SupremeFX II HD Audio help needed!!!

ayrejc

ayrejc

ayrejc

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Joined
28 Nov 2008
Posts
8
Hi

I have a SupremeFX II HD Audio onboard sound set up on my Rampage Formula motherboard. I have connected the PC via optical SPDIF to my Sony HTSF 1300 receiver but am going spare!!! When playing DVDs from disc or the HDD i get 5.1 output when using PowerDVD or VLC media player (after much tweaking). I am using the soundmax (Analog Devices) driver 6.10.2.6230. However whatever i do i cannot get 5.1 output in games. The receiver shows optical connection but just stero output. When i play COD 5 the choice for surround is not available and it says change the settings on my audio device. Any suggestions what i am doing wrong? I have tried the relatek HD driver but it was not recognised and have tried the MS ones but still no joy!! AM i going mad or will the onbaord sound simply not out put 5.1 in games? If not any suggestions on which sound card to buy? I want to connect to my sony reciver via optical or hdmi. I am running vista 64 bit.

Thanks for your help!
 
Im having the same problem with the Soundmax HD audio system on my P5Q deluxe motherboard. Im using the SPDIF with an optical cable connected to my Sony Receiver(str dg710) and it only outputs stereo and i cannot work out why?
 
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S/PDIF only supports stereo audio as standard. To get surround audio, the content must be encoded in a compressed format such as Dolby Digital or DTS. Obviously dvds etc are already in this format, but to get 5.1 audio for anything else you need a encoder package to achieve this. Asus cards support this by default, and Creative cards do aswell (if you purchase the DDL/DTS encoder package). Without an encoder, it's not possible.
 
Thanks mate for the info, i guess i just a bought an optical cable for nothing then :(

Can you or anyone else recommend a good and cheap sound card for gaming with an optical out, connected to a Sony 6.1 surround sound receiver?
 
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You guys are scuppered unfortunately. Microsoft got rid of the Hardware Abstraction Layer that was required for multichannel sound in games using DirectSound3D for Vista.

As far as I'm aware only Asus Xonar, Creative Audigy / X-Fi or Realtek HD onboard audio solutions (and a couple of other more obscure makes) allow multichannel surround in these games. Their respective makers had to come up with fixes so they could get surround sound in Vista.

It's something Microsoft should have fixed really but they don't seem in any hurry to do so. For now, the most straightforward solution in Vista is to get a Xonar and turn on DS3D-GX or an X-Fi and run Alchemy.

Edit: If you want to use Optical - any of the Xonars will be fine (cheapest are D1 or DX). Some X-Fis work out of the box - you just need to check for Dolby Digital Live support. Other X-Fis may need more work to use optical.
 
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Im astonished MS messed that up so badly. And thanks for the advice, ill take a look for a card now. Its so annoying not being able to use perfectly good on board hardware though.
 
Even if you were using XP, you still wouldn't be able to get 5.1 over optical without a DDL/DTS encoder.

MS didn't really mess up regarding 3D audio though, the hardware abstraction layer was removed for stability reasons (duff soundcard drivers being a common cause of BSOD on pre-Vista systems). As Uriel says though the main soundcard manufacturers now have workarounds that allow you to use 3D audio in legacy apps (Asus's DS3D GX, Creative's Alchemy, and Realtek's 3D Soundback), so it's really not that much of an issue for the most part. Newer games use different APIs for 3D audio now, so in the longer run it will work out for the best.
 
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