True Dolby D & DTS on PC that wont break the check book..

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fociz

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 16, 2006
Messages
345
Runnin an Onkyo 605, 7.1 receiver with decent drivers(speakers)all around(using 5.1 setup only)w/new polk 12"sub which is kickin my butt, dropped 3 of the woman's pictures on the wall's already, I'm in trouble but that's normal. =)

My new sandy bridge build w/Asus p8p67 Deluxe w/Realtek ALC889 chipset audio is killin me, Realtek apparently doesn't have baked drivers for Win 7 x64 after 2 years and of course they don't decode DDL or DTS even though they claim 8 channel blah blah..

I'm frustrated at this point not knowing if there's a REAL sound card i can throw in this rig that won't break the bank which offers some true Dolby Dig & DTS formats which i can use to play not only bluray movies but GAMES!, Dead Space 2 is blowin my mind but the stereo output is depressing me cause the audio in this game is flat out Oscar worthy, i could give two shits about EAX support, I just want 5.1

I know this has been asked before on these boards but i cant find a recent thread that's been updated with some decent pci or pci-e cards(or even usb externals) that actually decode these formats for gaming that are reasonably priced in 2011.

Any info or advice would be much appreciated.

Thx.

Edit: I forgot to mention I'm using an Optical and/or Coax connection for sound through the onboard but i also am running an Nividia GTX580 which apparently has the ability to connect HDMI and decode/pass-through?...these surround codec's but i cant find a straight answer on the interwebs.

Thx again.
 
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Try the GTX580 over an HDMI cable. the spec sheet for the GTX580 states that it does it.
http://www.nvidia.com/docs/IO/100940/GeForce_GTX_580_Datasheet.pdf
From the data sheet:
Digital Audio
• Support for the following audio modes:
o Dolby Digital (AC3), DTS 5.1, Multi-channel (7.1) LPCM, Dolby Digital Plus (DD+), MPEG2/MPEG4 AAC
• Data rates of 44.1 KHz, 48 KHz, 88.2 KHz, 96 KHz, 176 KHz, and 192 KHz
• Word sizes of 16-bit, 20-bit, and 24-bit
 
Any Nvidia 4xx or 5xx series or AMD 5xxx or 6xxx series card can output at 8 channels, 24-bit, 96kHz, Lossless LPCM which is what you want to use for video games.

Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD are simply encoded lossless formats. Ther is absolutly nothing wrong with LPCM.

Maybe this analogy makes sense to you:

Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD are like FLAC, lossless but compressed and specially encoded.
LPCM is like WAV, lossless, uncompressed and raw.

Both offer the exact same audio quality.
 
I don't know anything about those graphics cards' audio, but I believe that:
- to send 5.1 over digital cable, you need a Dolby or DTS signal
- games generally (at least I do not know of a single one) do not produce a Dolby or DTS signal
- certain sound cards can take a game's 5.1 sound and create a Dolby or DTS signal
- such a sound card needs at least "DTS Connect" or "Dolby Digital Live"

The cheapest sound card I know that does all this (DDL but not DTS-C) is the Asus Xonar DG. It also has Dolby Headphone and a small headphone amplifier, as well as Asus' EAX emulation.
 
The Auzentech X-Fi Forte can also output DTS Connect (I believe also DD Live, but not sure), if you can find one. The graphics cards are pass through, so you'd still need a multi-channel source (think Blu-Ray) - I don't think they work stand-alone for games.
 
kevral said:
I don't know anything about those graphics cards' audio, but I believe that:
- to send 5.1 over digital cable, you need a Dolby or DTS signal
- games generally (at least I do not know of a single one) do not produce a Dolby or DTS signal
- certain sound cards can take a game's 5.1 sound and create a Dolby or DTS signal
- such a sound card needs at least "DTS Connect" or "Dolby Digital Live"

The cheapest sound card I know that does all this (DDL but not DTS-C) is the Asus Xonar DG. It also has Dolby Headphone and a small headphone amplifier, as well as Asus' EAX emulation.
Click to expand...

You only need to encode the audio into DD or DTS if you are trying to send 6 channels over an S/PDIF cable. This is an OK solution but to do this you are compressing the audio by a large percentage.

The best method would be for him to send the sound via HDMI. With HDMI, you can send up to 8 channels of digital and uncompressed audio to your receiver (in LPCM format). It is also compatible with all games, it's just taking the raw output that the game sends to Windows audio API, because it's not encoded at all. This also takes no extra processing power to accomplish.

The cheapest card would be an AMD 5450. You can find one for around $40.


Forceman said:
The Auzentech X-Fi Forte can also output DTS Connect (I believe also DD Live, but not sure), if you can find one. The graphics cards are pass through, so you'd still need a multi-channel source (think Blu-Ray) - I don't think they work stand-alone for games.
Click to expand...

All games will output multi-channel lossless audio when you simply pick 5.1 or 7.1 from the sound options in the game. Then the graphics card's HDMI port can pass that raw multi-channel stream directly to the receiver.


Simple answer for the OP:

Plug the HDMI port (or DVI with an HDMI adapter) from your GTX 580 to your Onkyo and in Windows.
Go to the "Sound" control panel and on the "Playback" tab, set your Onkyo as the default audio device.
Then while your Onkyo is selected, click "Configure" and select 5.1.
Click "Next" and make sure all the boxes are checked for "Center", "Subwoofer", and "Rear Pair".
Click "Next" and make sure the boxes are checked for "Front left and right" and "Surround speakers" as full range (you want to output your channels from Windows as full range since I'm assuming your Onkyo is handling all of the frequency crossover).

Now you're done.

Just select 5.1 from in each video game's sound settings.

One final note, just realize that almost any game that came out prior to 2005 probably won't work in surround sound because it was written to use DirectSound which was abandoned in Windows Vista. Anything after 2006 will definitely use either OpenAL or it's own audio engine and will work perfectly in Surround sound.
 
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kevral said:
I don't know anything about those graphics cards' audio, but I believe that:
- to send 5.1 over digital cable, you need a Dolby or DTS signal
- games generally (at least I do not know of a single one) do not produce a Dolby or DTS signal
- certain sound cards can take a game's 5.1 sound and create a Dolby or DTS signal
- such a sound card needs at least "DTS Connect" or "Dolby Digital Live"

The cheapest sound card I know that does all this (DDL but not DTS-C) is the Asus Xonar DG. It also has Dolby Headphone and a small headphone amplifier, as well as Asus' EAX emulation.
Click to expand...

I think there's another Xonar model that only encodes DTS.
 
SirMaster said:
All games will output multi-channel lossless audio when you simply pick 5.1 or 7.1 from the sound options in the game. Then the graphics card's HDMI port can pass that raw multi-channel stream directly to the receiver.


Simple answer for the OP:

Plug the HDMI port (or DVI with an HDMI adapter) from your GTX 580 to your Onkyo and in Windows.
Go to the "Sound" control panel and on the "Playback" tab, set your Onkyo as the default audio device.
Then while your Onkyo is selected, click "Configure" and select 5.1.
Click "Next" and make sure all the boxes are checked for "Center", "Subwoofer", and "Rear Pair".
Click "Next" and make sure the boxes are checked for "Front left and right" and "Surround speakers" as full range (you want to output your channels from Windows as full range since I'm assuming your Onkyo is handling all of the frequency crossover).

Now you're done.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info - didn't realize it worked that easily.
 
All games will output multi-channel lossless audio when you simply pick 5.1 or 7.1 from the sound options in the game. Then the graphics card's HDMI port can pass that raw multi-channel stream directly to the receiver.


Simple answer for the OP:

Plug the HDMI port (or DVI with an HDMI adapter) from your GTX 580 to your Onkyo and in Windows.
Go to the "Sound" control panel and on the "Playback" tab, set your Onkyo as the default audio device.
Then while your Onkyo is selected, click "Configure" and select 5.1.
Click "Next" and make sure all the boxes are checked for "Center", "Subwoofer", and "Rear Pair".
Click "Next" and make sure the boxes are checked for "Front left and right" and "Surround speakers" as full range (you want to output your channels from Windows as full range since I'm assuming your Onkyo is handling all of the frequency crossover).

Now you're done.
Click to expand...

I did that, my reciever isnt showing up in the sound playback panel, only the Nvidia Hd device, i click configure and it only has stereo as an option, I'm also not getting any sound whatsoever through the device.

What am i doing wrong?..
 
fociz said:
I did that, my reciever isnt showing up in the sound playback panel, only the Nvidia Hd device, i click configure and it only has stereo as an option, I'm also not getting any sound whatsoever through the device.

What am i doing wrong?..
Click to expand...

Do you have any video being sent to the receiver?

Also in your NVIDIA control panel, when you select your receiver as a device on the "Display" -> "Change resolution" tab.

Do you have the drop-down box under "2. Apply the following settings" set to "HDMI - HDTV (Audio Enabled).

If you still don't have any audio output options then its possible you didn't install the NVIDIA audio driver when you installed your video card drivers.
 
SirMaster said:
Do you have any video being sent to the receiver?

Also in your NVIDIA control panel, when you select your receiver as a device on the "Display" -> "Change resolution" tab.

Do you have the drop-down box under "2. Apply the following settings" set to "HDMI - HDTV (Audio Enabled).

If you still don't have any audio output options then its possible you didn't install the NVIDIA audio driver when you installed your video card drivers.
Click to expand...

Yes and yes, thank you.

My bad, i had to change I/O's around on the receiver because i originally had a DVI to HDMI cable going directly to the monitor from the card and of course optical from the board, now I'm using the mini-hdmi to hdmi from card to receiver then out to monitor from receiver, my reciever was still set to the realtek optical out.

Changed to hdmi and wallah, sound! I owe you a beer good sir, ty ty..But i still have some questions if i may.

The Onkyo receiver still isn't showing up under the windows sound properties, only the nvidia, while in the nvidia sound properties there are no options to set it to 5.1, only stereo, i did check the fronts to full range but the surrounds check off is grayed out.

The graphic shown is a man sitting with only two front drivers, no 5.1 etc.

Thanks again for your help.
 
a classic chaintech av-710? can be found for cheap on ebay if you keep an eye out...
 
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