Oh, how I hate Creative.......

[Edwood]

Let me count the ways.

Well, I'm faced with a problem with sound in gaming.

Specifically, getting 5.1 digital surround sound to work in Windows.

I have an Audigy 2. Installed latest drivers. 5.1 surround sound works perfectly with DVD's and AC3 encoded DiVX files.

Just absolutely no surround sound with any games, or even in Creative's stupid speaker test. All I hear is "left channel", pause, "right channel", pause, pause.

I guess I am correct in guessing that Creative does nothing to support Dolby Digital other than to slap stickers on their boxes and leave it up to game developers?

Is the only way to have surround gaming with Creative is to buy wimpy computer speakers?

-Ed

 

[Edwood]

OK, well, the only software solution I've come across is this:
http://acidbao.free.fr/isoft/dlpage.php?prog=DolbyOutDS

Installing it, hoping it doesn't pooch my system......

-Ed

 

[wallijonn]

Do you get 5.1 sound when you play a 5.1 DVD movie?

 

[Jasper994]

Creative doesn't support Dolby Digital except as a pass through for DVD (or apparently divx). In order for games to work in 5.1 with a Creative card you would have to run 3 sets of 1/8" to RCA cables into a reciever with 6 channel inputs. Games that advertise Dolby Digital do so because some of the NForce cards offer Dolby Digital content creation. In other words they take the games output and create a DD signal that can be output spdif to a reciever.

 

[Edwood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wallijonn Do you get 5.1 sound when you play a 5.1 DVD movie?

Yes, I do.

But still no 5.1 digital from my games.

The DolbyOutDS didn't do a thing.

-Ed

 

[Born2bwire]

The Audigy 2 does support software decoding of Dolby Digital using its drivers. Make sure that you've set both the Soundcard's menus and Windows Control Panel settings to 5.1 speakers (sometimes games go off of what Windows is set too and more annoyingly some will reset it to what's set in the game). Also make sure you're using games that support DS3D and that you've set the correct number of speakers in the game. What games are you having problems with?

 

[Mr.Radar]

The only consumer solution that's out right now that supports Dolby Digital Live encoding (real-time consumer Dolby Digital encoding) is nVidia's SoundStorm (integrated into nForce 1 & 2 AthlonXP motherboards). I think an upcomming card from Terratec will support it as well, but it's not due out until the second quarter of 2005.

 

[Edwood]

Yeah, it sucks. I want 5.1 Digital outputted through SPDIF. I don't want analog 5.1 gaming which is the only surround sound supported by PC games now.

And I don't want to downgrade to an NForce 2 mobo.

Hopefully there is a good gaming card that gets their sh** together and offer a feature that has been a standard in certain console gaming system for over 2 years now.

-Ed

 

[Fastjack]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edwood Yeah, it sucks. I want 5.1 Digital outputted through SPDIF. I don't want analog 5.1 gaming which is the only surround sound supported by PC games now.

Uhmm...well, technically the Audigy 2 supports just that. It has 3 pairs (making 6 channels) of SPDIF outputs on the digital out jack. It looks like a 1/8 headphone jack with an additional channel (3 SPDIF signals plus ground). The problem is that you need three DACs or a Dolby Digital Receiver with seperate digital inputs for each pair of channels (no idea whether something like that exists).

 

[Jasper994]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Born2bwire The Audigy 2 does support software decoding of Dolby Digital using its drivers. Make sure that you've set both the Soundcard's menus and Windows Control Panel settings to 5.1 speakers (sometimes games go off of what Windows is set too and more annoyingly some will reset it to what's set in the game). Also make sure you're using games that support DS3D and that you've set the correct number of speakers in the game. What games are you having problems with?

Yup, it supports Dolby Digital DECODING not encoding...