Creative X-fi won't show more than stereo speakers via SPD/IF

Kadath

Gawd
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Dec 20, 2005
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706
I have a brand new Alienware Aurora 4 that arrived friday.

Should mention that it kernal panicked immediately out of the box. :/

But I got past that and updated all the drivers and stuff and got it working just fine with the cheap stereo speakers I had sitting around.

Last night I hooked up an optical cable to the SPDIF out of the XFi titanium that came with my order, swapped to that output in the mixer panel and enabled it. Stereo sound was all that would come out.

The driver appears to be permanently set on 2.1 speakers. Nothing I do can get it to allow me to tell it that I have 5.1

I am no Home Theater / Computer Audio dummy, I recognize that Bluray movies have Dolby Digital Live and DTS tracks on them and those can be set to send out to my receiver just fine. But for games you need to have the computer capable of turning the output into a stream that the receiver recognizes. And the XFI Titanium SHOULD do that, but the first step to doing so is to tell it you actually have it connected to a 5.1 capable system

This thread seems to show that Asus Republic of Gamers are having the same problem but I don't see it on Alienware owner radar anywhere:
http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthrea...X-Fi-MB2-EXPERIENCE-including-Optical-OUT-5.1
Any clues on this?

Also my understanding is that there is no seperate codec purchase needed for Titanium XFI, is that not true?
http://buy.soundblaster.com/_creati...ail&category=Software&pid=F2222DDN6Z2H2ADDEZD
If not that solves it fast for $5, but I thought it came with it.

I know there is an underground beta driver that some people have swapped to but I'd really rather avoid that if at all possible. I'd also like to avoid having to use 6 analog lines out of the back of this thing into my receiver.

I paid a good chunk of change for this box and to have something simple like game audio not work out of the Sound card, one of the biggest manufacturers of said component, seems really baffling. There has to be a simple solution to this.
 
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OK, I see them now under encoder, but when I try to click the radio buttons for DDL and DTS it spins for a second then the "Off" radio button is chose and it says that format is not allowed!
 
I removed the drivers and installed the so called "beta" ones and that was a mess too.

For one boot cycle it was playing the stereo speakers and the 5.1 simultaneously no matter how I set the default device. But hey, it let me set to 5.1!!!!!

Rebooted and now it's back to only allowing me to set to 2.1 on the optical.

Grrrr.
 
Hence why I hate Creative;s driver; I recommend suing either the Daniel_K or PAX drivers instead.

Assuming the DDL/DTS packs are installed, you need to configure your setup to use 5.1, SPDIF out, and either DDL or DTS-C encoding. I also believe the "mode" you select may cause the settings to behave differently, but its been ages since I owned an X-fi based card so I forget the specifics...
 
I'm leery of using 3rd party drivers. Will have to look into the PAX ones, havent heard of those.
 
I've had this problem with my X-fi Titanium. You need to fully uninstall DDL and DTS packs, then uninstall your X-Fi drivers, then reboot, reinstall the drivers, and reinstall the digital packs. If you leave the packs installed while reinstalling drivers they'll continue to fail to "stick" when you activate either one in the encoder panel.

Even though I do have DDL and DTS packs working correctly, I still personally usually say F it, and have the blu-ray software decode the audio to 5.1 and use the analog connections. The DAC on the X-Fi is really nice.
 
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5.1 digital is not going to sound good unless it is for a movie. The creative drivers suck btw. Use the others drivers as they work great. Othetwise, use digital for stereo and analogue for 5.1.
 
I spent a few hours on the phone with their techs, they are as stumped as I am and not willing to just give up at 'Creative's drivers blow'. Will see how things progress this weekend after they have researched it further...
 
Also, I've heard it mentioned that some soundcards can route their sound to the HDMI output on the graphics card if it's not in use otherwise. I have a triple head on my graphics card including 1 HDMI and I'm using the DVI for video. Is it possible to do this from the Soundblaster XFI Titanium to a stock Nvidia 680? I don't remember seeing that port on the Output Device list.
 
If this is just you being stubborn and wanting to figure out a problem; you have picked a good one to unravel.

I am going to just be blunt, the effort you are putting into this will not result in a superior result than if you simply go the proven routes suggested previously. Please just trust me on this. I have gotten the DDL and DTS to work with a very nice system and it sounded weird and compressed compared to analogue 5.1 and/or just pcm digital stereo. If you want uncompressed 5.1, the only way to get it is from your 680 hdmi into a hdmi receiver.

I know how it feels to bang your head against a problem that stubbornly resists resolution. Please just try our suggestions and you will see that they will result in fine sound.
 
OK, as I said in my last post I don't understand how to do that. Do I just select the Nvidia HDMI and games will know to take advantage of it or is there more to it than that?
 
OK, I connected the 680 to my Denon 3806 and it recognized the receiver and I set it as the default output.

When I hit test I can see it playing sounds on the level meter but nothing I do can get sound to come out of the receiver.

Two things. One obviously is this is an older receiver and the UI on it is a pain in the ass, and it probably doesn't support the latest HDMI version 1.3 or 1.4, not sure if that is an issue. That is part of the reason why I tore it out of my HT and put it upstairs here. =/

Second, after it handshakes it still shows analog, like it is found on the PC side but the receiver doesn't recognize the digital output of the PC.

I really don't want to just toss this receiver.

But I'm ready to throw something at this point.

Last resort: Just ordered a USB to serial cable and will run this:
http://www.ehow.com/how_7566129_upgrade-denon-3806-hdmi.html
http://firmware.denon-online.eu/
 
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You are on the right track. The update is certainly required. Don't do anything until you have that going.
 
Again: Ditch the Creative Drivers. Both PAX and Daniel_K are at least usable.
 
OK, I connected the 680 to my Denon 3806 and it recognized the receiver and I set it as the default output.

When I hit test I can see it playing sounds on the level meter but nothing I do can get sound to come out of the receiver.

Two things. One obviously is this is an older receiver and the UI on it is a pain in the ass, and it probably doesn't support the latest HDMI version 1.3 or 1.4, not sure if that is an issue. That is part of the reason why I tore it out of my HT and put it upstairs here. =/

Second, after it handshakes it still shows analog, like it is found on the PC side but the receiver doesn't recognize the digital output of the PC.

I really don't want to just toss this receiver.

But I'm ready to throw something at this point.

Last resort: Just ordered a USB to serial cable and will run this:
http://www.ehow.com/how_7566129_upgrade-denon-3806-hdmi.html
http://firmware.denon-online.eu/

Daniel K... Daniel K... Daniel K... stop wasting your time. They work even if they are 3rd party. you could be done and listening to music by now. Just follow prompts carefully when installing and if you don't mess that up they work fine.. at least mine do.. all 5 speakers and a subwoofer on optical cable.
 
Yeah well if those had been updated recently from an easy to find place that doesn't look like a haven for hackers and trolls I might have done it. As it is the info on it is so frigging spread out and not any reliable place that no, I don't want to risk it.

I got my cable today, not sure how that worked, ordered on weekend and it showed up monday but i'm not complaining.

And the Fheads at Denon have removed all links to the firmware off the web. FFS.
 
Yeah well if those had been updated recently from an easy to find place that doesn't look like a haven for hackers and trolls I might have done it. As it is the info on it is so frigging spread out and not any reliable place that no, I don't want to risk it.

I got my cable today, not sure how that worked, ordered on weekend and it showed up monday but i'm not complaining.

And the Fheads at Denon have removed all links to the firmware off the web. FFS.

http://forums.creative.com/showthread.php?t=587995

How about creative.com?? click hotfile down the bottom
 
mmm, I didn't see the official support there before, mostly just the 3rd party sites, not a big fan of downloading from places like hotfile but might have to make an exception....
 
Errored out on the DTS pack, continuing with the rest but geez. not feeling optimistic
 
OK, went through all the confg and enabled Dolby Digital in the hidden panel again and now it shows 5.1 correctly.

ALMOST.

It's duplicating the sound to my stereo speakers as well, Gets a real nasty echo. Had hoped to keep the speakers for just headphone coms (as the default communications output is SUPPOSED to work) but no dice, it repeats everything on both devices.

If I have to I'll pull the speakers out and live with it but that's not what this is supposed to do...
 
Nope false alarm, opened up a game to go along with teamspeak and that confused the shit out of it, it can't handle more than one app giving it sounds no matter whether you tell it to be exclusive or not.

Back to the drawing board.

This sucks.
 
I rebooted and they seemed to coexist for a few, but none of my games will actually output in 5.1, Max payne 3 only says stereo or headphones....

And autodetect swaps it back to 2.1

What a complete pile of crap
 
I've done fresh installs a million times now. It's about to get shipped back.
 
http://img.hexus.net/v2/systems/Alienware/Aurora-R4/aurora-r4-08.jpg

Thats what the back of your machine looks like right? According to the specs, your comp supports 7.1 audio using the standard onboard audio (probably Realtek?). You're currently using some sort of Creative riser card correct? Uninstall all the Creative software and try switching to the Realtek onboard audio. That should be fine if all you need is digital output.

This website appears to be using the Realtek 2.67 drivers with your machine:

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/revie...top-review-specification-and-methodology.html

You can get those drivers here:

http://downloads.guru3d.com/Realtek-HD-Audio-2.67-audio-driver-download-2832.html

Don't worry, Guru3D is legit. This forum thread shows how to enable DTS once the drivers are installed:

http://forums.tweaktown.com/asus/47702-accessing-dts-settings-realtek-2-67-drivers.html

See if it works. Just remember to get rid of any Creative crap you already have installed, just to be safe.
 
Which X-Fi is it? I fought with my Titanium Fatality Pro for a while trying to get 5.1 DD to output to my receiver. It was pretty painless once I set everything up correctly. One thing to note that you discovered already is that you'll get output in both the optical and the analog connection. So turn your analog down to 0 and it shouldn't be a problem. You can't control the volume through Windows with optical pass through anyway. Also make sure you set the Creative driver to 5.1 speakers and also in Windows set it to 5.1 as it defaults to something stupid like quad sometimes. In that same window make sure its outputting the sound to DD or DTS and not analog. Its buried in a drop down somewhere in that window.

I actually think that the Creative DD and DTS 5.1 solution works great and is trouble free once you get Windows to stop fighting you.

Oh one other stupid thing... I had to set my default audio output to speakers and NOT spdif even though I'm using spdif output. Otherwise I get no audio. This is in Windows, not the Creative settings.
 
I really don't want to just toss this receiver.

If it comes to that point, I'll pay shipping. :D

Have you tried outputting through the onboard audio yet? If that works you can at least eliminate the receiver as being the issue. Can you move your computer to the other receiver or vice-versa? Have you seen whether or not using analog 5.1/7.1 works? Again, eliminate as many things as you can while only changing one thing at a time.
 
I don't have cables to run a 5.1 analog setup and the idea of doing so just so completely blows my mind that I'm pretty sure I wouldn't try it if I did.

I -could- run TS off another machine but again the idea that I would do that instead of using a $2.5k+ machine that SHOULD be perfectly capable of doing so is just insane. There is no reason why this machine shouldn't be able to direct voice commos to a separate device. That's the whole fricking point of why windows lets you set a separate comms device than regular sound output.

I COULD use the crappy realtek HDMI out I'm sure. I'd lose the processing of the sound card if I did that and I paid to have it so if I had to go that route I'd send the SB card back for full $$$ or not at all.

I'm not shipping a 3806 anywhere, not at 40 pounds. You'd pay more than it's worth to ship it when you could go buy a kickass 1913 at Frys today for $300.

Astral, when you do that are you SURE you are getting 5.1 output? Are you doing it as pure digital direct or do you have your 2.1 actually in some lame upconverting processed BS like pro-logic that is doing artificial matrixing? No matter what I do if the receiver is set to pure direct there are only 2 channels of output.
 
I COULD use the crappy realtek HDMI out I'm sure. I'd lose the processing of the sound card if I did that and I paid to have it so if I had to go that route I'd send the SB card back for full $$$ or not at all.

You might need to do that if the Creative card isn't doing what you want. Exactly what processing do you think the card is doing? If you're running digital output than you're not leveraging the sound card's DACs (you're using the DACs of whatever receiver is being fed the digital signal), and if its the DDL/DTS encoding you're worried about, the Alienware Aurora R4 is an X79-based system right? Sandy Bridge-E/Ivy Bridge-E should have NO problems with any sort of audio processing in software, modern processors have been too fast to worry about that for a while now.
 
I don't have cables to run a 5.1 analog setup and the idea of doing so just so completely blows my mind that I'm pretty sure I wouldn't try it if I did.

I -could- run TS off another machine but again the idea that I would do that instead of using a $2.5k+ machine that SHOULD be perfectly capable of doing so is just insane. There is no reason why this machine shouldn't be able to direct voice commos to a separate device. That's the whole fricking point of why windows lets you set a separate comms device than regular sound output.

I COULD use the crappy realtek HDMI out I'm sure. I'd lose the processing of the sound card if I did that and I paid to have it so if I had to go that route I'd send the SB card back for full $$$ or not at all.

I'm not shipping a 3806 anywhere, not at 40 pounds. You'd pay more than it's worth to ship it when you could go buy a kickass 1913 at Frys today for $300.

Astral, when you do that are you SURE you are getting 5.1 output? Are you doing it as pure digital direct or do you have your 2.1 actually in some lame upconverting processed BS like pro-logic that is doing artificial matrixing? No matter what I do if the receiver is set to pure direct there are only 2 channels of output.

Mine is feeding through my DVD input on the receiver and the input is set to use the optical input for audio. I don't think direct is going to work as it probably assumes you've already done the processing and just want to pass through the signal. Anyway, mine is picking up the legit DD or DTS signal as I can see the receiver swtiching over when I change it from DD to DTS, it grabs the digital signal and tells me it's 5.1. I know it's direct because it's bypassing my Windows volume control. I can then do the speaker test and hear sound from each speaker. I wouldn't stand for crappy 2.1 upconverting.

But in case you still aren't sure I know what I'm talking about, I used to run analog out from my X-Fi to the analog in on this same Pioneer receiver, letting the X-Fi do the decoding. Basic stuff. Sounded good. Had discreet 5.1 audio, but also some static in the background... nature of analog signal. Of couse I had to try digital since it was an option and I was bound and determined to make it work, which I finally did. So, I know how it's supposed to sound when decoding is working properly, whether it's done on the X-Fi or on the Pioneer, and I could easily tell if my 5.1 optical out was doing some lame upconversion to fake surround after having had analog 5.1 working correctly for about 2 years and playing the same games.

I could probably take some screenshots of my setup if you think it would help you. Then you could compare them to what you have and see if there's a discrepancy. I know exactly the frustration you're going through.


Edit: By the way, don't knock the analog connections. It's still doing digital decoding, but it's done on the X-Fi and then you're just running the post-processed signal to the receiver (assuming your receiver has analog RCA inputs). You'll get a bit more static, which really isn't that much, to be honest, and it still sounds good.
 
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By the way, I use the Creative drivers for my X-Fi Titanium Fatality Pro, to send DDL out to my receiver through the optical link, and they work perfectly, whether DDL or DTS. I'm running Win7 64-bit. There's no reason to use the Daniel K drivers. They don't work any better in my experience. You need 3 or 4 downloads depending on whether you want DDL and DTS both or just one or the other. I use DDL. Here's what I'm currently running, without issues:

The Driver (I use the beta) XFTI_PCDRVBETA_US_2_17_0008C.exe
The Creative Console Launcher (also beta) CSL_PCAPPBETA_LB_2_61_49.exe
The Dolby Digital Live Pack DDL_PCAPP_LB_3_00_06.exe
The DTS Connect Pack DTS_PCAPP_LB_1_03_08.exe

Install them in that order and reboot after each one. I wouldn't recommend using anything else as there's no need.

After that you must go into settings (little button at the bottom) in the CCL (Creative Console Launcher) and pick DDL or DTS. You don't need to change any other setting. If it won't stick when you select it, you have another issue besides the Titanium. If not sticking, check your receiver settings. They need to be correct. Make sure you didn't goof around with the sampling rate in Windows. (48khz works correctly for me)

Set the speaker config in the CCL to 5.1 and see if you get audio through each speaker and sub. If you don't, check your Windows settings for Playback and see if it's set to something wrong or if it's set to 2 channel, in fact, check it anyway, it's probably wrong. Mine always is when I first start.

Turn off Creative's simulated surround in the CCL menu.

Set your preferred audio playback device to X-Fi Speakers in Windows audio settings, not SPDIF (even though you're using SPDIF, I know).

Make sure your receiver is looking for audio on the optical input assigned to the DVD input or whatever input you have seleted (and make sure that input can accept DDL or DTS).
 
Actually I just looked at the back. There is NO Realtek HDMI out. Just an optical and a single RCA jack, is that composite or something /boggle

I already called and got an RMA set, this piece of shit is going back. BUT I will try your links one more time astral, after unistalllting everything one more time...
 
Actually I just looked at the back. There is NO Realtek HDMI out. Just an optical and a single RCA jack, is that composite or something /boggle

I already called and got an RMA set, this piece of shit is going back. BUT I will try your links one more time astral, after unistalllting everything one more time...

Cool. Go Asus and use the Unity drivers...lol yeah another third party. Mine works good for digital 5.1 though. No issues even in BF3.
 
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