Need a sound card that does DDL and DTS

elrasho · 23 Oct 2011 at 18:18

I currently have a Creative XFI Xtreme Music and I bought the DDL/DTS Pack for $5 but it doesn't work. I've tried everything from older drivers to changing the PCI slot that cards in (yes that's how desperate I am to get this working).

When I select DDL or DTS from the creative control panel I cant play anything, windows media player says the device is in use(this is the error code: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows7/C00D11B1). When having DDL decoding enabled and I play a game, the receiver shows a dolby digital signal coming through but I get no sound. I've tried every single possible combination of speaker settings to get DDL/DTS coming over SPDIF to my AV Receiver but no joy, the only way I can get DDL/DTS is to make my AV Receiver do the decoding. This is OK in movies but doesn't work well at all in games. For example in Warhammer Space Marines when someone is talking behind me it is barley audible through the back speakers, but when I use HDMI PCM from the 5850 on-board sound card its crystal clear.

I want the decent 5.1 Dolby sound from a sound card so I'm thinking of getting a Asus Xonar DX 7.1 which has built in DDL and DTS decoding. Will this do what I want?

elrasho · 23 Oct 2011 at 18:38

Well this is strange! I accidentally set my headset as the default device and I started get DTS sound from my receiver!? This is what my sound options look like:

As you can see I should have SPDIF Out as my default to get sound going out from the SPDIF socket, but instead I've got the Auxiliary selected as default (which is a single green jack for my headset) but Im getting sound to the receive AND to my headset!? What the heck is going on!?

I've tried with Dolby Digital and it works too, Im puzzled??

Your probably thinking why I dont use PCM sound over HDMI. Well I found it was affecting my framerates. Even though the HDMI was only being used for sound, Windows 7 sees it as a second display and so uses some of the 5850s power to display something thats not actually connected to monitor. Because of this I was losing around 10fps average in games, which is a lot for someone who doesn't like gaming below 60fps.

elrasho · 24 Oct 2011 at 13:06

Bump.. anyone able to shed some light on this?

elrasho · 24 Oct 2011 at 21:56

I am getting sound though, its just that I have Windows 7 set to the green auxilarry connection as the default and only then I get sound through the SPDIF!?

elrasho · 24 Oct 2011 at 22:04

james.miller said:
That's probably correct. If you think about the way DDL and DTS encoding work (they encode an analogue source in to a lossy format) then having the speakers as the default output is probably the way it has to work in order for the encoders to function.

I dont get it

DDL/DTS convert digital not analogue right? Isn't SPDIF digital?

I understand DD converts to a lossy format (and tbh I cant notice a difference between DD and PCM over HDMI although I've read PCM over HDMI is meant to me a lot better) but why would I have to tell Windows 7 to pump sound over the green analouge connection in order for the sound to travel down the SPDIF socket aswell?

elrasho · 24 Oct 2011 at 22:25

joeyjojo said:
If you can't get all the sound piped in PCM over SPDIF, then all but the cheapest xonar cards will do on-the-fly dolby digital (called DDL Dolby Digital Live) so this is another option.

The thing is guys I bought the DDL/DTS pack which gives me options to decode in Dolby or DTS:

The XFI is decoding the Dolby, my AV Receiver is just passing it through. I know this because I have the receiver set to "straight" which in the manual means it doesn't process the audio, it simply passes it through,

If I switch off Dolby decoding in the XFI Control panel and then select Dolby Pro Logic 2 on the AV Receiver it does do 5.1 surround sound but its pants compared to the XFI Dolby decoding.

I can get PCM through the onboard sound card on the 5850 but I found it takes away about 10fps in my games thats why I now have sound coming through my XFI xtreme gamer

EDIT: I think I understand whats happening, its the HOW Im struggling with lol its working like I want it to but its the bugging the hell out of me as I dont know how!

elrasho · 24 Oct 2011 at 23:38

james.miller said:
Well, not really. It's more a format issue. 24bit/192khz pcm stereo (which spdif supports perfectly fine) is 9.2Mb/sec whereas DTS over spdif supports up to 1.5Mb/sec. granted, that's lossy and at a low bitrate, but it's still very good in terms of sound quality. But anyway, there's no reason why spdif couldnt have supported 48khz/24bit 8 channel lpcm, which unless my maths are wrong, also works out about 9.2Mb/sec. Ie, well inside the bandwidth limits of spdif.

No! you are trying to encode, not decode.

encoding = take a multi-channel source, encode it, pass it to the amp through the spdif output for the amp to decode.
decoding = take DD or DTS from a dvd (or a similar source), decode it and output the separate channels to an amp via the soundcards analogue outputs.
passthru = take the dd/dts audio straiht from the source and pass it through the spdif untouched to the amp for decoding.

Thanks that clears things up

but I still don't know why its working for me with my current configuration. Looking at your three examples, it sounds like im doing a mixture of encoding and passthru.. xfi is encoding in Dolby and the AV Receiver is passing it through to my speakers.

elrasho · 26 Oct 2011 at 12:12

hughythomas said:
Thanks again for your response James. You've really helped my understanding of this - much appreciated!

Just a couple more questions bro.

I currently have an Auzentech X-Fi Prelude. The 3.5mm analogue jack is connected to some Logitech 2.1 desktop speakers (at my monitor) and my Denon AVR-1910 is connected to the SPDIF output of the Prelude for surround sound through my Monitor Audio BX series setup (which I use for games like GTAIV when I play on the couch in front of the TV).

Someone (Alfbaxter) in another thread kindly helped me find the "bit-matched playback" function on the Prelude which, if I understand correctly, enables digital playback without any sort of DSP (ie lossy signal degradation) on my music collection over SPDIF into my loudspeaker setup.

I was recently looking at the Auzentech X-Fi HomeTheater HD as an upgrade to my Prelude:

http://www.auzentech.com/site/products/x-fi_hometheater_hd.php

Notice one of the big things about the HomeTheater HD is a) the HDMI I/O and b) harping on about Dolby TrueHD & DTS-HD.

In my rig I also have an NVIDIA GTX 580 for graphics. It has an HDMI output on the back.

From what you are saying it sounds like my GTX 580 would be more than up to the task of outputting lPCM 7.1 channel digital surround sound over HDMI into my receiver right?

So is there no point in upgrading to the HomeTheater HD as my GTX 580 could handle audio over HDMI to my receiver or am I missing something key?

Sorry for the hijack of the thread btw - would be more than happy to start a new one if need be?

I used my 5850 to pipe out 5.1 PCM sound to my receiver and it worked great. Only problem was Windows 7 and CCC saw this HDMI connection as a second monitor (my Asys 24" monitor is connected via DVI to the 5850) so it played havok with my fps in games. If you disable the monitor in display settings it also disables the sound!

Thats why I resorted to using my XFI Xtreme Music and SPDIF connection to pump out Dolby Digital to my AV receiver. tbh I cant hear the difference between PCM and Dolby Digital.

EDIT: I dont like the look of this setup either: http://www.auzentech.com/site/images/connect1_hthd_sm.jpg surely having your graphic piped through a sound card will add lag?