Compatibility

This Realtek UAD driver mod should install and function properly on all systems supporting Realtek Legacy HDA FF00 drivers that don't rely on any special audio enhancements. If used with devices relying on special audio enhancements functionality and feature set available may be limited.

Switching from other Realtek HD Audio drivers

Before installing my package, you have to completely remove other Realtek HD Audio drivers regardless of being in classic HDA or UAD format because Windows favors hardware-specific drivers with better hardware ID matching even if older than generic ones. Follow this procedure:

1. download and extract my generic package;
2. download and extract DriverStore Explorer;

3a. if there is an entry in Programs and Features / Apps & Features put in there by Realtek official setup, use it to uninstall, but don't restart yet when prompted, minimize it as you'll be back to it later;

3b. if there is no such entry, run setup from my generic package until it asks to install the generic driver, answer with no as it's too early for it;

4. on start search for Services and open it as admin;
5. locate Windows Audio making sure it matches exactly, then do stop command on it;
6. when it's over close Services, then open DriverStore Explorer - RAPR;
7. look for entries under Extensions, Software components and Sound, video and game controllers driver classes with the provider being Realtek or Realtek Semiconductor Corp. and carefully delete stuff related to Realtek Audio driver;

8a. if you used the official setup to uninstall, disconnect from the Internet, and let it reboot the system;

9. run setup from my generic package to the end;

10a. if you used the official setup you can now reconnect to the Internet.

If step 3a applies to you, you'll have to perform 8a and 10a. Otherwise, they don't apply to you. Step 8a and step 9 take care of restarting the Windows Audio service for you, so don't worry about it.

Note about system instability e.g. BSOD/GSOD

Just boot into safe mode minimal or with networking, safe with Command prompt is too restrictive. Setup will run and correct the problem.

Project motivation

I have an old system that is not supported by OEM-specific Realtek UAD drivers and I found HDA drivers to be very large, bloated, and causing an unpleasant issue when equalizer was installed that was a pain to live with. Realtek UAD generic drivers were not affected so I permanently switched to them. But Realtek doesn't provide complete and official UAD generic drivers very often so I decided to custom craft it from parts since I discovered it is possible to do so without breaking the WHQL signature.

Repository contents

• source code of installer and updater used by this package;
• new release every time new Realtek binaries are found.

How this package is built

• Download and extract previously created package (latest release);
• Search on Microsoft Update Catalog for latest codec component containing HDXRT.inf, HDXRTSST.inf, hdxrtu.cat, RTKVHD64.sysand RTAIODAT.DAT;
• Extract these files from cabinet archive replacing their old copies from Realtek-UAD-generic\Win64 if RTKVHD64.sys file version is higher;
• Search on forums like MDL, Station-Drivers, Tenforums, laptopvideo2go, etc. for OEM specific Realtek UAD packages containing RTKVHD64.sys with file version higher than that of Realtek-UAD-generic\Win64\Realtek\UpdatedCodec\RTKVHD64.sys;
• Replace RTKVHD64.sysand RTAIODAT.DAT from Realtek-UAD-generic\Win64\Realtek\UpdatedCodec with their copies from OEM specific Realtek UAD package;
• Do the same for RealtekAPO_*, RealtekHSA_*, RealtekService_* from Realtek-UAD-generic\Win64\Realtek. [1]

Note [1]: * means any number or characters or both or absolutely nothing.

Official installer

The MSI RTK package that this mod is most of the time based on contains the official Realtek UAD installer. Unfortunately, due to force updater being required with most releases, the official Realtek UAD installer can't be included due to it and force updater being mutually incompatible.