X-Fi can't output 5.1 over optical for games!!

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Caporegime
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Rant coming up...

I've been trying to find a solution to the problem of getting a hi-fi setup for the PC involving:

X-Fi sound card [optical]-->AV receiver-->hi-fi speakers

I have in my research discovered that the X-Fi cannot produce 5.1 in games over the digital connections. I have also read that this is partly because PC games generally use EAX rather than Dolby Digital to create the surround effect.

Does this mean that, every time I want to switch between watching a DVD with Dolby Digital to a game utilising EAX, I will have to change the source from optical to analogue in the X-Fi control panel or something?

I find this fairly shocking but I don't know who to blame since although most PC games are developed for DD, why can't the 5.1 work over optical for games in any case?
 
It's because the decoding is done on the PC rather than the amp when using EAX.

Have you tried comparing DD output on analogue instead of the optical?, if it's good enough you could disregard the optical altogether.
 
So if I just use the analogue connections I will still get EAX in games and Dolby Digital 5.1 in movies and not have to fart about? I presumed that the optical offered a substantial improvement in quality over analogue, but if that's not the case, the only other issue is the number of cables going sound card to receiver.
 
Robbie G said:
Oh god. This is the last straw for my Creative card.
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I understand your frustration but it was a simple fact to research before buying

Robbie G said:
What cards output 5.1 over the optical and support DD for games?
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I don't know of any. Maybe an Azuentech? and then you would probably lack proper EAX featues etc

I think how necessary an optical connection is depends on how good your amp and speaker setup it is. If it's a logitech/creative PC 5.1 setup then you'd probably not tell
 
Hen_Dawg said:
I understand your frustration but it was a simple fact to research before buying
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You are right on this point. It was because at time of purchase I never thought I'd bother with hi-fi sound on my PC.

Hen_Dawg said:
I think how necessary an optical connection is depends on how good your amp and speaker setup it is. If it's a logitech/creative PC 5.1 setup then you'd probably not tell
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If you read the first post in this thread you'll see that it's not a PC 5.1 setup. It will be a Denon 1507 receiver and Wharfedale 9.1 bookshelfs. Do you think this would merit changing over the connections for music and DVDs compared to games?
 
I've looked into this a bit more and what you gain by getting Dolby in games you often lose with effects such as EAX and headphone enhancements. As a result I'm just going to use analogue and switch manually to digital when I'm watching a film that I'm really concerned about.

For example, the first link you gave me - that card only supports EAX 2.0.

Many thanks for the idea though I really appreciate the help offered in this thread :).
 
You've come to the right conclusion. I too value the advanced EAX effects over the rest. I have an E-MU 0404 soundcard I'm not using because, despite it's definite superior sound quality over X-Fi, it can't compete for gaming.

I think what it will come down to is, if you do notice a difference in sound, just how bothered you are to switch outputs. It won't take you too long to realise how much you value that extra bit of quality. Plus the switch is relatively easy
 
Robbie G said:
I have in my research discovered that the X-Fi cannot produce 5.1 in games over the digital connections. I have also read that this is partly because PC games generally use EAX rather than Dolby Digital to create the surround effect.
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almost. its quiet possible to do any eax processing before the audio is transcoded into 5.1DD/DTS. it's what the DD/dTS encoding cards do after all. The difference between those and the creatives is that the creatives support eax 5.0hd or whatever its called now but have no dd/dts encoder. the encoding cards obviously have the encoder, but are currently limited to eax2.0.


having tried bother methods, right now the x-fi's are the better gaming cards full stop. and dd/dts encoding produces a delay in the audio output and it is noticeable. id take an x-fi and analoue over any of the current dd/dts encoding cards.

the auzentec x-fi prelude is a card to watch for. its still unconfirmed whether it can encode dd/dts using the full suit of EAX effects.
 
I have an x-fi and I'd just like to point out I never ever touch any settings between watching a film via optical and playing games via analogue! I set the spdif signal to just send raw data out all the time and set up the card with the analogue outs... then i set power dvd to output via spdif and I only switch the input on the decoder when i'm doing one or the other .. i dont need to change anything in the xfi panel - and i prefer the external decoding rather than the xfi's. I've also noticed that crystalizer works in spdif out too!
 
Robbie G said:
Rant coming up...

I've been trying to find a solution to the problem of getting a hi-fi setup for the PC involving:

X-Fi sound card [optical]-->AV receiver-->hi-fi speakers

I have in my research discovered that the X-Fi cannot produce 5.1 in games over the digital connections. I have also read that this is partly because PC games generally use EAX rather than Dolby Digital to create the surround effect.

Does this mean that, every time I want to switch between watching a DVD with Dolby Digital to a game utilising EAX, I will have to change the source from optical to analogue in the X-Fi control panel or something?

I find this fairly shocking but I don't know who to blame since although most PC games are developed for DD, why can't the 5.1 work over optical for games in any case?
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Hmm.. not got a X-Fi myself, but I use my onboard sound with my av amp/setup. I use digital out to amp, and also 6 channel analoque to amp. (So essentually dual connection setup :p )

WinDVD is set to output raw DD/DTS signal down digital connection (so amp does all the work), as well as the front speakers/line out being passed down digital line when WinDVD not in use. Believe WinDVD "takes over" the digital line as/when it needs it..?

I leave the amp on digital in for watching movies and listening to music (amp switches between surround/stereo when it detects a DD/DTS or Stereo accordingly).

When playing games I switch the amp to "6 channel input" mode and there you go - full surround gaming. Don't need to change anything on the sound control setup etc.

This is the benefit of using a "proper" av amp rather than a hybrid pc speaker system setup...?

Nothing out of the ordinary, but then creative may just like doing things their own way... :D The only problem I can see is if the card utilises some sort of output switching setup, and you can't use digiital out and 6 channel out at the same time?

Hope that helps?#

edit: I have it this way as I prefer to listen to music in stereo, and via digital. The only down side is that if you want to listen to windows driven surround media (as in anything in surround from a divx, avi, wma etc file) in surround you'll have to switch the amp to 6 channel in mode.

So you have the choice of sticking with digital most of the time with the limits of the above, and switch to 6 channel input for games....

.....or leave it on 6 channel in most of the time and switch it to digital if you want the amp to process the DD/DTS surround sound (which it generally handles a lot better than software decoding).

All depends on if you play games or watch movies/listen to music most and if you prefer the better quality of the digital signal.

Found myself in the same "dilemma". Bought a HDA-Digital 'Mystique' audio card for realtime DD encoding, but found it had driver issues and conflicts with my board (lots of odd clicks/noise from the speakers when in use). Also played music from all four speakers when I only wanted it in the fronts (but then I think thats a windows direct sound limitation/"feature"?). So reverted back to onboard (which is hi def anyway on the board I have?).

The setup above was the best comprimise in my case.

Ok - I'll stop waffling now. :D
 
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You do realise that all you are talking about is changing the connection method ?

Unless the game comes with a specific DD soundtrack all you are doing is letting your magic DD soundcard or nforce motherboard take the original sound and encode it on the fly to a digital bitstream and output it over an optical or digital connection. You aren't getting the same sort of true DD like you do say on a proper dvd film.

A true DD soundtrack in a game takes up disk/dvd space hence why the PS2 only features DD in cut scenes usually - it has no on-the-fly encoder like the original Xbox and a full DD soundtrack would mean too much disk space.

Here's the relevant section on the Dolby site - http://www.dolby.com/consumer/technology/dolby_live.html
 
There's a card that will do everything you want it to:
X-Fi Prelude

It is X-Fi but it will encode Dolby Digital and DTS on the fly so that you can send sound through your amp.

Kipper67, the problem is that games that have 5.1 sound, like Half Life 2 or Call of Duty will not work properly if you try to send the sound over an optical or coax connection to an AV amp unless you sound card does DD Live or DTS on the fly. These functions encode the 5.1 sound into a digital bit stream that can then be decoded by the amp.

The Prelude is supposed to be out today. But it was supposed to be out 2 months ago. It should be worth it though.
 
LazyGit said:
Kipper67, the problem is that games that have 5.1 sound, like Half Life 2 or Call of Duty will not work properly if you try to send the sound over an optical or coax connection to an AV amp unless you sound card does DD Live or DTS on the fly. These functions encode the 5.1 sound into a digital bit stream that can then be decoded by the amp.
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Lol - yeah I know that - although what you state isn't strictly true as you are still left with the option of 6 channel discrete output to an amp/av receiver with 6 channel discrete inputs to get 5.1 sound.

Its just people seem to be under the impression that DOLBY DIGITAL in games is the same as DOLBY DIGITAL in films when in 99% of cases that isn't correct.

To give an example when you see warez DVDs being circulated they often have the extra dolby digital language tracks ripped out along with the DTS soundtrack and the dolby stereo track to decrease the download size - these specific "extra" tracks that are encoded in the sound format.

Simply playing a PC game with a DD live soundcard doesn't miraculously give you a DD soundtrack to the game as there isn't one there on the dvd or hard drive to begin with like there is on a film DVD with DD encoded soundtrack.

I could take an old vinyl record on a turntable and feed the sound into my DD live soundcard and then out via optical to my DD/DTS receiver and 5.1 cinema system - that doesn't suddenly make my 1970's copy of Frank Sinatra singing "ole blue eyes is back" a dolby digital recording does it because the information isn't on the original source - the same goes for PC games.

With me now :D


EDIT added - the reason for my original post is this statement by the OP

What cards output 5.1 over the optical and support DD for games?
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Kipper67 said:
I could take an old vinyl record on a turntable and feed the sound into my DD live soundcard and then out via optical to my DD/DTS receiver and 5.1 cinema system - that doesn't suddenly make my 1970's copy of Frank Sinatra singing "ole blue eyes is back" a dolby digital recording does it because the information isn't on the original source - the same goes for PC games.
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Hehehe - not quite the same though. With an old vinyl record, you are using an older (arguably lesser quality) analoque traditional linear source with associated hiss, noise etc. (If you see what I mean - its late... lol )

On a pc, the original sound can well be far greater quality that DD - such as with uncompressed wave files, 96khz, 24 bit etc. Also the stream is a composed one, and not a converted one - i.e. you could make a 60 minute of sound using just a few sound samples etc. DD is in fact a compressed format too - so I guess that means you may well actually loose some detail in there? How the DD "quality" compares to the analoque signal quality all depends on the quality of the dacs on the sound card - and we know that on the majority of cards they aren't a patch on an external dac such as in an av amp.

Looks like I'm wandering into the realms of how the sound stream is actually created in the first place. ;) The PC has far more control on how to create sound in the first place - think of it more of a musical instrument than a cd/vinyl player.

Of course the game or app needs to support surround sound in the first place, and all you are doing (as previously stated in posts above) is simply turning the windows directx surround sound format into a more universal digital data stream format (i.e. DD or DTS) and sending it to an external amp.

If the game is only in stereo for example, it will either only play on the front speakers regardless on pc or av amp, or more likely windows will play the same information for the front speakers in the back ones, so you get a sort of "fake" surround, or centered on the sound stage... :)

Of course DVD player software can also simply pass the already rendered/created by the studio DD/DTS audio stream from the dvd files straight out to the av amp for decoding.

Its at times like this I'm just itching to get a pen and some paper out as its sooooo much easier to explain/describe with a few diagrams. :D Like when you set windows with "stereo speakers" and output a DD signal to an AV amp - and then wonder why even in surround mode you only get sound from the front, even on surround AVI/WMA files. :eek: :D
 
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