HDR not available to Displayport when sending HDMI audio to amp

[bemaniac]

Hi,

I use a Philips monitor and value using VRR over displayport in 4k with HDR enabled.
I can't use HDMI as no VRR and no 10 bit 4k.

I use a 7.1 amplifier with no analog individual channel inputs.

I want surround sound.

When using VRR/HDR/DP I have to disable the sound from the NVidia graphics card or do 'extend screen' meaning I lose my mouse off the side or I will lose the option to switch on windows HDR.

I've tried optical out from my motherboard but there is no 5.1 or 7.1 option - and I can't choose which speakers to switch on or off ie. use rears as sides in 5.1

Which soundcard do I need to buy? I just want to be able to operate exactly as I would with HDMI albeit compressed over toslink cable. Are there any cards where the optical out can do 5.1 or even quadraphonic (I don't have a centre hence wanting to blend the front)? I'm looking for something with the most flawless compatibility and a really new product for win 10.

 

[bemaniac]

It's a pain in the butt having to enable extended screen and the difficulties getting it to work as intended. There was a thread not so long ago, where someone had trouble, but with HDMI. I'm not familiar enough with all that to offer any meaningful help, but one poster (forget who it was) did offer some advice based on his own experience with his set up. Whether he can offer any help in regard to your specific set up I don't know, but he might post if he sees the thread.

In regard to optical and sound cards though; then I can help there.

You will only get 5.1 over optical, because it can't support 7.1. The reason why you only get stereo from the optical port on your motherboard, is most likely because it doesn't have something called Dolby Digital Live or DTS Connect.

You may already know this, but I'll explain anyway. While SPDIF (optical and Coaxial) can support 5.1, the stream has to be encoded with either Dolby Digital or DTS. Without either of those, SPDIF can only pass stereo. Media such as DVD and BD contain audio tracks that are encoded with DD/DTS, which are then passed to the AV receiver to decode. PC games though, for the most part, do not have DD/DTS. That's where DDL/DTSC come in, as they encode to 5.1 in real time, which the AV receiver can then decode.

Some motherboards do come with DDL/DTSC, but manufacturers tend to include it on only on a few models, and those tend to be the top end boards; otherwise, you'll need a sound card, as you've already mentioned.

Soundblaster Z, would likely be the best choice. It's an older card, but it's not expensive and has Dolby Digital Live feature. SoundblasterX AE-5 is a newer card, but Creative left out providing 5.1 over optical for anything but DVDs, etc. I guess they did that, because it's mainly aimed at headphone use and they can save money by not having to pay Dolby royalties.

In any case; even if the AE-5 did have DDL, there is no benefit over the SB Z. All you need the card to do is to encode the audio with Dolby Digital Live. A more expensive sound card doesn't do that any different to a cheaper one.

Brilliant! I can indeed hack 5.1 out my onboard but the amount of junk required to do this and the error messages on boot are high. Also there is no speaker customisation at the pc end only the AV amp for this.

I'm really happy to see the SoundBlaster Z is the choice here and that it'll work on win10 and has DDL as my board does not.

 

[bemaniac]

I would look into why you can’t get 5.1 at least from the optical connection. I’ve used optical in the past and got 5.1 without any issues. Could be a setting issue or possibly a driver mucking things up.

Yeah Realtek 1220 - I've tried all the hacked drivers and it works but is messy and not customisable in terms of channel mixing.

 

[bemaniac]

One thing I forgot to mention, is that Dolby Digital Live is for 5.1; that's what the receiver will decode it as. There are no configuration options on the PC side, only the options on the receiver.

Nothing you can do about that though, short of finding a solution so displayport will work as you want.

Its all good I've ordered a Z for £50 and I'm going to mix my speakers over on the marantz as it knows what is plugged in and his to correctly use them if I tell it to.

 

[bemaniac]

Hours of windows 10 nightmares with the latest creative control panel release feb 2017. Really crashy and could not get 5.1 in any way. Rumours of a 2019 driver coming April as they just did the x-fi series.

Later I tried the 2016 driver and it works perfectly in 5.1 dolby or dts. Thank god! I'm sorted thanks