Deus Ex HR, how do you enable Dolby Digital

juno_first · 31 Aug 2011 at 18:41

Oh noo.
I just installed them new 264 drivers on my media centrre which has onboard Realtek HD audio device too & theres no DTS option with a Gigabyte DS3R P35.
Looks like not all onboard audio is the same. Actually I remember the Gigabyte DQ6 was a top end P35 back in 2007.
I wonder what the cheapest soundcard is that can filter DTS ?

james.miller · 31 Aug 2011 at 18:50

juno_first said:
Ahh, fmod.

Actaully, no game has ever pumped out surround through the coax cable, unlike the xbox 360.

sure they have,farcry was one of them.

Confused · 2 Sep 2011 at 15:07

The Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6 has onboard sound which support DTS Connect, which can convert any sound into a 5.1 DTS stream for sending down the optical/coaxial output.

This is why the drivers enabled this option (in fact, it should have been there since the start!)

It's a feature of the sound chip - not all of the Realtek chips used for onboard audio will support DTS Connect.

As a note - both are a lossy audio codec - Dolby Digital LIVE has a maximum total bitrate (across all 6 channels) of 640kbps and DTS Connect a maximum total bitrate of 1536kbps - so *could* notice a degradation in audio quality over using discrete analogue outputs (depending on the rest of the audio equipment)

juno_first · 2 Sep 2011 at 17:41

Glad I paid a bit more & got the top end DQ6 now

Over the past 4 years its ran an old B3 quad at 3.7 on water & and survived an 8800GTX setting on fire, although 2 PCI ports have burned out with black charring on the slot which requires a bit of shuffling to get a card work.
Only prob is Ive never seen a P35 chipset which can handle >2GB RAM >1066mhz.

Hmm next mobo I get Im going look out for DTS connect or get a top end model to at least save on a soundcard.

As the audio in game is straight pass through then I presume the quality of the soundchip wont affect game performance as much as regular analogue?
I deffo think this method of audio for games is the way to go if you have a digital amp.

sWiZzLe · 2 Sep 2011 at 18:23

juno_first said:
Hey sWiZzLe, it sounds like the centre/sub could be crossed.

Nah, maybe for the game its crossed but for everything else it is fine.

I thought, sod worrying about the sound and get back to enjoying the game.

Thinking about it, I much prefer playing games on headphones as they cut out the sound of my graphics card!

I'll leave using 5.1 for watching films