PC to AV Receiver for 5.1

[Scottland]

Hi,

I'm contemplating upgrading my 2.0 setup to 5.1, I'm just debating with myself if it's worth it - but I have a logistical query with regards to which output would be best.

I don't want either of my displays going through an AV receiver for various reasons, so the AV receiver will be doing audio only via Optical/Coax or via HDMI?

In theory I think I should be able to have a HDMI cable from my gfx card to the AVR and telling windows to only send audio via that. However this seems like it could be a bit of a mess with windows potentially picking up the AVR as an additional display? Which leaves me with digital out from my soundcard. But unless I'm mistaken, I'd lose out on DTS-HD etc?


Thoughts? Has anyone a similar setup?

 

[Richeh]

It is possible with HDMI as long as your graphics card has 2xHDMI out (or DP for your monitor and HDMI to the receiver), you will need the AVR enabled in Windows but simply don't extend to that display. Via HDMI you can get all HD audio but yes coax or optical will limit to standard DTS/DD.

 

[darreny]

Optical out on motherboard?

 

[Aberfala]

I tried both methods but in the end the only way I can get 5.1 to work reliably through an AV receiver is via the 3 3.5mm analog connectors to RCA on the receiver.

I'll explain the problems I had as briefly as I can but so you know I didn't give up easily I spent the best part of a year trying different things until I ended up going back to an older receiver I have that has the analog connectors.

HDMI - I use DP for my screen so was using HDMI just for audio to the receiver and it worked a lot of the time but sometimes for no reason the PC would decide the receiver was the primary display so I had to swap connectors and reboot to get it working again.

Optical - It worked but I got lots of stuttering with the audio despite following all the known ways to reduce latency, sometimes it was fine but in the end too frustrating to keep it that way. I got the same problems with onboard audio or several sound cards I tried. Thought I'd better add that I'm talking about 5.1 in games, for movies optical is fine.

 

[hornetstinger]

No problem with using optical out to AVR for games or movies. You're doing it wrong.

Try and stick to HDMI so you don't lose HD audio, otherwise drop to coaxial/optical.

 

[barmyllama]

I've actually just done this myself via the HDMI connected monitor on a 3 screen set up and works perfectly.

If you go to playback devices from the volume icon in the tray and make your monitor the default device for audio, click on configure and set to 5.1.

This also allowed me to connect games consoles to the AVR and use my monitor instead of a separate TV

 

[Jamesyboyjim]

Used to use optical for 5.1 from my PC. I had to set the optical connector as the default playback device (like in the post above) then tell it to output dts/dolby from the soundcards own application settings.