Home Page of Chris Woods

Discord streaming audio error 1001/1002 on Windows 23H2 - fixed after 26H2 upgrade

For a while, my simracing PC was stuck on Windows 11 23H2 because I used a Windows Mixed Reality headset. WMR was deprecated and forcibly removed from Windows 11 by Microsoft in 24H2, so my only option was to stay on 23H2.

At some point in 2023 or early 2024, Discord audio stopped capturing when I was game streaming - no other changes to my machine. Since then I've periodically tried to get it working trying every possible fix or workaround available, but nothing worked.

I was finally able to update to W11 26H2 this week - and as soon as I did, Discord audio capture in games or application streaming magically started working again!

Without any more info, I can only presume Discord devs made a breaking change in an older build which resulted in audio capture being irreparably broken in 23H2 for certain hardware combinations.

What's even stranger is that on another machine, which I have intentionally kept on Windows 10 23H2, Discord audio capture for game or application streaming continues to work absolutely fine!

I raised support tickets with Discord and investigated logs myself over time, but I never had any meaningful response from them. Logs were inconclusive and didn't offer much by way of useful info on which to base investigations.

Unfortunately, I can't offer a solution in this post for why Discord on one machine started to have this issue with audio capture - I was never able to solve it. What appears to have fixed it was a W11 feature upgrade. Perhaps 24H2 would have fixed it -- but as I remained on 23H2 for much longer than most people (due to VR headset requirements), I could never test that.

Not everyone who has stayed on an older build of W11 may want or be able to upgrade to 26H2, but if you've also got broken Discord streaming audio and you're still on the fence about moving to the latest Windows 11, it may be worth contemplating the upgrade.

Windows Mixed Reality VR headsets get a new lease of life with Oasis

I simrace in VR which is an incredibly immersive experience. I bought an HP Reverb G2 headset in 2021 which uses Windows Mixed Reality - fair enough, I thought, it's a Microsoft product, so it shouldn't become obsolete too soon (foreshadowing warning).

SteamVR works with the headset but performance was a bit subpar, possibly as it uses core Windows components (including the DWM for compositing); after installing the WMR drivers I then fell down the rabbit hole to optimise performance using OpenXR, OXR Toolkit and OpenComposite community fixes to improve frame pacing and foveated rendering...

Eventually I got to a really nice setup where everything just worked well, stable framerates and no reprojection at 90 Hz.

But then...

Day one review: Hotline Games anti-slip grip mod for Razer DeathAdder V2 Pro mouse

I've used Razer mice for years, specifically the venerable DeathAdder. I've tried loads of other mice, including the competition (G502 etc) which are impressive but just don't feel quite right to me. My Deathadder hall of fame (or, the drawer next to my desk) consists of many of the DA models, all used extensively until either destruction or upgrade - starting with the original model, through the various models with their upgraded sensors or higher DPI, until the most recent purchases of the DeathAdder Elite (wired) and the DeathAdder V2 Pro (wired/wireless).

However, as I have Sandpaper Fingers (super dry skin which is quite abrasive), the textured top surface and the silicone side rubber grips quickly get worn down to smooth, shiny surfaces, which I hate. But there is a solution... grip tape!

How to download and install builds of the latest iperf3 Windows versions

iperf3 is a very useful network throughput testing tool, however the most prominent versions available for Windows are either old, buggy or superceded by newer builds. It's always worth keeping up to date with the latest available build, but most people on Windows won't be able to compile from source due to lack of knowledge/lack of time.

The ESNet project maintains iperf3 but doesn't release compiled binaries for Windows. Sites like the high-visibility iperf.fr only host up to v3.1.3 which dates back to 2016 - six years old as of writing, and the operator of that site appears to have gone AWOL or has stopped updating it.

Fortunately, the wonderful user BudMan on the Neowin forums decided to do something about this, and has been steadily compiling the latest iperf3 builds for Windows and hosting them for download since 2014! Someone should buy BudMan a beer. Another Neowin user CryptAnalyst has also recently begun compiling for Windows and is publishing builds to their GitHub. Spoiled for choice!

https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1234695-iperf-311-windows-build/ has the latest build linked directly, and you can download all previous releases from https://files.budman.pw.

For ease of use on the command line, don't forget to extract the zip to a 'persistent' location, then add that folder to your Windows PATH environment variable (it only takes a few seconds). Here's another guide on how to do it in Windows 10; the process is very similar for Windows 7 (see also https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23400030/windows-7-add-path).

Of course, adding the iperf3 path to your Windows PATH variable is optional, but it's convenient. Once done, you can just invoke "iperf3" from a prompt like anything else. Happy throughput testing.