Need a new sound card

[something daft already!!]

My old Asus Xonar DX is getting a bit long in the tooth. No driver updates since 2015 and even with hacked drivers, I am getting some stuttering in game and also some crashes in one game.

I use a DTS 5.1 amp and speakers which is getting old but served me well. They connect via optical.

I am looking for a card to replace this which supports DTS out via optical and I was looking at the

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/crea...aming-sound-card-70sb174000000-sc-104-cl.html

But I can't see if this supports DTS output. Can anyone confirm if it does and if the quality is up to much?

Or perhaps suggest a better card which does but not silly money. About £100 max

Thanks!

 

[something daft already!!]

Sorry to jump in, but I'm looking for exactly the same, did you manage to find a card?

Cheers,

I have ordered one of these as the volume knob will be handy:

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/crea...ound-card-retail-70sb150600001-sc-090-cl.html

 

[something daft already!!]

It will arrive next Monday so I will post my results.

 

[something daft already!!]

Dropped few hints and my partner is buying me a

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/logi...ker-system-500w-rms-980-000469-sp-099-lg.html

Which should go well with it. Not getting it until feb lol.

 

[something daft already!!]

The card arrived as expected. There were and are a few issues though. Using DTS negates the volume control in Windows, you have to use the amp's own volume control, unlike the Asus card. It isn't too happy about switching between headphones and speakers and back again. It will report the speakers as working but no sound will be heard. I will have to reboot or I found changing from DTS to something else then back again can fix it. I could use my USB headset but that defeats the purpose of the upgrade.
There are two modes for Dolby. Dolby Digital live and DTS. My amp is DTS and always used this mode on my old Asus card. I have connected it to the sound card using the Toslink cable. I have found the sound drops out and back in a lot after a time. The sound drops, I see the Dolby light go off then back on, on the amp and the sound is back until the next drop. I tried Dolby which seems a little more stable but still suffers random drop outs. The only way to not get them is to select No Encoder mode but this restricts it to 2 channel.

I'm not getting stuttering sound in games and the audio when it works is very good. I only hope my new speaker setup will improve matter somewhat.

 

[something daft already!!]

I contacted Creative support and they sent me a patch, well it was a registry update. The audio has not dropped since I installed it. Been testing for half an hour now and no drops. It would have dropped by now. Fingers crossed this has fixed it.