Confused - digital audio down the IDE cable or cable from CD?

E

Eyeball Kid

Gawd
Joined
Jan 31, 2002
Messages
621
This is something that's confused me for ages. Does all digital audio come down the IDE cable? Do I need to use a cable between my CD and the sound card anymore? I was having problems with my Audigy crackling, which seems to have been fixed by muting all my outputs except for wav, and disconnecting the CD digital cable. Will I miss anything by having no cable from the CD digital out, or these other settings muted?
 
It's going to depend on your OS I feel. Windows XP can get the audio digitally over the IDE interface without the need for the audio cable but windows 98 doesn't natively support this (not sure if there's a way to accomplish this or not with windows 98).

Basically the rule of thumb is if it's XP (and I think windows 2000, maybe ME as well), don't bother with the audio cable and if it's windows 98 or older, your going to need the audio cable if you want to hear the audio from your CDs.
 
Every Windows version since Win95 OSR2 (B version) supported digital audio via the IDE cable. ;)
 
so y do they still include the SPDIF cables with audigy 2's and such?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top