Windows 10: Headphone audio stops whenever I open a game

My audio works fine when playing smaller games, but when I open up bigger, more demanding games like Portal 2 or GTA V, my audio stops working through my headphones. It works through the startup screens, but goes away after that. For example, in Portal 2, the audio works during the startup and the valve guy head-turn and stuff, but once I get to the menu the sound disappears. Once I close these games, my audio and sound go back to normal and work again. Is this a problem in my headphones or in my computer and how do I fix it?

:)

 

Headphones Cause Video and Audio Playback to Stop

I performed all of the steps suggested, but still no audio when any change is made in the audio source related to the output jack -

if it's changed at all from system speaker to external speaker or to headphones, audio will stop unless the computer is restarted.

 

Move audio to one side for speakers but not headphones

Hello J1mmyth3F1sh,

Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.

• Is your headphones getting detected in the Playback settings?
  
• Are you trying to play the audio on both Speakers and Headphones at the same time?
  

Ideally, if you have configured Sound settings to play on your left speakers, the same goes with the headphones. The sound starts playing only on the left side of your headphones according to the settings changed.

Meanwhile, we can try configuring the headphones and change the balance level in the sound settings and see if it works. Kindly check with the steps listed below and see if it helps.

Method : Run audio test for your headphones.

• Open Control Panel from the Start menu and click on
  Sound.
  
• In the Sound window, click on your
  Headphones and select Configure option at the bottom left.
  
• By running the test, check if both sides of your headphones are working fine.
  

If that doesn’t help, I would suggest you to check with the audio balance by following the steps listed below:

• Open Sound settings from
  Control Panel, and right click on the Headphones to open its
  Properties.
  
• Click on Levels tab and select
  Balance button. In the Balance window, you can use the slider to balance both left and right headphones equally.
  

However, I commend and appreciate you for recognizing this behavior. This is a valuable suggestion as there may be other users with a similar requirement. Hence, I suggest you to leave a
Feedback for this product so
that our developer team can look into this and check if it can be implemented in the future updates.

Regards,

Mala S

Microsoft Community - Moderator

 

Headphones do not show up when Realtek is installed

OK, so this happened to me on my laptop. It wanted to use the realtek drivers no matter what. Let me show you what to do.
Step 1. Open the start menu and type 'Device Manager' in the search bar. Click on the result.

Step 2.

You'll see this window appear.

Step 3.

Expand the 'Sound , video and game controllers' category.

Step 4. Find 'Realtek High Definition Audio' in the list, then right click it and select Properties.

Step 5.

Click on the 'Driver' tab near the top of the window.

Step 6.

Now click on the button that says 'Roll back driver'.
If the button is dimmed, make sure your Realtek drivers are currently installed.

Step 6. If you did it correctly, the system should ask you to restart to finish. If it does then you finished the tutorial correctly!
Once restarted, Open device manager again using step 1. Expand the 'sound, video and game controllers' category again.

Step 7. If it says 'High Definition Audio Device' then you did it right. Here's a pic for example purposes: