5.1 surround sound from P8P67 problem

[bigmike20vt]

Hi

I am sure it is a setting somewhere in windows, however i cant find it.

I have an asus P8P67 with sandybridge cpu in windows 7 64 bit.

i want to use my sharkoon 5.1 headphones however on enabling the optical out in windows, i can find nothing to select 5.1 out.

my sharkoon speakers are only detecting dolby pro-logic and NOT 5.1

assoon as i hook up to my xbox the 5.1 light comes on.

thanks

Mike

 

[Marsman]

SPDIF is stereo unless Dolby Digital or DTS is applied. To get 5.1 in real time, you need Dolby Digital Live, or DTS Connect. Neither of which are part of your board by the looks of it, so you would require a sound card. I think the Sharkoon is Dolby only, so even if your board did have DTS Connect, that still would be of no use.

Xonar D1/DX or X-Fi Titanium, probably. Both have Dolby Digital Live. X-Fi Xtreme Gamer also has the ability to use DDL, but you need to purchase a $5 additional software pack from Creative's US store in order to use it. There might be some cheaper OEM X-Fi cards that can use DDL, although I'm not sure if they would also require the software pack.