Sound playing out of speakers and headphones

#Sound playing out of speakers and headphones driver#

But some apps let you choose a specific output device, particularly games, and you can use that to play different sounds simultaneously through different apps. Most apps just play to the вЂњDefault AppвЂќ, which you configure in the Sound control panel or with a program like SoundSwitch.

Each sound device is an independentВ output channel for apps to play to. While IвЂ™m here, a little theory on how this all works in Windows. I did have to unplug and re-plug the devices for Windows to detect them, but now my speakers and headphones show up as separate sound devices. Turns out Windows 10 itself can manage the audio hardware with no problems. Goodbye 500 MB of stupid reverb effects IвЂ™ll never use. But my version didnвЂ™t have those settings, no вЂњPlayback DeviceвЂќ section at all.ДЇollowing some cargo cult advice I solved this problem by just uninstalling Realtek entirely.

#Sound playing out of speakers and headphones driver#

In theory the Realtek driver has option settingsВ to reconfigure this behavior, to let you use the rear and front jacks as separate devices. In fact both analog outputs show up as a single вЂњSpeakerвЂќ device in Windows, thereвЂ™s no way to use them independently. Unfortunately it also seems to have a behavior where when I plug in headphones it automatically silences the speakers. This does a nice job of popping up a dialog when the user plugs in new speakers and asking them to configure it. ItвЂ™s a pretty standard Windows desktop setup, the motherboard does HD Audio which has 5 analog jacks which can be programmed to do different things like speakers, headphones, line-in.ДЄlso pretty standard, my computer had the RealTek HD Audio Manager installed, an ASUS skinned one. I have both headphones and speakers plugged into my motherboardвЂ™s analog output jacks.