#281 ARM on Windows 11 24H2 with USB DAC produces no sound

[Kim Gavlestam]

My ARM (Snapdragon X Elite) based Windows 11 24H2 laptop with USB DAC will not produce sound when the APO is installed.

In the Windows settings for the USB DAC the format settings for samplerate/bitdepth and sound test does not show up. No apps will produce sound. Once the APO is uninstalled for the USB DAC everything works again.

On my older x86_64 (AMD) based laptop where the APO works fine for the USB DAC I'm still stuck on Windows 11 23H2. I'm not sure if this issue is due to the Windows version or ARM emulation of x86_64.

The USB DAC does not have any external drivers installed. It runs on Microsoft's native USB Audio 2.0 driver.

[Peter Verbeek]

Is 24H2 already out of the preview beta phase? Anyway, it does happen that early Windows update make things worse concerning Equalizer APO. Most of the time one of the next 24H2 updates fixes the problem. However, you might try the available troubleshooting options for your USB DAC, starting with the settings available in the "Install as" dropdown box. Are you familiar how to access these troubleshooting options for a device in the Configurator?

[Kim Gavlestam]

The 24H2 came preinstalled on the laptop, sorry not sure if it out of the beta phase. I have not tried the alternative "Install as" options but have seen them. Will try them out and report back.

[Etienne Dechamps]

I don't have access to a Windows ARM device so I can't say for sure, but I strongly suspect Equalizer APO will not work as-is on Windows ARM. APOs have to match the CPU architecture of the OS, because they are loaded as DLLs into the Windows Audio Engine audiodg.exe process. On Windows ARM I would naturally expect that process to be an ARM process. Thus, the APO DLL has to be ARM too.

Unfortunately, the current version of Equalizer APO does not include an ARM APO DLL (AFAIK) - it only includes an x86/x64 DLL. So unless you're willing to build the Equalizer APO source code yourself for ARM (which may not be trivial), I'm afraid you're out of luck until the developer releases an ARM version.

[Kim Gavlestam]

The SFX/MFX option brought back the format settings (samplerate/bitdepth and test sound) but still produces no sound.

Thanks for the input, let's hope for an ARM release by the developer.

[XHY]

in the same boat, except I'm not using USB DAC and instead is using the build in sound card (Qualcomm Aqstic). Equalizer APO runs fine but has no effect on the audio, even after I followed everything in the troubleshooting guide.

[Kim Gavlestam]

Thanks for the confirmation. Looks like an ARM issue then. A release for the ARM architecture will be most welcome since it's likely to become more popular in the future.