Site has been moved to maxedtech.com


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If you are a regular visitor its time to update your bookmarks, subscribe to the new site, change your UNi Xonar awareness signatures & links. 🙂

3,951 thoughts on “Site has been moved to maxedtech.com”

  1. You think sending the card in to fix that issue would be worth it? I wonder how long they would keep it and “attempt” to fix it. Might check out the HT Omega Striker. Anyone familiar with the card? I’m just annoyed at Asus’s customer support. It took them 20 days to respond to my mail…

    1. Yes it would, as you should get a replacement that actually works. When sending your card you don’t send it to Asus crappy support center, you send it to your local dealer which sends it to the Asus distributor in your country. And when it comes to hardware failures its more easy to deal than with software support (drivers) for these companies.

      With HT omega you will get even worse driver support. Don’t know how they’re cards are, hardware wise. Sadly there isn’t much of a choice in the sound card business. The only good choice is to really know the ups and downs of every card which mostly Asus vs Creative and see with which of those you can live with.

  3. I’m having problems with the v1.28 driver.
    Installer is going on for 5-10 minutes and finally an error pops that asks me to install a Xonar card as it is not recognized by the installer.
    I used the default settings.
    I’m using Driver Sweeper so no problems there.
    By the way, v1.27 works fine.

    Windows 7 32bit, Asus Xonar D1

    1. Interesting.. might be a problem with 1793 files. lets see if someone else reports this.
      Anyway maybe a reinstall will do the trick, have you tried this?

      1. Yes the same prob with my d2x on yours and daniels driver. Yours shows up as version 2 as daniels shows up as 3 in device manager when windows 7 64 sp1 finally takes the driver. I had to uninstall, reboot, go into device manager and ensure it was not still there if so unistall driver in device manger (delete files). try to install again if it hangs reboot go in to device manager uninstall drive delete, a couple of times and then they take. Wierd but true on both yours and daniel_k

      2. I had the same issue, initially thought it may have been eeprom corruption but the utility available as a fix reported the card correctly as a xonar dx. On a side note, the unmodified 1793 driver also exhibits the exact same issue. 1792 based 1.26 works fine.

        1. Thanks for sharing this with us. Seams like the 1793 drivers are broken. Makes you wonder how did it get pass the WHQL testing and got approved by Microsoft..

    2. Yeah, same here. Did a proper uninstall/flush/reinstall but I also get the “Please install Xonar card” (or similar) message after about 10 mins. I checked the Xonar D1’s device ID and it is still correct (there is an EPROM rewrite bug that can wipe it apparently). The previous UNi driver I had worked, I think it was v1.11.

      Win7 x64 (I don’t think I have SP1 installed), Xonar D1, Installed the C-Media option (can’t remember which).

      1. Posts are in a funny order. To be clear, I get the same behaviour as Kiril. Daniel_K’s driver installs fine for me but the latency is appalling.

    3. Me too. Big problems installing.
      Uninstall the former drivers. Reboot the machine and the new will never install.

      Update. When installing with Asus control panel it worked fine. Not with c-panel.

    1. My time is limited these days so I had to focus on some things. Like people can’t install Uni Xonar drivers at all. and thats a big thing 😦
      But this issue is not forgotten. When I have something ready I will send it to you for testing. Hope it won’t be to long.

  7. Sorry Carved, what’s the difference between UNi 1.28 1793 for W7 and the 1793 WHQL linked in the Daniel_K blog? I installed the latter ones, should I use UNi’s instead? My card it’s an Essence ST.
    Thanks 🙂

    1. Well drivers from Daniel_K blog are just like the original drivers from Asus, with no tweaks & fixes. So it depends on you which ones do you prefer.
      The only problem is that you might not be able to install Uni’s 1.28 cause of driver signature errors :((

  9. Installed this driver and no issues other than choppy sound using the optical out. I’ve this problem with ASUS oficial drivers and also with all versions of Unified drvier that i’ve tested… can anyone confirm this issue? why i get choppy sound? It happens with stereo sources, with GX enabled or disabled and also with DDL and DD. Also i can see in my digital receiver that the DD led blinks sometimes, when there is cuts into the sound… Using analog output this doesn’t happens. There is a fix?

  10. Congrats for your excellent work, keep going!!!! I’m using a D2X @ win7 32bit, and your drivers since your first version (sorry i didnt feedback..). Everything works excellent so far for me, except ASIO >= v.2 where i have clicks pops etc. so i’m using asio patch v.1 with no problems at all at any version. i havent seen any real difference with normal & low latency (my latency is ~90-200µs with either driver), and i havent tried c-media audio panel.

    1. As you can see in the The Case of DPC latency article I did, there is a difference between low DPC latency and Normal version, maybe you enabled some options in the Audio center.. and thats why DPC latency is the same. About Asio 2 , maybe if you increase latency in the options will solve the pops and clicks. I am only saing this as I would recommend Asio 1.0 Patch only if you need to install it, because its implementation its not ideal.

      1. I have installed v1.30 but i still have pops clicks..I tried all 3 editions (normal, low latency, c-media) and i tried to increase (asio) latency and tried bit-depth 16 24 32 bit but nothing…So i used asio 1 patch (“only” 24 bits not bitperfect) with the c-media version and it works flawlessly. My specs: Asus D2X,win7 32bit ultimate, foobar2000 with asio plugin. I always uninstall the driver run driver sweeper &ccleaner and restart before i upgrade

  11. I have questions regarding reinstall/uninstall the driver:
    1. How can I uninstall the driver that I install? Do I do it manually or there is a uninstall file to use
    2. Can I just try out different option by install the driver on top of another one?
    For example, I install the C-Media Audio Panelone, and I don’t use it. Can I just replace it by install the normal one on top of the C-Media Audio Panel one?
    3. Is it possible to adjust the amp setting in C-Media Audio Panel?

    Thanks for your hard work!

    1. 1. The driver is listed Add/Remove Programs as Uni Xonar Driver and not as Asus xonar.
      2. Don’t know. I wouldn’t recommend it.
      3. No, for now you can’t. 😦

      1. I tried out the question two for window xp OS, it seem like working pretty well..
        (I don’t have any issue yet..)

  12. Well after being driven mad by pops and clicks from my xonar d2 soundcard over the last couple of years, I decided to search for a solution. No new drivers from Asus (theres a surprise) and then I found a site with your uni driver, so I downloaded it, installed it and…………….
    Bliss, it works great, no pops or clicks so far.In fact my audio has never sounded better.
    System is Windows 7 32bit, 4gb ram.

    Thanks for your work,it’s appreciated.

    1. may I ask what settings you used e.g C-Media Audio Panel or normal ect and whitch asio driver?

  13. Great driver, thank you for your professional work. Why Asus cant make it at first? It seems they are finished the support for Xonar. 😦

    1. Thanks 🙂 I only wish I could do more, but my hands are tight.

      It may seem this way, especially as Tian and that other guy are gone from the support forum, not that they where ever useful. But I think Asus are sticking with 1-2 driver releases per year.. I bet they’re main problem is how to prevent Uni Xonar drivers from working, as they or C-Media did something to the driver files so they won’t work for multiple cards, and thats why some guys can’t install the latest versions..

  14. Hi! I wrote this to your e-mail, but it didn’t arrive, I guess. I want to say that I REALLY appreciate your efforts in making and maintaining UNi Xonar mod driver. I bought a Xense recently and I’m still using the official driver without any problem. But I have some questions about your mod.

    1- what exactly did you change to decrease the DPC latency? Is there any downside in doing this?
    2- about the default upmix 2.0 -> 4.0/5.1/7.1 found in the official drivers, I think that it’s well done; much better that CMMS-3D used by Creative X-Fi (I have a XtremeMusic). I agree that the lack of an option to enable/disable the upmix is a bad choice made by Asus team. But what I really don’t understand is that there’s a ‘Dolby Pro Logic IIx’ technology that supposedly does the same thing, but IMO it’s a piece of shit (!). What’s the meaning of this? BTW, do you know which cards are affected by this upmix ‘issue’?
    3- using your mod even with a Xense is still possible to get auto-samplerate just like we can with ASIO Essense ST/STX drivers?
    4- how did you change the Rear and Center channel delay?
    5- is there a way to change between headphone and speaker output without launching Audio Center? I tried to change using Windows XP x64 audio device properties, but it doesn’t work; Xonar Audio Center changes Windows speaker settings, but Windows can’t change Xonar settings.

    Thanks, man. And sorry for so much writing.

    Best regards

    1. Hello,
      I did received your e-mail, but was to busy and couldn’t respond at that time. I usually respond very fast but sometimes I am very busy and I am overwhelmed with question & support requests comments/emails.
      1. Its all documented here in the release notes, I did disable the autostart of Asus Audio Panel & GX
      2. Yes DPL IIx does almost the same thing.. Don’t know what to say. All card are.
      3. Don’t know if autosample rate really works, even for EssenCe. If it where to work for Essence it work work for all others. But from my initial testings this doesn;t work and it merely copies the sample rate thats set in Xonar audio center .
      4. Complicated question, the delay is a hidden setting, I change the installation files to set the registry settings for the speakers delay to 0;
      5. Not that I know of, at least on windows XP,

  15. Hi,
    First,thank you for the work in this and help.:)

    This isn’t so much a problem issue.It’s just another regarding DPC latency behavior and the two programs I’m running.

    While listening to music using Traktor DJ I’ve noticed the DPC latency goes up to ~2000+ but, when I load the other program which is G-Force Platinum visualization the DPC latency will go back down to around ~700.

    I just can’t figure out why?I’m using the low DPC version ,btw.

    thanks for any help in this.

    1. How is your DPC Latency when your PC is in idle? And when listening in winamp?

      Give me some details like what OS do you have? And your system configuration? Your output is set to how many speakers?

      I suppose you don’t have any other audio options enabled , like Dobly sound.

      1. DPC idles around the 200’s.But,it spikes up past 2000 no matter which program I use to listen to music.

        The weird thing is, when I load my visualization program DPC goes back down to around 700’s???

        Audio Channel= 8 Channels,
        Sample Rate= 96 KHz,
        Analog out= Headphone,
        7.1 Virtual Speaker Shifter= checked,
        Dolby Headphone= checked.

        I’m on Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit.
        Phenom II x3 710 CPU
        Biostar ta790xe mobo
        4Gb ddr2 RAM
        ATI HD4870 gfx card
        Xonar DG soundcard
        Corsair 650W TX PSU

        Thanks

        [edit]
        I think I might have found something to do with my issue here: http://www.native-instruments.com/knowledge/questions/628/How+do+I+make+the+correct+soundcard+settings+on+a+Windows+PC%3F but, all this is still confusing to me.ha

        [2nd edit]

        lolz I fixed it,sorry for wasting your time.

        I had Traktor DJ set to use Direct Sound instead of ASIO driver.Latency doesn’t go past ~270 now.

        Thanks,anyway 🙂

        1. Thats great that you manage to find a fix.

          Some tips anyway, might came in hand:
          1)Disable HPET timer in the motherboard’s Bios. This seems to be the a cause of high DPC latency for Win7 & Vista in some cases.

          2)Since you said that by launching visualizations , is actually lowering the DPC latency, this might be because of how windows 7 manages the timer resolution. In some cases the timer remains at its IDLE value and its not changing like it supposed to, and when launching another multimedia applications it changes. There was a weird bug in StarCraft 2 where the timer didn’t change and Starcraft 2 was running horrible, but when people launched WoW in background, Starcraft 2 was running fine.
          Download the free version of this program , launch it and press Maximum. I not sure if this will improve the DPC latency or not if you disable HPET.

      2. Thanks for tips.Yea, I’m using timer resolution 2.0and it works like a charm.

        DPC rarely goes past ~200µs now.Thanks alot!

        The front panel headphones switch 3.7 is working for me on my Xonar DG.I don’t use the FP because I get static ,though.

  16. Thank you for these drivers! I’m using Xonar Essence STX and Windows 7 x64. I’ve tried the latest official drivers first and they worked fine except the disappearing sounds in UT2004 when using hardware instead of software emulation. Yours fixed it, but only if the GX option is disabled. That leads me to believe my problem was that I enabled it on the official drivers too, but so far yours are working good (installed with normal mode, because I need the headphone configuration). I’ll be checking here for updates! Thanks again.

  17. A simple question: is there any way to save my settings and restore them after a reinstall? (registry or config file)

    1. Check the FAQ section 5. Freshly written:) . Might not save all the settings, cause some of them are stored somewhere in a file or something. When you have the chance to try this. Let me know if it worked 100% or not, and which settings weren’t saved.

  18. Do I still need the front panel switch? If so could you fix the link or provide a mirror please.

      1. Thanks, just to let you know drivers are working fine win7 x64, xonar DG.
        Front panel switcher doesnt seem to work for me, any description on how to use it apart from the readme?

        1. It might be a problem with it. My front panel jacks aren’t working at all, so I can’t check, but you are not the only one reporting it doesn’t work.. But there is one more problem, DG has a slightly different system for the front panel and that might be the case. With Uni Xonar normal version, does it work?

          Does anyone who tried FrontPanel Switch had problems with it?

  19. Windows XP 32 bit.

    Running Steinberg WavLab and Logic Audio Platinum.
    Previously using a SCOPE DSP multi-channel sound card with ASIO drivers, which works great.

    However, I need a cheaper alternative on a 2nd PC, and thought this consunmer-grade card would work, but having many issues with the ASIO drivers.

    Speficially, ASIO out of the box didn’t work.
    Uni ASIO drivers did to a point – got 2 channels working brilliantly.
    But enabling all 8 channels drops the pitch by about an octave with many drop-outs.

    Hoping someone might know a solution before I ditch the card and by another (expensive) Sonic-Core card.

    Cheers.

    1. After a round of complete un-installs and re-installs of both the original drivers followed by these (excellent) Uni-drivers, I am happy to say that ASIO output to all outputs is now working flawlessly.

      After one attempt, I noticed that outputs 3-8 instead of sounding an octave lower were now an octave higher, and I deduce that to be some sort of sample rate issue.
      Re-installing a few times seems to have solved that one.

      I’m used to having a sample rate control on the ASIO control panel.
      Also a way of ‘resetting’ the ASIO interface manally.
      I wonder if that can be worked into future versions of ASIO 1?

      PS. Digital Output (optical) still an issue on my Xonar D2\X with many dropouts when the machine is running a highish load (e.g. playing a DVD-audio) so I’m only using it for the analogue outputs, which works great.

      1. Interesting, I too have noticed that installing the drivers numerous times can produce different results…At least in some excepts . There is a registry setting BassBasedBLevel which sometimes changes after install to a different value, and it can’t be changed manual. Might be this can be the causes of what are you describing. When installing the drivers again you can check the registry to see what value is set for BassBasedBLevel, and if it sounds right or not.

        I did try many times to improve or update the Asio 1, but all without success. I will surely continue to try to improve Asio (1 or 2) , but I can’t do miracles as I don’t have access to the source code, and I have to rely on various workarounds.

        About the Digital output, have you tried it with low DPC latency version of the drivers or C-Media Panel to see if it performs the same , meaning with dropouts?

  20. Takes ages to install on Xonar D2 under Win 7 x64, and at the end it errors with “plug in card”. Now it’s taking ages and ages to uninstall what scraps actually got installed. If you have a D2, avoid these drivers. Or better still, avoid the Xonars (f*cking Asus crap).

    1. Some Win7 users are having problems installing the driver. They get the “driver signature error”.. But that doesn’t mean that these drivers don’t work with D2!!!
      I don’t mind negative comments, but I mind when they are way of..

      In your case , there might be something else, have you uninstalled the previous drivers, followed by a restart and a driver clean with driver sweeper?

      1. My apologies CarvedIns, I didn’t mean to imply that your drivers were at fault or that your hard work is not appreciated. My negativity is aimed squarely at those incompetent tossers called Asus.

    1. Yes, thats because C-Media Panel doesn’t have the headphone impedance option in its settings.
      I tried to activate it separately from the C-Media Panel, and didn’t work. I am planning to work on this but it does take time, and my Xonar doesn’t support headphone impedance at all, so its a little harder for me.

  22. Hi Carved,
    just discovered that under Win7 x64 the Xonar Audio Center still shows 1792 after installing the latest UNi. Is it just a minor bug or they’re actually 1792? If I install Daniel_k’s it shows 1793.
    Thanks!

  23. CarvedInside :
    Hello,
    I did received your e-mail, but was to busy and couldn’t respond at that time. I usually respond very fast but sometimes I am very busy and I am overwhelmed with question & support requests comments/emails.

    I see. You’re involved in an ambitious project here. 🙂

    Thanks for your reply. About upmix, is this line of ‘AsusAudioCenter.dll’ the one to change: ‘DDL_UPMIX_PROLIIx=1’? Also, I saw a reg file tweak that disables the speaker delay to 0 by changing reg key entries: ‘LsRsDelay’, ‘LbRbDelay’ and ‘CenterDelay’. But Xense doesn’t seem to have these entries after the driver installation. I’ll try to play with these reg keys anyway and see what happens.

    Thanks again!

    1. That line in the asusaudiocenter.dll is for stereoupmix through SPDIF . For analog I disabled/deleted the registry key “Dual2D” , now that I think about it this is quite simple but it was a real pain till I figured this out.

      The delay entries are present in the registry only when changed, and the drivers use by default the 10 and 15 ms.

      No problem. If you don’t mind I just have to ask why are you interested in this things? 🙂

  24. CarvedInside :
    Yes, thats because C-Media Panel doesn’t have the headphone impedance option in its settings.
    I tried to activate it separately from the C-Media Panel, and didn’t work. I am planning to work on this but it does take time, and my Xonar doesn’t support headphone impedance at all, so its a little harder for me.

    So every CMI8788 sound card except the xonar series has no control over headphone impendance?

    1. No,I think you got it wrong. Xonar cards are all based on CMI8788, but not all of them have the headphone amp implemented on them (thats hardware wise).

    1. Thx for the heads up.
      The new UNI drivers are already in works. I have been working and testing them for 2 days now.

      Hopefully anyone thats interested can wait 1 or 2 more days.:)

  26. Updated ASIO 2.0.0.4, hope this one will be better than previous. Drivers seems to be the same as Daniel_K has published.

  27. Just tried the low dpc latency option and it does lower it, but not as much as you stated (or as much as I hoped it would). That of course depends on the setup so yeah… Currently I’m seeing 103~143 (absolute maximum 174) when playing music. When idle I see 93~124 (absolute maximum 143). I haven’t opened the asus control panel, but I imagine things will be the same as with the normal mode (143~214)

    1. Yes that depends on the setup, might not be such a bit difference from 2.0 sound as to 5.1 sound output (as I tested it). And maybe you did enabled some sound options , I wrote about this in the release notes.
      Keep in mind that even with no drivers installed, you will still have DPC latency, maybe 80 us in your case. The DPC latency depends also on other system components & drivers. I myself have 70 us (max) while playing music using 2.0 /44.1 KHz settings with C-Media Panel.

      To make sure you are doing everything ok. Install the low DPC drivers or C-Media Panel, don;t change any options, restart your system and after that check your DPC latency while playing music, after than launch Asus Xonar Audio center and check the DPC latency again.

  29. Hi!
    Great driver…
    I have one problem I don’t know if it can be solved by this driver, or if it’s hardware related. If I choose Stereo Mix in windows 7 32 bit Recording Devices, it mute the Line In. I know it works correctly with other brand of sound cards. Is there a way to get around this problem?
    Thx

    1. From what it seems it switches to Microphone when choosing the Stereo Mix. As an output recording source, if you have separate line in and microphone jacks, might want to switch the jacks.

      Even if this works but you still need the Stereo Mix and Line in. Let me know and I will try to check it out!

  30. Installation opens an empty CMD window and gets stuck that way.
    Default settings,Windows 7 32bit, D1, v1.30.

    Problem above occurs when Silent Installation is checked.
    When not, it returns to the 5 minutes installation ending with a “Plug in your Xonar audio device”
    And now it also occurs on v1.26 which worked fine by now.
    Every installation try is followed by a Driver Sweeper erase in Safe Mode.
    PLease help.

    1. Try to download the driver again, as I did just a minor change in the Xonar D1 information file. If still doesn’t work , check this guide.

      Hopefully one way or another will make it work.
      Let me know if you manage to install the drivers or not.

  31. Just installed the new version. Everything works fine and I don’t have any problems…yet. If anything happens I’ll report back. (STX/W7 x64).

    P.S. I haven’t seen this confirmed, but does EAX still work with these drivers (regardless of the installation method)? I haven’t had the time to test that yet

    1. EAX will work only with Normal or C-Media GX versions.

      @message for other readers
      Just want to point out that I did respond to all other comments , please check them out

  32. How is the stereo-to-5.1 upmix feature enabled/disabled? Seems like it might be nice to have game cutscenes with stereo audio upmixed, if it’s actually doing a Dolby-esque decode.

    1. Its a registry key, but you would have to restart or disable/enable the soundcard, ill try to update the files external files with a stereo upmix disable/enable switch.

  33. Hi,
    I have a Xonar Essence ST and I wanted to install the latest driver 1.30 (I previously was using version 1.26 normal) with the C-Media panel because of the better latency.
    The setup finished without problems but actually it didn’t work.
    If I started foobar it didn’t find an ASIO device.
    So I installed version 1.30 NORMAL and it now works (also during the installation the card’s relays clicked – they didn’t during the installation with the C-Media panel).
    Any ideas?

    1. I have this same symptoms 😦 Card (Essence ST) doesn’t install correctly with C-Media Panel 😦

  34. To everyone who is having problems with the installers detecting the presence of the card: try opening your device manager, right clicking on anything and selecting “Scan for hardware changes.” In my experience this recognized my D1 under Win7 x64 when the installer couldn’t.

    Also to those who experience sound corruption that would otherwise need to be resolved via restart: close any applications that are using sound(active or inactive), then use device manger to disable and re-enable your “*****Audio Device” without needing to restart! If it prompts for restart it’s because something is still accessing the hardware (close it and try again). Window vista/7 is required. And if you use the C-media panel you’ll need to log off/on to restore it (or maybe write a batch file to reinitialize it…I dunno how to do that though). The Asus panel can be started via shortcut.

    As far as I can tell, there should be no need to restart after updating or reinstalling at all (unless you’re still on XP). That’s the beauty of user mode drivers, they run independently of the OS kernel!

    Hope this is helpful to someone.

    1. Also: If it tells you that a restart is needed to disable/re-enable the Xonar in the device manager in Win Vista/7, and you’ve closed everything you can think of, there’s still something you can do that worked for me:

      Right-click the Windows mixer applet in the system tray and open playback devices. Right-click and disable each Xonar playback device (usually Speakers and SPDIF). With those disabled, try the device manager disable/enable again, then re-enable the Xonar playback devices.

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