Help Vic improve his MWLL FPS!

[Mitchpate]

Audiodg.exe doesn't care how *many* audio sources you have, what matters is the amount of software processing it's doing.  For games, music, teamspeak, movies, etc this should be next to none.  I just opened Crysis while having music, a movie, netflix, and youtube all going at once and it used 2% CPU on my near 5 year old quadcore.  If it's using more than a couple percent, something is set up wrong.

Make sure that your audio drivers are up-to-date and that you have all audio "enhancements" turned off.  Open your playback devices, select the one you're current using, and under the Enhancements tab click "Disable all sound effects."

[Cloudburst]

Audiodg.exe doesn't care how *many* audio sources you have, what matters is the amount of software processing it's doing.  For games, music, teamspeak, movies, etc this should be next to none.  I just opened Crysis while having music, a movie, netflix, and youtube all going at once and it used 2% CPU on my near 5 year old quadcore.  If it's using more than a couple percent, something is set up wrong.

Make sure that your audio drivers are up-to-date and that you have all audio "enhancements" turned off.  Open your playback devices, select the one you're current using, and under the Enhancements tab click "Disable all sound effects."

I have Dolby Surround set-up. I would not turn it off for anything in the world, besides, my FPS doesn't drop very often.

For some people with computers that struggle, saving an extra 2-4% could really make a difference.

[Mitchpate]

The enhancements don't add anything to the surround sound experience.  Surround sound comes from simply setting your speaker config to 5.1/7.1 and requires no additional software processing by audiodg.

Seriously, turn the enhancements off.  They provide no benefit to you.  You'll be hard pressed to tell the difference, I can't and I used 5.1 surround headphones.

[Cloudburst]

I can. Oh, I can tell a BIG difference. You must not be using the right headphones. Do they support Dolby? I'm using headphones that do, and I can tell the difference. Disabling Dolby has a gigantic effect on sound, for the worst, without a doubt.
>Dolby isn't listed as a "sound effect"... JUST LIKE TO BE TECHNICAL, Y'KNOW

>I did a Windows update, and I realized it was in a recent security update that setting the affinity of AudioDG was disallowed.

[Mitchpate]

Only "sound effects" and DRM'd content is processed by audiodg.  Dolby enhancements have nothing to do with audiodg as it is processed at the hardware level.  As I said, if you're having CPU usage issues either disable a feature you just admitted you aren't using or check your drivers.  Some faulty drivers cause audiodg to leak.  It sounds like you have a Creative sound card.  If so, throw it in the trash and do your research next time.  They haven't made a non-leaking driver since Vista was released.

There's nothing special about "Dolby" headphones.  All that signifies is that the 5.1 channel audio stream is run through a DSP algorithm or circuit and then sent to a 2 channel pair of headphones.  There are several competing DSP methods that do an equal or better job as far as headphones go.  It's not exactly hard, almost any EE graduate straight out of college could design and build a DSP circuit that meets or exceeds "Dolby" quality standards.  The difference you're hearing is because when you turn it off, your computer is defaulting back to 2 channel audio.  If you set it to 5.1 I promise you can't tell the difference between Dolby and non-Dolby surround sound in 5.1 capable headphones.

And yes, I am using the "right" headphones.  I've used Dolby and non-Dolby compatible headphones and to be honest, the non-Dolby are typically much cheaper and sometimes actually sound better.

Btw, audiodg has been locked for well over 3 years and was never unlocked in Windows7.  Ever a task manager with SYSTEM elevation couldn't touch it without the registry mod I posted above.  If you were somehow able to natively you might want to reinstall Windows as something has torn some pretty serious holes on the OS's security.

[Cloudburst]

-Don't have a creative card, have known they were terrible for awhile
-Driver problem is likely because I'm using a goddam Realtek (built in the motherboard, goddam realteks)
-You are probably right about the "Dolby" deal. I *appear* forced into using it because Realtek
-All sound effects are and have been disabled for awhile
-Good note about the "dolby" deal. I hadn't had any "surround-capable" audio outlet until I got these headphones so I didn't know much about sound to begin with (have had them for 3 years, tho)
-Native adjusting of audiodg probably had something to do with the general weird shit that both computers I have owned with Realteks I do to

[Mitchpate]

Are you using the realtek driver that came with your motherboard or through windows update?  If so google around and get the one directly from realtek's website.  It takes a while to find but once I switched to that literally all my audio issues disappeared.  Realtek makes a solid sound card but motherboard manufacturers rarely use decent drivers for them

Also, if you're using a USB headset, disable the onboard realtek audio.