[Bubba]

I use onboard sound (nVidia 790i Ultra MoBo, Vista64 OS) and have a couple of driver questions.

1.) It seems like realtek comes out with a new driver almost every week. Why? What changes from week to week? I've been told to update my audio drivers whenever they come out, but if I forget for a couple of weeks, I rarely have any problems. I try to remember to check for Audio, Video, and MoBo drivers every Wednesday. Only Realtek changes so often.

2.) Realtek is kind of idiot proof. It will only let you download the drivers for your particular product and OS. For instance, on their page, I can't download drivers for XP or for the ALC version. Lately however there has been a Beta set of drivers I can download. They say:
3D SoundBack Beta 0.1
Realtek 3D SoundBack restores audio effects, including surround sound, reverberation, and spatial effects, for legacy game titles when running on Windows Vista.)

What would happen if I downloaded those and installed them? Anyone familiar with them?

Thanks in advance.

[computeruler]

beta programs are things that are still test ie they may still have some bugs i really dont think that you need to update to these beta drivers or update them ever wednesday for that matter

[thingie2]

Yea, beta drivers aren't usually recommended unless you are having problems with the latest drivers available. As your not, don't bother downloading them,from what you say they will be around in a week or so anyway. As for why they do it, I don't know, either they code the drivers in such a way that each release fixes a small part that in addition to a load of other updates fixes the whole thing.

[Bubba]

nevermind, just damn.................

[link590o]

If I were you, I'd bail on the whole Realtek audio thing. I mean, sure the sound quality for output is great. But as soon as you try using a microphone, then you start getting all sorts of problems. Their drivers weren't the most stable I've ever used either. I just bought a cheap 30 dollar Creative sound card. Stability, quality, functionality, simplicity.

[Bubba]

Creative doesn't work with Vista 64. Creative disabled all the features for Vista64 and refuse to write drivers.

[4D(Fordy(Ford) Ollie]

Why not just set Windows Update to check for you..

Then you don't have to bother with checking manually, and it will automatically download and install them if you want it to.

Trouble free, you don't even know its doing it, if you wanted to be conservative you could set it to only run every Wednesday like you currently do manually, but I really don't see the point.. mine runs every day on startup, (although I have mine alert me when downloads are available so I can review them just to check before it installs them)

[Bubba]

Windows update tries to install drivers that are 30 years old for me is why. More specifically Windows update tries to install the 2006 windows audio drivers instead of the realtek drivers anytime I slip up and give it a chance.

[4D(Fordy(Ford) Ollie]

Hmm ok, works for me.