That way you may get it working without rebooting. In the end, you might be able to create a bat file that does the work on each reboot.
This is however not what I had in mind. My thought was that you replace only one of the two values ({d04e05a6-594b-4fb6-a80d-01af5eed7d1d},1 or {...},2) and see if DTS: Neo becomes active. I guess you have tried replacing only the {d04e05a6-594b-4fb6-a80d-01af5eed7d1d},1 value but you did not try to only replace {d04e05a6-594b-4fb6-a80d-01af5eed7d1d},2 yet. Please try that. If DTS: Neo works when you have
{d04e05a6-594b-4fb6-a80d-01af5eed7d1d},1 = {EACD2258-FCAC-4FF4-B36D-419E924A6D79} and {d04e05a6-594b-4fb6-a80d-01af5eed7d1d},2 = {A27368B3-D810-42ce-B114-83900258B8EC} then you can get both to work simultaneously by using the Stage command.