🚀 go-pugleaf

On 9 Jul 2006 15:05:14 -0700, everythingtonothing.com wrote:

(Top posting corrected, shame google gropes dosen't do this 
automagically)

> John Moore wrote:
>> On 6 Jul 2006 17:42:56 -0700, everythingtonothing.com wrote:
>>
>>> Hello everyone.  I recently just purchased an x-fi platinum sound card.
>>>  I also have doom 3.  I am having trouble setting up 5.1 surround sound
>>> and all my looking on the net has left me clueless.  This is my setup:
>>>
>>> Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum connected from "break out" box using a
>>> digital optical out to my home receiver.  I do not get surround sound
>>> and when I open Doom there is not option to turn it on or anything.  I
>>> have my control panel set to 5.1 surround sound speakers and I know
>>> this receiver accepts dolby and all the other surround sound formats
>>> because my DVD player works perfectly with it.  Should I have the Sound
>>> Blaster software set to use an external decoder or the built in one?
>>> Anything else I am missing?
>>> Thanks,
>>> Mike
>>
>> By the sound of your description you are wanting your soundblaster to
>> output surround sound to your reciver via one single digital audio
>> connection.
>>
>> To do this your soundcard would have to encode your audio into Dolby
>> Digital or DTS.
>>
>> AFAIK non of the Soundblasters can do this out of the box and only the
>> Audigy series can do it via a 3rd party app (and with a bit of lag too).
>>
>> All I can say is connect your soundblaster to your reciver using the
>> analouge outputs (if your reciver has multichannel analouge inputs) or
>> ditch your soundblaster and buy a HDA X-plosion, which CAN do Dolby
>> Digital and DTS encoding.  I have one and the sound in Doom3 and all of
>> my other games with surround sound is stunning on my 4.0 speaker setup
>> on my reciver. (centres and subs are for wusses!)
>>

> well that seems somewhat lame.  i thought you can choose to have the
> audio decoded by the built in decoder or through and external source.
> basically the only wqay to get surround sound out of this thing is too
> hook up the analogue cables?  when i play dvds using powerdvd and have
> it set to decode on an external source(my receiver) it works fine but
> the games don't.
> 
> mike

The audio on DVDs is allready encoded in DD or Dts.  All PoweerDVD is 
doing is streaming the audio data directly from the DVD to the digital 
out on your soundcard without touching the data.  The audio in nearly 
all games isn't encoded so the internal/external decode option won't 
make any difference as theres nothing to decode.

To sum things up:

1. Your reciver needs Dolby Digital, Dts or multichannel analogue to 
output sourround sound (not counting Dolby Pro Logic or DTS Neo:6, but 
thats a different kettle of fish...).
2. Surround sound != Dolby Digital or Dts.
3. Nearly all games output surround audio as multichannel audio (via 
DS3D or OpenAL) to the soundcard which then outputs it as best it can.  
Either as stereo or as multichannel analogue.
4. AFAIK, only soundcards with 'Dolby Digital Live' or 'Dts Connect' can 
encode that multichannel audio into Dolby Digital or Dts in hardware.
5. Currently non of the soundblasters have 'Dolby Digital Live' or 'Dts 
Connect'.

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