Dolby Digital audio in games

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pcgeek86

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 14, 2007
Messages
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Hey guys,

I have the following setup:

  • Onkyo TX-SR606
  • Windows Vista Business Edition SP1
  • Audigy 2 Platinum - Optical out

Does anyone know how to configure Vista to output Dolby Digital 5.1?

Also, do any games like Fallout 3 support Dolby Digital 5.1?
 
pcgeek86 said:
Hey guys,

I have the following setup:

  • Onkyo TX-SR606
  • Windows Vista Business Edition SP1
  • Audigy 2 Platinum - Optical out

Does anyone know how to configure Vista to output Dolby Digital 5.1?

Also, do any games like Fallout 3 support Dolby Digital 5.1?
Click to expand...


You need a soundcard that supports DDL or DTSC to output non 5.1 encoded audio as a 5.1 stream.
 
^ correct.
Your soundcard does not encode to DDL or DTS Connect so you will not get 5.1 game sound via digital.
Games dont need to support DD, thats a Windows function.

Edit my bad, its a soundcard function :)
 
Hmmm, I thought that I could get Dolby audio out of this thing in the past, way back when I was running Windows XP. Maybe not, though.

So, let me see if I'm understanding you correctly ... are you saying that games only output an analog signal, and it's up to the OS and sound card drivers to encode it to Dolby Digital before sending it off?

Is there any way I can get surround sound over to my receiver? Would I have to use a series of analog connections for this?
 
You got some of it right .
You can get DD audio from pre-encoded material like DVDs/Blu Ray.
Windows does not run sound in DD, it runs at whatever the sample/bit rate is set to, but it is still digital.
So if you want DD 5.1 sound, it needs to be encoded to DD by something else, your soundcard/driver (not windows).

With your current soundcard, you will need to use analogue 5.1 to get surround sound in games.
 
^^ beaten by a minute :)

pcgeek86 said:
Hmmm, I thought that I could get Dolby audio out of this thing in the past, way back when I was running Windows XP. Maybe not, though.

So, let me see if I'm understanding you correctly ... are you saying that games only output an analog signal, and it's up to the OS and sound card drivers to encode it to Dolby Digital before sending it off?

Is there any way I can get surround sound over to my receiver? Would I have to use a series of analog connections for this?
Click to expand...


Close enough.

You probably had 5.1 audio when you were playing 5.1 encoded stuff, like a DVD movie or something. Games work a bit differently. Their audio isn't encoded in 5.1 so when you're connected via a digital cable you're only going to get 2 channel audio.

What your soundcard needs to be able to do is encode the audio into a 5.1 stream via Dolby Digital Live (DDL), or DTS Connect (DTSC).
 
Cool! I think I finally understand, now. So, the sound card has to be able to convert an analog surround sound signal into Dolby Digital, prior to sending it off to the receiver, right?

OK, now that I've got that out of the way ... next question is ... what card should I get to do this? :)

I know some video cards have HDMI output on them ... would it somehow be possible to get video and (Dolby Digital) audio both over HDMI? What sound card would I need to get in order to encode analog surround into DD?
 
Nope
When using a digital connection, the sound remains digital inside the PC, its digital when it enters your amp and your amps DAC converts it to analogue before amplifying it and sending it to the speakers.
(There are amps that send a digital signal to the speakers where the speakers themselves smooth the digital waveform to an analogue one, but those arent very common).
PC's dont work internally with analogue sound at all.
 
pcgeek86 said:
Cool! I think I finally understand, now. So, the sound card has to be able to convert an analog surround sound signal into Dolby Digital, prior to sending it off to the receiver, right?

OK, now that I've got that out of the way ... next question is ... what card should I get to do this? :)

I know some video cards have HDMI output on them ... would it somehow be possible to get video and (Dolby Digital) audio both over HDMI? What sound card would I need to get in order to encode analog surround into DD?
Click to expand...

You just need a sound card that is capable of packaging the game 5.1 audio into Dolby Digital format for your receiver to decode. While your movies are already encoded properly, games use different sound protocols. All the work internal to your PC is digital, the only time analog conversion comes into play is if you're using analog outputs on your sound card, in which case the sound card will do the DAC (digital-to-analog conversion). In your setup you're using the receiver as your DAC since you're passing it the digital signal from your computer. The trick is to have the digital signal formatted so that your receiver can decode it properly.

In order to have your computer format all sounds as DD, you need a sound card with DDL capability like an X-Fi Titanium or Auzentech Prelude.
 
Oh ok ... so the game is outputting a digital audio signal, but I need a card that can combine multiple digital channels into a DDL signal, and then send it off? I think I'm getting this, lol .... I haven't had much experience with audio stuff.

So, is there a way for me to have a sound card that packages the DDL signal output the audio through a video card via HDMI? I thought I'd read about video cards that could do that.
 
pcgeek86 said:
Oh ok ... so the game is outputting a digital audio signal, but I need a card that can combine multiple digital channels into a DDL signal, and then send it off? I think I'm getting this, lol .... I haven't had much experience with audio stuff.

So, is there a way for me to have a sound card that packages the DDL signal output the audio through a video card via HDMI? I thought I'd read about video cards that could do that.
Click to expand...

Yes, to the sentence that ended in a question mark.

I believe so, to your question. But what is your budget like? What's your speaker setup like?
 
As far as I'm aware, there's no way to set up the encoding in the way you've described. Video cards use S/PDIF-over-HDMI to output audio, and you'd need to have the stream encoded before it reaches the video card (which I don't believe it feasible).

There's an HDMI 1.3-compliant sound card on the market now called the ASUS HDAV 1.3 which should let you do exactly what you need. It's even capable of spitting out up to eight channels of uncompressed digital audio, so you won't specifically need any kind of Dolby Digital/DTS encoding. I'm not that familiar with the card, but I believe it's not possible to have it input any kind of video so you can output your audio and video on one cable. You'll still need two HDMI cables to achieve what you need.
 
My budget is .... not huge, but I could afford a couple hundred dollars to get a new audio card if I really had to spend that much. Doing the combined audio and video isn't absolutely necessary, but as long as I can do DVI --> HDMI video (which I already can, obviously), I could continue to go with an optical connection for the audio.

My speaker setup is 2 Wharfedale Diamond 7.1's in the front, 2 Sony SSB-1000s in the back, and a Sony SS-CN5000 center channel.

I did see the Xonar card. It looks pretty sweet. So, what you're basically saying is ... if I bought the Xonar card, I could have games output a straight 5.1 PCM signal to the receiver? Would this achieve my surround sound goals?

Thanks for all the help guys. You are teaching me quite a bit.
 
Oh oops. I misread his question. You're right. That is not possible. It WOULD be cool if they could do that though.
 
You only need a HDMI connection for Hi Def Blu Ray sound or other Hi Def sound.
HDMI cards are few and far between and arent cheap if they are well featured.

If you want the best card for Blu Ray, it is currently the Asus Xonar HDAV1.3 HDMI soundcard.
It comes in another version that also has a daughterboard for analogue out if you need it.
This card will give you 5.1 game sound via digital but bear in mind that it simulates EAX/OpenAL gaming sound effects, it will not give you the same effects quality as the X-fi series or Auzentech Prelude.
If EAX/OpenAL dont matter to you then this card will be fine for everything else.
Also note, there are hardly any other solutions to get HiDef sound working on a PC, this is almost it.

If you arent bothered about Blu Ray Hi Def sound and do want full EAX/OpenAL support, the Auzentech Prelude is a top notch card, providing class leading analogue sound output.
For digital output, it is hardly any different from the high end X-Fi cards as it uses the X-Fi chip itself so you might find it cheaper to get a higher end X-fi card and you wont lose any features.
I am currently using the Prelude and it is superb.
 
Well, I already have a PS3 to handle Blu-Ray playback anyway, but I think ultimately what I'm after is getting a digital signal from my PC over to my receiver, so that I can rely on my optical cable, instead of a variety of analog cables.

With that goal in mind, what would be the best card? I do care about sound effects in games, so I probably do care about the OpenAL and EAX stuff.
 
Either the Auzentech Prelude or the higher end X-Fi cards are what you need.
There is a possibility that cheaper X-Fi cards can also do DDL now via purchased software from Creative but I'm not clear on that, it may higher end cards only.
Perhaps someone else knows more?
 
Creative 70SB088000004 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Express 1x Interface PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium - Retail $94.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102024

One of the Asus cards might suit you better depending on your budget.

Creative lists these requirements for purchasing the DDL/DTS Connect software package:

Requirements:

1. Minimum System Requirements:
o Microsoft® Windows Vista® with Service Pack 1 or Windows® XP(x64, Service Pack 2 or Media Center Edition) for Dolby Digital Live.
o Microsoft Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 for DTS Connect.
o Intel® Pentium® 4, AMD Athlon™ 64 or equivalent processor, 1.6 GHz or faster
2. One of the following Sound Blaster X-Fi audio devices (equipped with Digital out):
o Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro
o Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum
o Sound Blaster X-Fi
o Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty
o Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty Champion Series
o Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic
o Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty® Pro
o Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer
Dolby Digital or DTS-equipped home theater system.
3. Software
o Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi series Driver 2.18.0008 or later versions.
o Creative Console Launcher 2.60.29 or later versions.
o Choose your product and download its driver and software application according to the instructions on http://us.creative.com/support/downloads/
4. Internet Connection for software purchase and activation.
Click to expand...

Taken from
http://buy.soundblaster.com/_creati...ail&category=Software&pid=F2222DDN6Z2H2ADDEZD
 
I think this card looks pretty good, and it's only $100.

Creative X-Fi Titanium

Edit: Oops, didn't see you already posted, and recommended the same card.

Thanks. I'll probably end up going with the Titanium or something. I think I'm starting to get the hang of this stuff, now that I read the DDL section on Wikipedia.
 
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Does anyone know if there's a way to do multi-channel linear PCM instead of Dolby Digital using an Audigy 2 Platinum? If possible, I'd like to avoid incurring the expense of a new sound card, since I could theoretically pass a multi-channel LPCM signal to my Onky TX-SR606, like the PS3 does with a TrueHD signal, instead of bistreaming it.
 
You don't actually need a soundcard that supports DDL. ac3filter perform DD encoding in realtime on any soundcard which has SPDIF.
 
Hmmm, interesting. Could you provide some details on how to do this exactly? I'm aware of what AC3filter does overall, but having messed around with it quite a bit, I haven't been able to make it do what I want. Do you have a document that outlines how to capture multi-channel game audio output, and encode it into Dolby Digital 5.1 using AC3filter?

I've also been playing around with the kX Project along with redocneXk to do real-time Dolby Digital encoding. I haven't been able to get the settings perfectly right yet, but I think I'm getting close. Has anyone else tried this before and have documented settings that would work?
 
Clearing up a few things:

The Asus Xonar HDAV is currently the only sound card on the market with HDMI output, but it hasn't gotten very good reviews, so you may want to wait for something better to come along. See this thread. Auzentech's offering -- the X-Fi HomeTheater -- is due out sometime this month, provided they don't delay it again.

Both cards can take the signal from your video card and combine it to send audio and video over a single HDMI cable.

There are also video cards that can send audio over HDMI, but they do so by including their own audio chipset on the card. Do you really want a video card handling your audio? Likewise, there are motherboards with this functionality as well.
 
pcgeek86 said:
Does anyone know if there's a way to do multi-channel linear PCM instead of Dolby Digital using an Audigy 2 Platinum?
Click to expand...
Nope. You need an HDMI connection for that, which obviously the Audigy 2 doesn't feature.
 
Alright, well does anyone have an answer as to how I can use AC3filter to encode a Dolby Digital signal from a computer game, like Counter-Strike, or Battlefield 2, or some game that supports 5 channel analog surround sound?
 
phide said:
Nope. You need an HDMI connection for that, which obviously the Audigy 2 doesn't feature.
Click to expand...

While not technically LPCM, you can get 5.1 sound from the Audigy 2 if you own a set of Creative speakers and utilize their proprietary multi-jack connection. I wouldn't recommend doing it, but the possibility is there.
 
Auric said:
While not technically LPCM, you can get 5.1 sound from the Audigy 2 if you own a set of Creative speakers and utilize their proprietary multi-jack connection. I wouldn't recommend doing it, but the possibility is there.
Click to expand...

I can get 5.1 with normal computer speakers using the analog outputs, too. My problem here is that I'm using a home theater system, not a set of computer speakers. My other problem is that 1) I don't want to hook up a ton of analog cables, and b) my receiver doesn't support surround analog inputs.

Some way or another, I need to get a digital, compressed (DTS or Dolby Digital, I don't care) signal via TOSlink over to my receiver.
 
pcgeek86 said:
I can get 5.1 with normal computer speakers using the analog outputs, too. My problem here is that I'm using a home theater system, not a set of computer speakers. My other problem is that 1) I don't want to hook up a ton of analog cables, and b) my receiver doesn't support surround analog inputs.

Some way or another, I need to get a digital, compressed (DTS or Dolby Digital, I don't care) signal via TOSlink over to my receiver.
Click to expand...

I was referring to 5.1 over a digital connection. In any case, I prefer the encoding route myself, but I decided after the 3rd or 4th sound card that I needed a more permanent solution. So, I bought one of these, which is essentially an external DTS encoder. Unfortunately, they don't make them anymore.
 
pcgeek86 said:
Alright, well does anyone have an answer as to how I can use AC3filter to encode a Dolby Digital signal from a computer game, like Counter-Strike, or Battlefield 2, or some game that supports 5 channel analog surround sound?
Click to expand...

Is that even possible? AC3Filter is a directshow filter... You need a DDL compatible soundcard. AFAIK, AC3Filter doesn't have a software DDL encoder, nor is it able to be linked up to specific application/game.

This thread got way out of hand, with alot of mis-information. To answer your original question, all you need is a cheap soundcard that has 1: some type of S/PDIF output (optical or coaxial), 2: a DDL encoder chip.

/thread.
 
criccio said:
Is that even possible? AC3Filter is a directshow filter... You need a DDL compatible soundcard. AFAIK, AC3Filter doesn't have a software DDL encoder, nor is it able to be linked up to specific application/game.
Click to expand...

It does, but seeing as how games don't use DirectShow, I don't see how you would link it either. I think it was more intended for music.
 
JimmyB said that I didn't need DDL, and that I could use AC3filter alone. I simply asked "how."

------

Also, I was able to make some progress with this whole thing yesterday. I ended up using redocneXk along with kXfilter to basically:

1) (kXfilter) Redirect all computer audio through the ASIO channels of the emu10k2 processor
2) (redocneXk) Capture ASIO channels
3) (redocneXk) Encode ASIO channels to Dolby Digital 5.1 (aka. AC3 or a52)
4) (redocneXk) Stream the Dolby Digital 5.1 signal, via S/PDIF, to my receiver

http://www.driverheaven.net/general...ocnexk-released-realtime-5-1-ac3-encoder.html

This wasn't done without caveats though. Some symptoms I experienced include:

  • Crackling audio
  • Slight audio delay
  • Cross-channel interference (FL channel was output on both FL & SR, for one example)

Maybe I'll just end up getting a DDL card, but supposedly, Audigy owners will be able to do DDL according to this article: http://nomoregoatsoup.wordpress.com...y-to-51-dolby-digital-through-spdif-in-games/

Edit: Also, see this for official announcement about DDL support on Audigy platform: http://nomoregoatsoup.wordpress.com/2008/10/26/audigy-series-and-dolby-digital-live-what-happened/

Trevor Sullivan
 
criccio said:
Well um... you cant. A DDL card is your only option. :)

/thread
Click to expand...

Well um ... actually, I did, just not with AC3filter. Therefore, a DDL card isn't my "only option."

----

Moving on ... Here is some verbage from AC3filter's website:

"Encode any audio to AC3 and transmit it over SPDIF" as found on Link.

So again, my question is ... how?

-----

With regards to using kXdriver with redocneXk, does anyone have any feedback on the issues I was experiencing while using it? Besides those issues ... it at least did something.
 
you dont need anything special to send straight audio over S/PDIF... all you do is plug an optical or coaxial cable into your mobo...

Sending an encoded DD 5.1 signal, that a receiver or pre/pro will recognize and decode is ENTIRELY different. AC3Filter will NOT take a games audio, calculate what sounds will go to what channel, and encode it. It is used as a directshow filter for video and audio players. What that quote means, is it will do exactly that for audio tracks in movies.
 
I understand that very well. S/PDIF will support up to two channels of uncompressed audio. This has nothing to do with my goal though.
------
Let me clearly state what my goal is: I want to take 5.1 channel surround sound from games, encode it to Dolby Digital, and output it over S/PDIF.
------
My goal is partially accomplished using kXfilter and redocneXk, but as I stated above, I'm having problems with it.
----
Regarding AC3filter, the verbage from the website states "Encode any audio to AC3 and transmit it over SPDIF" (emphasis mine). It does not state "Encode any audio (except game audio) to AC3 and transmit it over SPDIF."
--------
If you plan on continuing to tell me it can't be done, or I need a DDL card, or AC3filter can't do X, Y, or Z, or whatever other defeatist attitude you may have, please kindly stay out of my thread.

Thanks.
 
If it's possible to set up AC3filter in such a way, the documentation would state that. However, because AC3filter is a DirectShow filter, you cannot configure it this way. Applications that rely on registered DirectShow filters for decode/encode will allow you to use AC3filter to encode to AC3 -- nothing else.

I fail to understand how you expect anyone to tell you how to configure something to do something that isn't even possible. It's pretty much akin to asking someone how to turn a watermelon into a gerbil.
 
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