Anyone got an X-Fi titanium? Im having sound delays when encoding in DDL... this sux

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Omegaslast

Limp Gawd
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Jan 20, 2004
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So i dropped $100 on a creative x-fi, and i enable DDL (dolby digital live 5.1) encoding because i have a 5.1 setup hooked up to my onkyo 805 via optical.

I immediately notice in TF2 theres a significant 100ms or more sound delay... it really screws with your bearings.

I find it weird, so i play some movie trailers and stuff from quicktime, and i notice no delays in speech or anything... i then go back to TF2 and the problems still there.

I turn off DDL encoding (but still use digital, just stereo) and in tf2 suddenly the sound is in sync again.. pretty incredible really, my abit nforce 2 with soundstorm motherboard with DDL could do hl2 5.1 encoding with no delay, but this stupid ass creative 5.1 card cant? you gotta be kidding me

please someone tell me theres a fix for the 5.1 DDL encoding delay.

edit: Btw im using windows XP SP2 with the newest patches from creative.com
 
I'm using DDL with my Titanium on XP SP3, optical going to Logitech Z5500 and I have no lag.

Might wanna check for new drivers or dig around in the Onkyo's setup to make sure there aren't any offsets setup. My 605 has something in there somewhere to offset lag. I also don't use CMSS3D or Crystalizer, not sure if adding those effects would add lag.
 
Are you playing in Game Mode when playing TF2? And is CMSS-3D off?

The nforce2 is one of the few pieces of hardware that does hardware DDL, unlike almost any current sound card which does DDL in software.

But it is strange that you are hearing a delay, because I don't in games that I've played. I typically use analog but played around with DDL when I first got the Titanium.
 
I'm using the Onkyo 875 with Auzentech Prelude and cannot use DDL for anything time critical.
The delay for watching video, games (ie Guitar Hero) is awful!
I can tweak the video players audio output to match the video but not for games as it adds overall lag.
So for anything requiring fast throughput, I use analogue.

Fortunately the Preludes Analogue out is as good as my amps DAC/pre-amp stages so no loss in quality.
OP, with your X-Fi Titanium, you may be just as lucky.
My feeling is that the digital sound processing on these higher end amps is processed too slow and tbh is not ready for the market.


Balthazor, the NForce2 was great in its day but it can only do EAX 2.0 so has no better game sound immersion than most of the cheap soundcards available these days.
You also need a good DAC/pre-amp stage on your amp to get the best sound if using digital.
If you have a good sound card and a non high end amp, its better to feed the amp with analogue.
 
This is why I use stereo with pc sound. Sorry for your troubles though. I have been there.

Try all the usual things. Uninstall, clean the drivers, reinstall and reformat as a last resort. If you have the settings right and it is still fuxor......kill yourself! lol jk
 
spaceman said:
This is why I use stereo with pc sound. Sorry for your troubles though. I have been there.

Try all the usual things. Uninstall, clean the drivers, reinstall and reformat as a last resort. If you have the settings right and it is still fuxor......kill yourself! lol jk
Click to expand...

Lol,
Its nothing to do with stereo or surround sound.
Its purely down to digital processing overhead vs analogue.
 
um ok.\
looks like the op is having trouble with 5.1? I thought that was surround?

I understand the dsp lag but only got it when I went 5.1. Never had problems with digital stereo.
 
spaceman said:
um ok. so I was using analogue with my external dacs to get better sound?

looks like the op is having trouble with 5.1? I thought that was surround?

I understand the dsp lag but only got it when I went 5.,1. Never had problems with digital stereo.
Click to expand...

If you are using analogue, you are using your soundcards internal DAC not an external DAC.

The op is having trouble with sound delay when using digital.
He has confirmed it is no problem with analogue.
I too have the same problem with digital and no problem with analogue and have reported on it before.
 
What is strange is that the OP is saying the DDL delay only happens in games. He says it doesn't happen with music or movies, and I'm assuming he's not turning off DDL for these activities.

And I certainly didn't experience a DDL delay on my Titanium. But I'm Vista, so maybe there is an OS difference in the drivers or whatever?
 
ive been busy as hell, so i forgot about this thread

i turned off crystalizer and it seemed to help a bit with TF2

heres what i did though... i set the speakers to 2.1 and then put dolby digital encoding on, and the lag was STILL THERE, so it has everything to do with the ddl encoding checked on or off (if i turn it off with 2.1 then theres no delay)

in windows with youtube vids/movie trailers and stuff i dont notice any sound delay whatsoever... not sure why to be honest. makes no sense to me.

baltha youre using vista, i wonder if djoye is too...
 
I actually just went to Vista but I went back to using the direct (3-plug) connector from my X-Fi since I wanted to use my optical on my PS2. I'll plug the optical back into the PC and enable DDL and see what happens.
 
damn, i just dled a little 1 minute movie clip with x264 encoding and 5.1 surround sound, and had 5.1 speakers and ddl enabled, and surprise, the movie was slightly out of sync. so im guessing youtube vids dont need to be encoded in 5 channels, so no delay, but anything with 5 channels and theres delay. fantastic..
 
Set the audio delay in Media Player Classic (for your x264 playback) or use analogue for a faster response.
Analogue does cut out some DSP functions though.
 
I finally got around to checking this out and I played a WMV-HD movie in WMP (5.1 sound) and saw no delay and I also texted an H264 (MKV) movie that seemed to work fine in MPC. I tested both Dolby and DTS encoders. I'm doing this with my Logitech Z5500.

I use the combined community codec pack.
 
djoye said:
I finally got around to checking this out and I played a WMV-HD movie in WMP (5.1 sound) and saw no delay and I also texted an H264 (MKV) movie that seemed to work fine in MPC. I tested both Dolby and DTS encoders. I'm doing this with my Logitech Z5500.

I use the combined community codec pack.
Click to expand...

It is to do with the speed of the onboard DSP (in the amps digital section) and how much processing is actually performed.
Modern amps do a lot of sound processing and imo some are not fast enough for the amount of processing they do.

If you have no delay, be happy.
 
Does anyone know if this delay issue affects the logitech z-5500 while using the titanium?
 
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