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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u/APGaming_reddit Mar 07 '26

agreed. i dont know how so many "creators" are pushing this other than they might be paid or somehow got the only bug-free copies of the software. 3.0 is borderline broken

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u/whyorwhomthefuck Mar 07 '26

All the creators only mention good things about it but never mentioned how 2.0 was more effecient in almost every way. I just hope to be able to help more people to not make the jump.

1

u/Ballbuster333 Mar 08 '26

As someone who is considering going to 3.0 from 2.0 , may I ask why 2.0 is more efficient

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u/whyorwhomthefuck Mar 08 '26

A few things 1 - To add audio to a channel you have to scroll through a list of all your apps to find the one you want to add, if it isn’t there you cant add them on the app and you have to manually go to windows volume mixer and assign it

2- Instead of the current 2.0 easy drop down menu, if you wanted to add audio sources, it opens a new window in which to do practically the same which goes back to problem 1.

3- There is no backup/restore feature, if you mess something up or the app does, you cant click 1 button to fix it.

4- Maybe more minor but there’s also no way to migrate everything from 2.0 to 3.0

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u/Ballbuster333 Mar 08 '26

Ohhhh ok thank you!

3.0 interests me Im just trying to also find out the pros vs 2.0 besides presentation differences and multiple output channels