Dolby Atmos audio dropouts

[Stahlmann]

So i've been hard at work to resolve all the issues i had with HDMI 2.1, my 3080, and my C9 OLED. The one issue that remains is with Dolby Atmos.

I have a Atmos capable Samsung HQ-Q80R with additional rear sattelite speakers for proper surround. As soon as i enable "Dolby Atmos for Home Theater" in windows, i get Audio dropouts every 10-20 seconds. The drops only last about half a second or so, but this can get very annoying. It doesn't happen when playing back Atmos content throught the streaming apps on the TV directly. And even with several different officially certified HDMI 2.1 cables i keep having this issue. When i set my windows surround settings to 7.1, 5.1 or stereo i don't have these dropouts, but i obviously miss out on Atmos then. Enabling Atmos for my headphones doesn't introduce the issue. It's just for my speaker setup and only when the audio comes from my PC.

 

Has anybody else had this issue and did you somehow solve it?

[circeseye]

ive been noticing that the last week or two. its not just atmos enabled. and im on a amd...im wondering if windows screwed the pooch again

 

[Derkoli]

Just tried this on my setup.

 

Oddly enough, I have the same issue with a 2080Ti using HDMI 2.0b to my processor. No issues with Auro 3d however.

 

I think Windows has just stuffed something up.

[German_Angst]

Hey there,

 

I've been having this issue since day one (sometime in late 2020) and it hasn't been resolved yet. I use an RTX3090FE on an Intel 1200 platform, certified cables, an LG OLED E9 and a Denon AVR-X4700H. PC > TV (eARC, Passthrough) > AVR. Everything works perfectly except Dolby Atmos content from my computer. I've also tried a buttload of settings and potential workarounds. All in vain. I even went as far as fiddling with the HDMI audio drivers, tried reducing color bandwidth and resolution, changed registry values and installed alternative hdmi audio drivers before reinstalling Windows in the end.

 

This is a fatal design flaw and... who else would be better suited to investigate it than the Linus Tech Tips Taskforce?

[circeseye]

3 hours ago, German_Angst said:

Hey there,

 

I've been having this issue since day one (sometime in late 2020) and it hasn't been resolved yet. I use an RTX3090FE on an Intel 1200 platform, certified cables, an LG OLED E9 and a Denon AVR-X4700H. PC > TV (eARC, Passthrough) > AVR. Everything works perfectly except Dolby Atmos content from my computer. I've also tried a buttload of settings and potential workarounds. All in vain. I even went as far as fiddling with the HDMI audio drivers, tried reducing color bandwidth and resolution, changed registry values and installed alternative hdmi audio drivers before reinstalling Windows in the end.

 

This is a fatal design flaw and... who else would be better suited to investigate it than the Linus Tech Tips Taskforce?

ok do not use earc except for tv apps. i have a lg nano90 and a denon x3700h. comp to lg to x3700h will not play atmos unless its a app (netflix, amazon) anything else nope even 5.1 has issues at times, its a lg earc issue
comp to receiver to tv, atmos works fine just have to deal with denons pos 2.1 chip

[German_Angst]

6 hours ago, circeseye said:

ok do not use earc except for tv apps. i have a lg nano90 and a denon x3700h. comp to lg to x3700h will not play atmos unless its a app (netflix, amazon) anything else nope even 5.1 has issues at times, its a lg earc issue
comp to receiver to tv, atmos works fine just have to deal with denons pos 2.1 chip

Thanks for your reply,

 

I've naturally messed with the audio settings on my LG too - including the non-eARC option. Issue remains and everything is exactly the same (which is odd, because it uses or should use a lot less bandwidth).

Dolby Atmos is displayed on my receiver's display in both scenarios while using apps such as Netflix or Dolby Access demo material. 7.1 audio works flawlessly in both cases. Using the receiver's already outdated picture processing without G-Sync combined with HDR seems like a big nono to me and always will be since nobody should be forced to buy new audio equipment just because of minor processing upgrades every one or two years. That's plain bullshit. They advertise eARC, so it has to work... my rant is not aimed at you of course Have a good day.

[circeseye]

43 minutes ago, German_Angst said:

Thanks for your reply,

 

I've naturally messed with the audio settings on my LG too - including the non-eARC option. Issue remains and everything is exactly the same (which is odd, because it uses or should use a lot less bandwidth).

Dolby Atmos is displayed on my receiver's display in both scenarios while using apps such as Netflix or Dolby Access demo material. 7.1 audio works flawlessly in both cases. Using the receiver's already outdated picture processing without G-Sync combined with HDR seems like a big nono to me and always will be since nobody should be forced to buy new audio equipment just because of minor processing upgrades every one or two years. That's plain bullshit. They advertise eARC, so it has to work... my rant is not aimed at you of course Have a good day.

the other option you can do...run dual monitor...one cable to tv second one to avr.

and arc/eark has always been a hit or miss.

[Fullshred]

On 6/2/2021 at 11:07 PM, Stahlmann said:

So i've been hard at work to resolve all the issues i had with HDMI 2.1, my 3080, and my C9 OLED. The one issue that remains is with Dolby Atmos.

I have a Atmos capable Samsung HQ-Q80R with additional rear sattelite speakers for proper surround. As soon as i enable "Dolby Atmos for Home Theater" in windows, i get Audio dropouts every 10-20 seconds. The drops only last about half a second or so, but this can get very annoying. It doesn't happen when playing back Atmos content throught the streaming apps on the TV directly. And even with several different officially certified HDMI 2.1 cables i keep having this issue. When i set my windows surround settings to 7.1, 5.1 or stereo i don't have these dropouts, but i obviously miss out on Atmos then. Enabling Atmos for my headphones doesn't introduce the issue. It's just for my speaker setup and only when the audio comes from my PC.

 

Has anybody else had this issue and did you somehow solve it?

Did you resolve this in the end? I'm getting Atmos drop-outs in my system (Nvidia rtx 2070 super into Anthem AVM 60 AVR via Ruipro HDMI cable) and it's driving me nuts. I'm not sure when it started playing up because I haven't watched any Atmos movies for a while... first noticed it about a month ago. Last year (when I watched Dark on Netflix) it was working perfectly.

[Stahlmann]

4 hours ago, Fullshred said:

Did you resolve this in the end? I'm getting Atmos drop-outs in my system (Nvidia rtx 2070 super into Anthem AVM 60 AVR via Ruipro HDMI cable) and it's driving me nuts. I'm not sure when it started playing up because I haven't watched any Atmos movies for a while... first noticed it about a month ago. Last year (when I watched Dark on Netflix) it was working perfectly.

Nope, still nothing. I can say for sure it's not a cable problem as i have this issue with every cable i tried. It's some issue with the Windows integration. When i enable it it works correctly for about 5 minutes, then i have audio drops every 20-30 secons. They only last about half a second or so but it's so annoying and keeping me from using Atmos. It's really a shame, but right now i have to use stereo as somehow the 7.1 and 5.1 settings in windows fail to properly adress my subwoofer, resulting in no bass at all... And i don't think anything will happen anytime soon. The issue is still there with Windows 11 and Microsoft has a lot of it's platter right now, i don't think they will get together with Dolby and fix it anytime soon, if at all.

 

And sadly i think Atmos on PC is niche enough that Microsoft will be able to ignore the problem without any major backlash...

[MaxTheMiracle]

Can anyone confirm is the Receiver and not the TV at fault?, because as I see it, the tv is at fault here, I have a X6500H, I bought a BX Oled with eARC, and to my surprise i have the Atmos Dropouts now, i try everything from every other forum, and nothing, and i think i know why, and it is because LG drop ou DTS, so I think LG is Processing the Audio Signal,m even though they say they are making passthrough, Wich again, I dont know WHY, the whole purpouse of a passthrough is to let the other equipment in the chain do what it does best, and here we have LG deciding against the costumer, and NOT letting PASSTHOUGH DTS audio Signal, wich in turn results in Audio Dropouts and LipSync Problems, anyone of you had reach out LG with the problem? or found any solution?>, is really funny that i can not PASSTHROUGH DTS because the tv does nopt Decode, when theyre exact solution to the problem of not decoding it would be to PASSTHROUGH the signal, ..... sometimes i think the more you know the less this manufactures care about you, they must think, how many will be using this FEATURE as INTENDED?///..... they really disrispect us

[Stahlmann]

6 minutes ago, MaxTheMiracle said:

Can anyone confirm is the Receiver and not the TV at fault?, because as I see it, the tv is at fault here, I have a X6500H, I bought a BX Oled with eARC, and to my surprise i have the Atmos Dropouts now, i try everything from every other forum, and nothing, and i think i know why, and it is because LG drop ou DTS, so I think LG is Processing the Audio Signal,m even though they say they are making passthrough, Wich again, I dont know WHY, the whole purpouse of a passthrough is to let the other equipment in the chain do what it does best, and here we have LG deciding against the costumer, and NOT letting PASSTHOUGH DTS audio Signal, wich in turn results in Audio Dropouts and LipSync Problems, anyone of you had reach out LG with the problem? or found any solution?>, is really funny that i can not PASSTHROUGH DTS because the tv does nopt Decode, when theyre exact solution to the problem of not decoding it would be to PASSTHROUGH the signal, ..... sometimes i think the more you know the less this manufactures care about you, they must think, how many will be using this FEATURE as INTENDED?///..... they really disrispect us

I can confirm it's not a receiver as my setup doesn't have a receiver.

[MaxTheMiracle]

2 hours ago, Stahlmann said:

I can confirm it's not a receiver as my setup doesn't have a receiver.

What can we do about it then, its really annoying :(, only soultion so far is another cable to ``second monitor`` to the receiver.... really bad

[circeseye]

41 minutes ago, MaxTheMiracle said:

What can we do about it then, its really annoying :(, only soultion so far is another cable to ``second monitor`` to the receiver.... really bad

thats it. not sure why lg's have the pass-through issue.
but netflix, disney, even amazon comp app. if it has atmos it plays it. and the tv is detecting dolby vision if applicable going dual monitor route..so theres that

[Stahlmann]

11 hours ago, MaxTheMiracle said:

What can we do about it then, its really annoying :(, only soultion so far is another cable to ``second monitor`` to the receiver.... really bad

Tbh i just got used to it by now. I don't even notice it anymore when i don't think about it.

[Andre_psi]

 

Even with the new driver (516.94) that cites the resolution of the problem of cuts in the Atmos sound, the problem persists in my setup. I use an RTX 3080 12Gb, an LG C9 and a Denon X2700H receiver. Nvidia apparently gave up on fixing this problem.

[Sawtaytoes]

I have 2 HDMI cables coming out of my card. One in my TV and the other in my receiver.

I get these dropouts as well. It's not just Dolby Atmos; DTS:X also does it. The worst of it comes when I'm playing a game and suddenly, it stops playing audio completely. Only solution is the mute and unmute Windows; then it comes back as if nothing happened.

 

It's also laggy to play audio so if I start the audio tester in Windows, it only plays the end of the sound clip. Or if I start a game, I miss the beginning part of the audio.

[deltagamma]

Maybe a clue: I found that on my system that the frequency of the dropouts is directly proportional to the number for CPU cores that I have enabled. The more cores enabled, the worse the problem gets. With all 10 of my cores enabled, I get dropouts about every 15-30 seconds. With only a single core enabled, the dropouts reduce to about 1 every 5 minutes (almost tolerable). Single core performance on my system, combined with an RTX 20 series graphics board, is just fast enough to play 4K content, although with only a single core enabled I sometimes see video frame drops on some content due to insufficient CPU power - so it's not a great solution. CPU cores can be disabled in the BIOS on most systems.

 

I would be curious to hear if other people see the same enabled CPU cores correlation.

[Sawtaytoes]

On 8/21/2022 at 11:32 PM, deltagamma said:

Maybe a clue: I found that on my system that the frequency of the dropouts is directly proportional to the number for CPU cores that I have enabled. The more cores enabled, the worse the problem gets. With all 10 of my cores enabled, I get dropouts about every 15-30 seconds. With only a single core enabled, the dropouts reduce to about 1 every 5 minutes (almost tolerable). Single core performance on my system, combined with an RTX 20 series graphics board, is just fast enough to play 4K content, although with only a single core enabled I sometimes see video frame drops on some content due to insufficient CPU power - so it's not a great solution. CPU cores can be disabled in the BIOS on most systems.

 

I would be curious to hear if other people see the same enabled CPU cores correlation.

The system I'm having the issue on is a Ryzen 5600X (6C/12T).

On my main rig, I have a Ryzen 5950X (16C/32T) and don't have any dropouts using DTS:X Ultra; although, I only have 2 speakers on this system and my external DAC doesn't support Atmos, only HiRes audio.

I'm wondering if our issues are different as yours is a temporary drop-out and my audio doesn't come back after it occurs.

Have you tried other devices? I'm betting my problem lies with the Yamaha RX-A6A receiver hooked up to my TV as it both supports Atmos and may have some firmware bug causing the drop-outs.

[goemonate]

I am experiencing the same issue with Windows 11, 3070ti and Atmos for Home Theater to AV Amp.  It seems to happen in only when I move the mouse or flipping windows pages while the Atmos stream is playing.  If I set the mouse aside when watching movies or playing games, it doesn't seem to happen as frequent maybe once in 15mins or none.... 

 

Pls keep this post active, and share your resolution.  

[DaveA]

Hello all, I'm getting the same here with a new laptop it seems. Hdmi 2.1 rtx 3070 to Denon x3700.  Same cable to my xbox series x has had no issues for the last 2 years at 4k/120hz (using the silly HDMI add-on box denon issued) but for some reason I'm loosing audio quite frequently, very annoying during spoken tutorials etc.

 

I'll do some further testing tomorrow, bypass the HDMI add-on box to AV, try directly to TV (Q80T), test with my Astro A50s and see if I can identify anything of use.  Very frustrating though!

[Sawtaytoes]

I fixed my issue by switching to DTS:X. I'm not sure exactly the difference (except the output volume), but if your receiver supports it, it should be identical to Dolby Atmos since Windows is managing the spatial audio. I've tested in games like Forza Horizon 5, and it still plays audio out of the heights even with DTS:X.

 

To install DTS:X, install the DTS Sound Unbound app. There's a DTS:X app, but that's only effects. You want this one in particular:

https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/dts-sound-unbound/9PJ0NKL8MCSJ?hl=en-us&gl=us

When playing Atmos content, it bitstreams to my receiver, so Windows isn't doing anything; thus, the volume control in Windows also doesn't work. In this case, I've never experienced the audio cutting out, so you should be safe there.

It still lags before playing audio, but it never cuts out now on my Yamaha RX-A6A receiver:

[phyco88]

I'm having this same issue, Ryzen 3900x, RTX 4090, Sony A80j 77", Sony HT-A9 + 12" sub.

I have tried DTSX and Dolby with the same issue.

 

Did anyone figure this out yet?

[circeseye]

4 hours ago, phyco88 said:

I'm having this same issue, Ryzen 3900x, RTX 4090, Sony A80j 77", Sony HT-A9 + 12" sub.

I have tried DTSX and Dolby with the same issue.

 

Did anyone figure this out yet?

nope. if atmos or dts is selected it works on the first thing using audio. you click off it or try listening to 2 different things audio drops off....until microsoft fixes its screw up they did back early last year have to use 5.1 or 7.1

[Sawtaytoes]

What OS are you using? I'm on Windows 11.

 

I even use DTS:X Ultra (stereo version) for my speakers and DTS:X for Headphones on my headphones.

I only get the slow startup with my home theater system. My main stereo desktop is fine with a USB DAC.

 

That makes me wonder if it's related to receiver firmware. What is your receiver? Does it have the latest firmware?

[circeseye]

1 hour ago, Sawtaytoes said:

What OS are you using? I'm on Windows 11.

 

I even use DTS:X Ultra (stereo version) for my speakers and DTS:X for Headphones on my headphones.

I only get the slow startup with my home theater system. My main stereo desktop is fine with a USB DAC.

 

That makes me wonder if it's related to receiver firmware. What is your receiver? Does it have the latest firmware?

win 11...denon x3700h, 6800xt gpu, latest firmware. drop outs literally started after windows update around march.

it will work as long as its the first thing playing. you click off of it or even stop what your watching and switch to something else. drop sound...only way to fix it is go into sound settings and switch to another setting then back each time, and as far as i can tell the 4 height speakers dont play

has nothing to do with avr. tested it with a comp not updated atmos and dts work fine

ive tried reinstalling drivers and everything to get it to work like it did before that update

another thing is before the update my avr showed atmos or dts when set and when available like a atmos show all speakers worked...after update all it will show is multi channel after the first thing playing. 7.1 and 5.1 work fine avr shows what is being sent to it being dd or dts