Nahimic is garbage, need new audio solution.

[TetraSky]

Alright, I thought on-board audio was "good enough" these days, apparently it is not. I've had nothing but audio issues with this garbage that is Nahimic on my MSI B450M Gaming Plus motherboard.

 

Sound keeps getting muffled randomly while I'm listening to videos, when it really shouldn't. Hard to explain... but for example, there's music playing in the background of a video (say LTTs) and while I can hear the voices "fine", it's like the music drops a few dB every couple seconds until it's inaudible before coming back up... muffling the voices a bit at the same time but not enough to cut the audio off.

I thought perhaps it was the Volume Stabilizer... But nah, it isn't. Disabled it, still crap. In fact, I've tried disabling all audio enhancement, still crap.

Then if I dare open a game while I'm listening to a youtube/twitch video, it decides that every audio sources should follow the "gaming" profile"... coloring the audio so that Linus grows an extra pair and gets more bass in his voice. It's ridiculous... Even more so considering IT STAYS THAT WAY EVEN IF I CLOSE THE DAMN GAME.

This issue only gets fixed, If I launch Windows's Troubleshooting thing on audio, it finds Enhancement issues... Which requires me to restart the PC to fix.  But promptly comes back if I redo the same steps of watching a video and launching a game.

 

I've tried deleting Nahimic completely and just use whatever sound driver Windows 10 finds. That fixes everything... Except now, audio is too damn quiet and I basically need to use extensions for my browser like "Volume Master", to raise volume to 300%. Because at 100% system volume I can barely hear anything. (While with Nahimic, my system volume is closer to 40% due to the extra dB I gain on vocals and what not)

 

I'm experiencing this issue with speakers and more noticeable, with Headphones. (Audio-Technica ATH-M40X)

 

IS there anything, anything at all, that I can get that's external (due to not having the spare pci-e slots for internal one), that preferably boost my volume and is all around better than this onboard dumpster fire? And doesn't cost too much, especially in these times, hard to find a job... Like I'd prefer if it was up to $100. The cheaper the better for me... but not too cheap that it's literally worse. I've thought about getting an external AMP. But wouldn't that literally just take my shitty audio and boost it? I don't want that.

 

 

TL;DR

Nahimic onboard audio is trash. I need something better under $100 to boost my volume that's pinned at 100%. EXTERNAL only.

[Enderman]

Get a USB audio interface.

[Letgomyleghoe]

6 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

coloring the audio so that Linus grows an extra pair and gets more bass in his voice. It's ridiculous...

[Senzelian]

What Enderman said!
There are tons of these things around that will probably get the job done and cost next to nothing.

[homeap5]

1. Audio Interface is name for completely different device. It's device that is used for recording from many sources to separate tracks.

2. Amplifier - it's something you should consider anyway. And good speakers for it. Using just soundcard as amplifier (+ some crappy active speakers) never gives you good sound.

3. Sound Card - external may have better sound, built-in amplifier for headphones and much lower noise level. But of course not that 5$ crap. AudioTrak Prodigy Cube is good (for example).

4. onboard sound chip - install just Realtek driver for sound, you're not the only one who complain about Nahimic.

[TetraSky]

16 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

What Enderman said!
There are tons of these things around that will probably get the job done and cost next to nothing.
 

How do these things work anyway? Does it use the onboard audio to send a signal through USB or is the computer sending the audio info to that dongle and it somehow decodes it like a soundcard would?
 

What about things like these:
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B005EHILV4/

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00LP3AMC2/

 

Is there anything you'd recommend in particular or just grab whatever?

 

4 minutes ago, homeap5 said:

3. Sound Card - external may have better sound, built-in amplifier for headphones and much lower noise level. But of course not that 5$ crap. AudioTrak Prodigy Cube is good (for example).

So an external sound card is ok? Is it different from a "DAC" ? Do they do the same job? The Cube is not available on Amazon.ca unfortunately...

9 minutes ago, homeap5 said:

4. onboard sound chip - install just Realtek driver for sound, you're not the only one who complain about Nahimic.

Will try this. Good to know I'm not the only one with complaints about Nahimic... Why is that crap even being offered.

[Senzelian]

19 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

How do these things work anyway? Does it use the onboard audio to send a signal through USB or is the computer sending the audio info to that dongle and it somehow decodes it like a soundcard would?
 

What about things like these:
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B005EHILV4/

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00LP3AMC2/

 

Is there anything you'd recommend in particular or just grab whatever?

 

So an external sound card is ok? Is it different from a "DAC" ? Do they do the same job? The Cube is not available on Amazon.ca unfortunately...

Will try this. Good to know I'm not the only one with complaints about Nahimic... Why is that crap even being offered.

They are simply external sound cards or external DACs.
The things you linked are also external DACs, but just more fancy. There isn't really any need to go after the more expensive ones, unless you're out for good sound. But I suggest to try a cheap solution first instead of going out and buying something expensive. Often it's not worth the money.

 

Sounds cards are called sound cards because they look like a card and deliver sound.  
In reality they're internal DACs and Ampplifiers.

 

The audio solution on your motherboard is basically a soundcard, too, but integrated onto your board as they became smaller and smaller.
 

[Derkoli]

48 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

So an external sound card is ok? Is it different from a "DAC" ? Do they do the same job? The Cube is not available on Amazon.ca unfortunately...

Well, Sound Card's are DAC's, but with an ADC (Opposite of a DAC, does Analogue -> Digital) for a microphone input usually.

 

But a Soundcard will usually come with it's own set of drivers and software, Creative Labs has a whole bunch of software bundled with their soundcards, some of it is actually very useful.

 

Most "pure" DAC's (Such as my Chord DAVE) don't even use drivers, except for ASIO, and do not include any software. They just take an input, then spit out analogue, with some processing in-between.

 

I would suggest getting a cheap external DAC/AMP combo, such as the Schiit Fulla.

 

https://www.schiit.com/products/fulla-1

 

Just connects with one USB-A to Micro-B cable, then you can plug a microphone and headphones into it, it does the rest. (Also has a line output on the back for connecting speakers)

[TetraSky]

7 minutes ago, Derkoli said:

I would suggest getting a cheap external DAC/AMP combo, such as the Schiit Fulla.

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07ZGJX9Y5/   - C $318.08 + 68.00 Shipping

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/124138107767   - C $275.04 + xx.xx Shipping

 

I seriously almost got a heart attack. 

For some reason, even though it's 120$ USD on Amazon.com (doesn't ship to Canada), it becomes ridiculously expensive when it comes to Canada... Sooooo yeah forget that one.

For now I'm thinking about either that E10K at 100$ or some cheaper DAC + AMP.

Anything on here that's good?  Or on here?

[Derkoli]

18 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07ZGJX9Y5/   - C $318.08 + 68.00 Shipping

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/124138107767   - C $275.04 + xx.xx Shipping

 

I seriously almost got a heart attack. 

For some reason, even though it's 120$ USD on Amazon.com (doesn't ship to Canada), it becomes ridiculously expensive when it comes to Canada... Sooooo yeah forget that one.

For now I'm thinking about either that E10K at 100$ or some cheaper DAC + AMP.

Anything on here that's good?  Or on here?

The E10K is great for the price according to some other members of this forum. So if you can go for it, I would.

[The Flying Sloth]

4 hours ago, TetraSky said:

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07ZGJX9Y5/   - C $318.08 + 68.00 Shipping

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/124138107767   - C $275.04 + xx.xx Shipping

 

I seriously almost got a heart attack. 

For some reason, even though it's 120$ USD on Amazon.com (doesn't ship to Canada), it becomes ridiculously expensive when it comes to Canada... Sooooo yeah forget that one.

For now I'm thinking about either that E10K at 100$ or some cheaper DAC + AMP.

Anything on here that's good?  Or on here?

Honestly, just get a cheap USB audio interface, you can grab some small USB dongles for under 20 bucks and a cheap XLR interface for about 35.
Behringer um2 is a good example of this though there are many others, these use external drivers so it relies not at all on inbuilt audio and drivers.

Sloth

[TetraSky]

28 minutes ago, The Flying Sloth said:

Behringer um2 is a good example of this though there are many others,

God damn.... If only we weren't in a pandemic with everyone trying to fuck everyone else...

According to Keepa, the price of the Um2 on Amazon went from 58$ to 78$ in mid february... Then it went up once more to 95$ on the 20th of march... now it's literally 217$....

I'll keep that one in mind for when prices stabilize I guess... Fuck me...

[The Flying Sloth]

6 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

God damn.... If only we weren't in a pandemic with everyone trying to fuck everyone else...

According to Keepa, the price of the Um2 on Amazon went from 58$ to 78$ in mid february... Then it went up once more to 95$ on the 20th of march... now it's literally 217$....

I'll keep that one in mind for when prices stabilize I guess... Fuck me...

Like I said there are many other options, places like Sweetwater and Thomann will ship to you,
There are heaps of secondhand options or Reverb and Ebay.

I can't vouch for these all but they seem to be decent enough at a similar price new :
Miditech Audiolink light
Behringer U-Phoria UMC22
Behringer Xenyx 302USB
Swissonic UA-2x2

Sloth

[homeap5]

Seriously, try that Realtek drivers. They're available on MSI support page for your motherboard.

 

Cheap cards may be ok too, but they will not be better than your integrated chip.

 

And about prodigy cube - why it must be available on Amazon?

[TetraSky]

6 hours ago, homeap5 said:

And about prodigy cube - why it must be available on Amazon?

For various reasons, but mainly the following

1- It's still open and ships in Canada.

2- I can see the price history using Keepa, so I know I'm not getting completely ripped off by people who abuse this pandemic. (Considering prices pretty much went up right at the "start" of this pandemic (or when the US started to take things seriously), it sends the message that many sellers are scums and are not just raising prices due to "low supply" and "high demand")

3- Their return policy if anything goes wrong. Other online stores will rarely pay for shipping back defective items to them and shipping is ridiculously expensive in Canada for the smallest thing. When shipping cost about as much as the item itself, it makes no sense to even bother returning the item, take your loses at that point... 

 

 

I'm trying the realtek drivers right now. With my headphones plugged in the front panel, somehow audio is fine and they are recognized as headphones with system volume at 20%. This is genuinely better than Nahimic.

When plugged in the back, as "speakers", sound seems colored again when compared to front and system volume is at nearly 100%, voices have extra bass in them... I don't get it, there shouldn't be any "enhancement" .

 

I'll tough it out with front panel since it's better for now, until prices go back down in hopefully within two months or so... With Nahamic, audio issues often happened after a few hours/days so I'll see if anything goes wrong with the Realtek driver, too. Thanks for helping.

[homeap5]

You can disable any enhancements in control panel or in Realtek panel. Because front and back can work separately (if you're using Realtek panel), they may have different settings.

[an actual squirrel]

I'm not sure nahimic has anything to do with this, as the driver is created by MSI.

 

Anyway, strictly speaking, it sounds like you just need a headphone amplifier. It seems like not installing the driver disables the onboard headphone amplifier, leading to the low volume. The reason you have poor audio quality is that you are now clipping the waveform when you boost the audio digitally. But idk, maybe you should get a usb dac+headphone amp solution just so you can disable the onboard audio and never have to worry about it again. The topping e30 looks pretty interesting on that front.

[Mortima]

I'm using a creative USB sound-card since 2 weeks. Today I realized that one core is at 100% on windows 10 when I start google chrome. The reason was the nahamic process. First I informed myself what the nahamic process is at all and reinstalled the realtek driver and nahamic 3 without any success. After following all tips and tricks from the internet i had the idea, to pull the external sound card and surprise, the installation was successful and the nahamic CPU load was close to 0%. I used again my external sound card, again it blocked a full CPU core. I deactivated the nahamic driver and after reboot everything was fine.

The last weeks i wondered why sometimes the tone was stuttering after a task change and why more often the CPU fan started: Now I know the reason. So if you decide to use alternatively an external sound-card, you should have a look on the CPU load.

[abacup]

I solved it for free without sound targettas or anything just installed a modified dolby atmos uwp driver and solved the sound I improve incredibly nahimic is a waste if exactly the same thing happened to you that in every update I go back and try nahimic but I think it will get worse I leave you a link with the tutorial for the installation and the files they use  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UFvyfL9fhML2gM4njZJM5FTITJ6oY9-e/view?usp=sharing

 

 

Edited June 4, 2020 by abacup

[AlexHunter27]

Just came into this thread and  don't know if u till have the issue with audio or not. But I don't think ur audio issue happens due to nahimic , try to update the audio driver on MSI support site. Personally, i used nahimic since 2019 and dont have any trouble with the audio and it also helps me to boost my audio performance when gaming. And because it's a system app so removing it will cause some issue with your audio like u mentioned on your thread "audio is too damn quiet"

[Runi]

The only problem I've had with Nahimic is that I find I have to recalibrate the delay of my rear speaker in Easy Surround.
I've the Logitech Z625 2.1 on the front and an Echo Dot 4th Gen paired as my rear 'speakers' via Bluetooth.

Even games as old as Diablo III, I find I have to start up and run for a couple of minutes then alt-tab to recalibrate and then it's fine for the rest of my session. But I've had it work as low as 90ms and as high as 500ms ... even now, I recalibrated about 10 minutes ago at 243ms, and just now at 190ms!

Wish this could be better, as I find I get a weird kind of nausea as I hear the read surround start to drift into a kind of chorus effect and then into actual echoes!

I have not had your kind of Db drift though ... not at the front, just a similar effect as the read desyncs.

Did you find an ultimate solution?

[HenrySalayne]

Ignore - I should have looked at the date...