Windows 10/11 sample rate limitation for motherboard audio

[scottd]

Hello, as a retirement hobby, I wrote a free and open source spectrum viewer application. I use Windows 7 for development, but finally bought a Windows 11 notebook that I can test on. With Windows 7, I can hold a digital watch to the microphone and see the 32,767 Hz peak from the quartz crystal oscillator of the watch. That makes a pretty good demo and I was thinking of including the demo in a youtube video, if I end up making one.

My Windows 7 desktop and notebook both support the needed 96000 Hz sample rate. The desktop even supports 192000. I find ordinary cheap microphones can pick up a signal up to about 80 KHz. My headphones can play in this range too. There are all kinds of interesting experiments and uses for these high sample rates, even those humans can't hear in this range.

My new HP Elitebook 845 G9 arrived yesterday, and I was really surprised to see its Windows 11 OS can't even match the sampling rates of my ancient Windows 7 machines. Apparently Windows 10/11 artificially limit the sampling rate of ordinary motherboard audio. So now I am trying to force Windows 11 to use older drivers as a workaround to this apparent Microsoft bug/feature. All my machines have Realtek audio, and they have supported 192000 Hz sampling rate for ages. Does anyone know what is going on with this?

 

[wwenze]

More commonly it is the built-in brickwall filter of the ADC

 

[twsecrest]

You might check the playback tab and sound properties "sample rates", the default setting from the factory might be the limiting factor.

 

[Katji]

Welcome here!

 

[chris719]

It isn’t the OS. Windows 10 and 11 support high sample rates just fine.

 

[scottd]

Thanks everyone. The problem is that my Windows 11 notebook sampling rate for the motherboard audio is limited to 48000 Hz:
Here is what I get with a Windows 7 desktop for motherboard audio:


For Windows 11, the motherboard audio sample rate choices are more limited:


Picking up the 32768 tone isn't possible in the Windows 11 notebook because the sample rate never goes above 48 KHz.

My app uses libsndfile for audio, same as audacity. My app adds support for wasapi exclusive polled and wasapi exclusive event. The modes MME, Direct Sound, and WDK-KS all show higher sampling rates. But those are all upsampled from the 48000 Hz sampling rate I am stuck with.

Has anyone seen a Windows 10/11 machine with a higher native sampling rate for the motherboard audio? The Realtek vendor/device ID is 10EC, 0245. This Realtek device ID isn't listed in the PCI ID repository yet, so it's new.

 

[bennetng]

Has anyone seen a Windows 10/11 machine with a higher native sampling rate for the motherboard audio? The Realtek vendor/device ID is 10EC, 0245. This Realtek device ID isn't listed in the PCI ID repository yet, so it's new.

No problem with my Realtek ALC897 in Windows 10, with measurements showing frequency response flat to 80kHz at -1dB when using 192kHz sample rate.

Does MOTU M2 cut frequencies at 20kHz when used as a DAC?

I decided to buy a pair of Genelecs 8030C (a great tip received in this forum) and now I am looking for a suitable DAC to connect them to a laptop. As I am listening to flac files, I need the DAC to fairly reproduce all frequencies in the range 20Hz-26kHz. MOTU M2 was recommended to me by a...

www.audiosciencereview.com

[EDIT]I see. You get higher sample rates on a Windows 7 desktop but not on a Windows 11 notebook. Could it be the notebook codec itself only supports up to 48k?

 

[MC_RME]

Or the RT drivers need to be updated...

 

[AnalogSteph]

The Realtek vendor/device ID is 10EC, 0245. This Realtek device ID isn't listed in the PCI ID repository yet, so it's new.

Looks like an ALC245, supported by Realtek drivers since early 2020. Honestly I've never seen an HDA codec that wasn't capable of at least 192 kHz playback and 96 kHz recording, and generally a generic HDA driver will expose the entire range.

I'd suggest checking Device Manager to see what kind of driver is currently installed, as well as installed software to see whether Maxxaudio is installed (if there is anything I could imagine limiting your sample rates, it's this DSP nonsense).

 

[julitoole]

Hey I stumbled about this, the next best thing would be to buy a usb mic in this case you leave the motherboard audio usually by itself and just install the driver from the usb mic but be sure to get one that has a seperat driver or you could end up with the same lmitation.

 

[Xii-Nyth]

new rt drivers are duds, have to use a custom audio driver. since its a notebook itll probably give you hell reverting back to the old one