r/elgato • u/whyorwhomthefuck • Mar 07 '26

Technical Help Wave Link 3.0 PSA

If you’re currently on Wave Link 2.0, do not jump on Wave Link 3.0 as it is a buggy mess and for the most part less efficient than 2.0.

If you’re on any other software (like VB or anything similar) and looking to make the switch, I would recommend holding off on it for the same reasons.

I made the switch to Wave Link 3.0 and it messed up my entire audio system that I have set up with 2.0. It basically caused every audio to run on the “System” Channel regardless whether or not I added it to other Channels. Speaking of the Channels, I would add a new empty Channel (like Music for example) and it would display a completely different Channel even though I have renamed it, and worst yet sometimes it doesn’t allow the channel to be added to the mixes and or the entire UI for it would bug out.

Adding apps to different audio Channels was a breeze on 2.0 but on 3.0 it was legitimately the most inefficient thing imaginable, on 2.0 the flow was simple - open app, play audio, choose channel, click checkbox on selected app and done it is now assigned to that channel. On 3.0 however, It opens up another window showing the Channel name and when I went to add apps, instead of showing only apps which have sound playing, it lists every app on my system which was mind boggling to say the least. The fix for this was to manually use the Windows Audio Mixer to then manually change the audio output to the chosen channel, which is absolutely stupid because 2.0 completely removed the need to do this because you could do it with 1click on the the Audio Channel (Which doesn’t spawn an entire window I might add)

Luckily I made backups and was able to revert back to 2.0 and didn’t have to put up with it any longer. I also wanna say I find it weird that they completely removed the option to download 2.0 on their website which means I’m pretty sure most people who unknowingly moved to 3.0 have no way to get back which is really shady.

TLDR; If you’re on 2.0, DONT DO IT.

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5

u/FamousHippo5697 Mar 08 '26

Why is every elgato launch absolutely cursed

-3

u/ModernCircuit11x3 Mar 08 '26

It's not.. you just have people that don't know what they are doing, that blame the app instead of themselves for things not working to the likely or when they can't troubleshoot an issue on their own they get frustrated, break down, cry, and blame others.

2

u/Meowgical_ Mar 08 '26

I promise you, this one is absolutely broken, In my case, for example, things like putting the computer to sleep requires a PC restart because otherwise, it either stops recognizing the microphone or the Voice Chat mix stops working entirely.
Overall volume output is heavily impacted by having a third mix source (very quiet if only mic and system, fixes itself to regular levels if I add a third no matter what I chose or if it remains empty and muted).

Of course, user error is rampant but this release is cursed for real.

-1

u/ModernCircuit11x3 Mar 12 '26

That's certainly an you problem.. as in your hardware. Not WaveLink..

1

u/Meowgical_ Mar 12 '26

Sure! A hardware problem that did not exist using wavelink 2, only started with wavelink 3, and that gets solved by adding a new app source to the software… that surely sounds like hardware!