Most likely you are suffering from one of thos infamous “features” of Windows itself for which the advice since years is: disable it!
It can be found in the legacy sound devices dialogue on the “Communication” tab and needs to be set to disabled (lowest radio button; should be something like “do nothing” in English). Let me provide a quick and convenient screen:
Okay, file uploads are not working again … -.- Tell me if you cannot find it on your own.
thank you i am aware of that option in the communication tab did turn it off before but i guess i still feel kinda off about the audio. However things seems fine now so i guess sth must have worked. Anyhow is it true that Fxsound does not change audio priorities on its own? i just wanna make sure
No worries; sound on PCs has been since ever one of those “secondary” topics. Sure, everyone needs and wants it but it is far from being so popular like “performance” or “graphics” discussions — and therefore it is often not that easy to find correct informations or informations at all. I myself am observing and researching some related issues since years and i am relatively experienced.
That said, it also is a topic known for those “felt” issues one may compare best to those with internet connections: is it good? Is it bad? Is the bandwidth high? Or low? How was it yesterday? How is it today? And so forth … there are just that many possible causes on of a kind much less obvious that i can take quite a while to get a little experience with it and track down what seems to be strange. Not that “exotic” as you might think — or “feel” — about your issue here!
However, the option we were talking about just gets into action when there are multiple sound sources at the same time, so it could fit your case. I am simply disabling it by default since it makes no good job and therefore haven’t had troubles with it since then. Of course, there are many other possible causes!
Depends on what you exactly mean by “priorities”? FxSound normally does NOTHING on its own aside what you ask of it. One thing which comes to my mind is the option to automatically switch sound devices but that does not seem to fit your case and can easily be diesabled …
Hi thanks for the reply now i do think this is fxsound problem i dont “feel” it anymore its pretty clear to me now, because i did test it again with me using discord and gaming and when i say sth long and loud it will just seem to lower the game volume abit then after i stopped it will gradually increase back to the original level, when i disable fxsound it doesnt sound like that anymore things stays the same so yeah im positive its fxsound problem and i just wanna report so im on window 11 if theres no fix to this then i guess i will just have to deal with it
To my - admittedly limited - knowledge, there’s nothing that can be done about it.
It’s probably the program’s own automated way of dealing with multiple audio sources.
I’ll ask Vijay… @bvijay: Could you please give a little explanation about the program’s way of dealing with multiple audio sources?
User is experiencing volume drops and rises when gaming and e.g. using Discord or listening to music simultaneously.
Thanks!
I am using FxSound also on Windows 11 Pro x64 21H2 and i am not seeing such issues with multiple audio sources. As far as i know, FxSound itself does not even have such functionality and the only one known to me is the described Windows setting. I think that FxSound is handling every audio source the same way since it is generally set up between your audio sources and your real sound device by its driver interface and has not options about the different audio sources. Your real audio device and its driver, on the other hand, might have those …
However, today each application (including games) often do have several own settings for that. Especially all of the communication applications of whatever kind. My final guess here then would be a setting from one of the applications and maybe you can just do a quick search on the web with combined keywords to see if there is a known issues/function with the applications you use.
fxsound does not designate itself as a communication device, but only as the main sound device. Try assigning fxsound to both positions in the window above.
It is possible that the operation of the program is broken when outputting sound to two devices. In the Windows mixer for different devices, there may also be different volume levels.
In addition, check the assigned device in the calling program and what happens in the system when a call appears.
still couldn’t solve the problem to this day i dont think this is a window thing because like i said when i disable fxsound things go back to normal so yeah i just have no idea why fxsound is having issues or my window is having conflict with it. just keep lowering audio whenever i start a VOIP call or on discord really annoying
Well, what can I say?
Sorry for the trouble…
Performing miracles is sadly out of my reach…
Vijay is just about the busiest man on Earth right now, so don’t count on an answer anytime soon.
And in any case, there won’t be a coding solution, since the team has more important issues to tackle at the moment.
My best advice is just to turn FxSound off when using multiple audio sources.
Once again, apologies for the inconvenience.
Not all problems can be fixed…
Hi Felix, little late to the party, but I’ve also noticed this on my computer and believe I may have found the culprit, do you have “loudness equalization” on by any chance? For some reason a semi recent windows update made this setting lower background audios that aren’t primarily in use, try checking that off and seeing if it helps
Good idea! Loudness equalization might be another cause for something like this. Haven’t ever seen a case where it does this, but being an audio filter which works fully automated and has an effect on loudness, trying that won’t hurt.
Can be found when you double-click the audio device in the Windows sound settings and then on the “Effects” tab in the list. Also make sure you do not have any other filter enabled there; at least for testing.
Also, do check in the other applications since communication devices often do have such options also.
Hi thanks for the reply, so the loudness equalization as far as i know is in the enhancement tab of the speaker right? however mine doesn’t have such tab in it’s properties there is no enhancement tab i think it was removed long ago as some say it’s an outdated feature? anyhow does anyone know how to get it back?
That’s right! However, it depends on several things!
First, one thing affecting what you see and can do here is the driver for the device. It CAN be, that you are “just” using the Windows default drivers, which are often limited to the very basic functions. In that case, just get newer/better drivers from wether the mainboard (or sound card) manufacturer (like Asus, MSI, Creative Labs) or the sound chip manufacturer (like Realtek for example) depending on which one is newer.
Second, the version of Windows also seems to do have an effect here since i have seen a difference between Windows 10 and Windows 11, for example, even though there normally shoul be none. This is just a guess at the moment, but can (or can not) be connected to the driver aspect above.
Third, another major change in the last time is, that there are another type of drivers on the Windows platform and in the long term, they are planing to deliver them over Windows Update (which generally should be good and helpful for most people, especially those with lesser technical experience). Realtek, as one of the major sound chip manufacturers, therefore switched to this new driver model. WARNING: this has a VERY serious impact since the older driver versions like the “Realtek AC’97” and even the newer “Realtek HD” are now OUTDATED; and that for YEARS! The problem here is, that the manufacturers of the sound chip (mainboard) or sound card have to deliver new drivers. And as you can tell, they mostly do for newer hardware. Tip: There ARE “unofficial” workarounds for this since — as you can also tell — a good amount of people are very … well, let’s say “they are angry” about that! You can find GitHub repositories and projects of them by simply googling something like “realtek unifficial” or “realtek driver alternative”. PLEASE NOT: this is NOT in any case connected to FxSound and is just about your hardware and the drivers and the manufacturers (and, as mostly when something goes weird: Microsoft and Windows)! Yet, i can answer you questins about that if i can since i do learn and gain experience from that myself and of both, no one can ever do enough about/have enough of, don’t you agree?
Okay, when you have read my latest book (this posting) you try around and we will see where that leads …
Hi thanks for your reply so i have been doing alot of testing recently i did roll back my driver to get that enhancement tab, however thing doesnt really change then i kinda noticed something i did tweak my headphone to 2 channel 16 bit and 96khz, the problem seems to go away WITH discord as i was talking really loud in discord but the audio still doesnt change which is great. However as for any calls beside for discord like Messenger it still kinda dim the audio down abit and its only in my games i suppose things like youtube and facebook still retains it original volume so it seems that CURRENTLY it only happens to games (i haven’t tested with other apps) when i use messenger call on browsers or even the messenger app downloaded from microsoft store. I know it sound like a mess but im just as confused myself but as for now i dont have much of a problem with it since discord seems to be fine with “the issue” now
Since this seems to be more and more narrowing down to specific situations/combinations and applications, we should now see if there is some setting here somewhere that might explain why it is happening only then. So, i would check your messaging applications for that since they are often offering such a thing. Also, there might be a specific setting in the sound driver maybe and i am not talking about the Windows dialogue this time. Check if there is some of those “newer” former UWP apps installed for it which might affect your setup (especially with the new driver model). They often are named after the manufacturer or sound device or something like that and found in the start menu together with the “normal” applications. The Windows 10/11 calculator is an example for them. They are installed over the Microsoft Store mostly, so you can also look for it there or ask the manufacturers support about it.
Issues often do look like “a mess” depending of how strange they appear and how experienced one is which technology in general. That’s the point where it is important to be patient and test everything step by step and one thing at a time. It is just a question of time until you find the cause! Sometimes, it took me years, however …
Hi felix, glad to hear your issue is slightly remedied, I would also recommend downloading specific software for your headset if there’s any applications on the company website. For example. I just recently got a new phillips headset and downloaded the software for it and with some tweaking I haven’t had my issue come back since then. good luck