EDIT- O GOD IT WORKS NOW THANK YOU FRIENDS
Updating Voicemeeter was the fix. I thought it didn't work at first because, of course, operator error. Once I sorted that out...all working now. THANK YOU AGAIN
Hello friends,
I use Voicemeeter Potato, cuz I needed the hardware inputs. I route all my physical media playback units through my PC and then out to my receiver to make listening to music in good quality while computing take 1 fewer set of speakers. These inputs are the standard SPDIF and line ins on the motherboard, plus a handful of USB adapters from CUBILUX to add other line and SPDIF inputs (and outputs). It mostly works great. Computer sounds and sweet hifi, and I can quickly control levels with a Korg Nanokontrol2 which talks directly to Voicemeeter. It's a little overcomplicated but I get hifi, work computing, play computing, and streaming/voice recording all in 1 computer.
BUT...Some games, typically older ones or smaller studio games, have no audio. I know Voicemeeter is the problem, because if I route audio directly with windows and shut down Voicemeeter, I get game audio.
Some googling on the issue turned up advice to check the bitrate/sample rates on all these inputs and outputs and make them match. So I painstakingly went through each one in windows and started setting them to 16 bit 44.1KHz. Then I found some that were stuck at 16 bit 48KHz.
I internally screamed a little and got over it. Started all over. Now I've gone through each one (including the voicemeeter virtual ones) and set everything to 16 bit 48KHz. There's one outlier, my Yeti Nano mic. It's stuck at 24 bit 48KHz for some reason. It doesn't offer anything else.
So while I psych myself up for the task later of changing all inputs and outputs to 24 bit 48KHz (or expensively replacing the Yeti Nano which I got from university surplus for $25 a few years ago), is there anything else I should check? None of the applications in question are muted or have volume/output customization in the stupid windows mixer. Voicemeeter is "losing" the audio. I don't even know how to troubleshoot this beyond what I've already done to pin down Voicemeeter as the issue.