Because they can't make it any smaller without removing the ridiculous amount of bugs they are known for.
this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2023
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WTF
For comparison, the whole Linux kernel source code that contains every driver for every piece of supported hardware, including stuff from Realtek, is just 213 MB.
Edit: I hit "post" instead of toggling preview mode off. Still getting used to this site.
You didn't say specifically which Realtek drivers you were talking about, so I took a peek at the contents of the .zip archive here: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/19336/realtek-high-definition-audio-driver-for-windows-10-windows-11-for-intel-nuc8i7be-nuc8i5be-nuc8i3be-products.html
(unzip -l Audio-Win10_Win11-6.0.9360.1.zip | grep -v '^Archive' | grep -v '^ Length' | grep -v '^----' | sort -b -k1 -n | less, if anybody's interested)
The byte hogs appear to be the IntelSSTPreprocStreamer.dll files which, and I've no idea, are gargantuan. Almost 75 megs each. There are lots of other files that I doubt anybody but two engineers who haven't been on vacation in thirty years know the purpose of. Lots of what look like localization files.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, "what" is pretty easy to answer. "Why," on the other hand... your guess is as good as mine. Ring up Richard C. Hoagland or something, because anybody's guess is just as good as anybody else's.
Do you have a link to the driver? I can't see one that big on the Realtek site (but I didn't look that hard). I found one from Intel that's 663mb and a Dell one that's 285mb. Both are still pretty big. I downloaded the Intel one and it looks like there are many different drivers in there, but not 600mb worth, the big parts are part of Intel smart sound technology.
I usually download them from the Dell website for my work in IT support. It doesn't really play a role for which model. Here's an example:
That is a PKzip-style self extracting archive, so running unzip on it works the way you'd expect. I ran the same string of commands on it that I did on the archive downloaded from Intel, and it looks like NNResources64.dll is the culprit, clocking in at 193 megabytes. The next biggest file in the archive is RTAIODAT.DAT, which weighs in at a comparatively svelte 55 megs.
I have no idea why they need to be that big. It makes no sense to me.
The ones on Realtek's site are absurdly tiny by today's standards (which probably means they're somewhat sensible and decently engineered): https://www.realtek.com/en/component/zoo/category/pc-audio-codecs-high-definition-audio-codecs-software
You can always download the package and just extract the driver and skip installing the whole software package.
Or... Switch to Linux.
The size is not a problem. I'd just like to know the reason for it.
Look for them on https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Home.aspx in the search box using the ID string like (example) you find in the driver details
PCI\VEN_1414&DEV_00E0&SUBSYS_00000000&REV_04
and you will find the latest WHQL drivers, and in general just what's needed to use your device and not all kind of bloatware/software that you'll never use.
The big size is not really a problem. I'm just wondering why it's like that.
Thanks anyway :)
Switch to Linux, you can have an entire operating system in 900MB.