[ammarmalik]

I'm in the process of purchasing a new sound card to go along with my Yamaha 5.1 speakers and its AVR. The thing is, video games require either DTS Connect or Dolby Digital Live encoding on the sound card, and a decoder on the other end for true surround sound via optical out. I've heard on several different forums that these two technologies are currently non-functional on Windows 10.
 
Before I purchase a sound card for this to found out it was for nothing, does any one here have any experience with this matter?
 
These are the forum threads
http://forums.creative.com/showthread.php?t=722732
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-hardware/51-channel-surround-sound-not-working-in-windows/b14b932f-2fda-44e9-b22f-aeaa3f329958?auth=1
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/games_windows_10/dolby-digital-live-or-dts-conect-do-not-work-on/2d27465a-493f-4c5b-8f2a-afde849a455a

 

[mindbomb]

if you use hdmi, you don't need any encoders.

 

[ammarmalik]

You need encoding for PC games. That's the way it is. And neither Nvidia nor AMD GPUs do DTS or Dolby Digital encoding via HDMI.

 

[cdsa35000]

Use the 5.1 analog outputs from soundcard to 5.1 analog inputs of AVR is better SQ, but more cables.
Those analog outputs are from uncompressed (PCM) game/audio, where-else DDL and DTS are heavily compressed into 5.1 channels where normally only uncompressed stereo pcm fits through!

 

[mindbomb]

  You need encoding for PC games. That's the way it is. And neither Nvidia nor AMD GPUs do DTS or Dolby Digital encoding via HDMI.

Let's back up and think about this. Dolby digital and dts are lossy audio compression for multichannel audio for legacy digital connections like spdif where bandwidth is limited. With HDMI, you have enough bandwidth for 8 channels without compression.

 

[ammarmalik]

Use the 5.1 analog outputs from soundcard to 5.1 analog inputs of AVR is better SQ, but more cables.
Those analog outputs are from uncompressed (PCM) game/audio, where-else DDL and DTS are heavily compressed into 5.1 channels where normally only uncompressed stereo pcm fits through!

My AVR doesn't have analog 5.1. And I doubt there are many in the world that do.

 

[ammarmalik]

  Let's back up and think about this. Dolby digital and dts are lossy audio compression for multichannel audio for legacy digital connections like spdif where bandwidth is limited. With HDMI, you have enough bandwidth for 8 channels without compression.

That is all fine, except for the fact that PC games do NOT have either dolby digital or DTS. Which is why the sound from the games first needs to be encoded in Dolby Digital or DTS Connect, sent over a digital connection, and then decoded by the AVR. Because video cards do not do any kind of encoding, I'll only get 2 channel PCM audio over their HDMI connection.

 

[cdsa35000]

Check on/above motherboard if there is an unconnected SPDIF jumper connector, that outputs coax and with an optical transmitter for optical out.

Do Windows Sound control panel have SPDIF-Out player?
--
Or buy an usb soundcard (soundblaster?) that have DDL Optical out?

 

[ammarmalik]

Check on/above motherboard if there is an unconnected SPDIF jumper connector, that outputs coax and with an optical transmitter for optical out.

Do Windows Sound control panel have SPDIF-Out player?
--
Or buy an usb soundcard (soundblaster?) that have DDL Optical out?

My motherboard does have an optical out. Movies can playback digital surround sound just fine since the motherboard just passes through the audio straight to the receiver. However my motherboard doesn't do DDL or DTS Connect, which is needed for games. My original question was regarding the functionality of these two technologies in Windows 10, which from what I've heard is broken at the moment for some reason.

 

[sonci]

I always used soundcard analog out, in my time of gaming, but I don't think you can tell much in SQ, in theory analog out  should be better,
as you notice most here game with headphones, and don't care of DTS connect
I'd say: stay with windows 7 for at least another 5 years,
stay with the current soundcard for at least  another 10 years.

 

[mindbomb]

 
That is all fine, except for the fact that PC games do NOT have either dolby digital or DTS. Which is why the sound from the games first needs to be encoded in Dolby Digital or DTS Connect, sent over a digital connection, and then decoded by the AVR. Because video cards do not do any kind of encoding, I'll only get 2 channel PCM audio over their HDMI connection.

 
This is specifically a spdif problem, the fact that it is limited to 2 channels without compression. In pc, normally the connection to the dac is pci express or usb 2.0, rather than spdif, and both can support 8 channels uncompressed pcm. HDMI, as well, can do 8 channels uncompressed. So for a pc game, it would make no sense to encode the audio - there's likely no issue with just having the game just output 5.1/7.1.
 
You should be able to do it. Make sure windows is not set to stereo in control panel. Make sure to use the hdmi audio driver that comes with your video drivers. Have the game set to surround sound. Hdmi to receiver, and then have then receiver to tv.