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Dolby Digital in Games

E

elation

Gawd
Joined
Feb 4, 2003
Messages
792
I've briefly owned a motherboard that had SoundStorm audio. To simply put it: it was amazing! It broke and I ended up returning it and going with an Intel based board/cpu. I have some Altec Lansing speakers that have a Dobly decoder built in. My old SB Live! card played DVDs wonderfully but the little green light on my speakers (DD) would go off when I played a game.

I later tried upgrading my system - many times but that's another story altogether - and briefly ended up with an Nforce2 board with SoundStorm down. Holy smokes I was playing games with full Dolby and my little green light was on. The way I understood it was that it had a Dolby encoder which in turn would be decoded by my speakers.

I can't find any SoundStorm cards so I assume it's only integrated with mama boards. Are there any other cards that actually encode DD? Preferably one that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. :) I would need a coax digital spdif out not optical.
 
as of now, only the onboard soundstorm audio has dd encoding. there have been rumors about nvidia releasing a stand alone pci based soundcard that does that, however, its just a rumor
 
Drat. I sure would love to have it in a card version. Can't believe no one has come out with one yet. Maybe that 'rumor' will come true.
 
I sure hope that Nvidia or some other company releases a PCI card that does this. I think that there is a 300 dollar German card that does this, 25% sure.
 
I did a google search and did not find anything about a stand alone sound card implementing Real-Time Dolby Digital Encoding. It appears that Cmedia has developed an audio codec (9761A+) that will encode 5.1 Real-Time but it may be more of a software solution rather than hardware. Besides that I was unable to find anything using this codec yet so for now Nvidia is it.
 
I am also looking for a solution with real time Dobly Digital encoding. I tried the SB Audigy 2 ZS and Revolution 7.1. Both lack this capability. My friend has a sound storm and it works flawless. Needless to say I'm very upset that Nvidia removed this from the 250GB chipset.
 
There has been speculation that Nvidia is indeed building a standalone card; God only knows how long this will take with their current string of snafu's in the discrete graphics market. There has been further speculation that the reason for the delay could also be bandwidth related- i.e., a stand alone solution made Nvidia style needs either more bandwidth or a more stable connection to the system than PCI can provide, sugesting that Nvidia is waiting for PCI-Express to be on a large enough installed base before they release such a solution. I am personally looking foreward to such a thing, cause hell, Soundstorm WAS an amazing peice of engineering.

The above is an accumulation of digging over the past year or so; because it is all speculation I am not going to go and try to dig up those sources. None of it matters until Nvidia starts doing something.
 
elation said:
I've briefly owned a motherboard that had SoundStorm audio. To simply put it: it was amazing! It broke and I ended up returning it and going with an Intel based board/cpu. I have some Altec Lansing speakers that have a Dobly decoder built in. My old SB Live! card played DVDs wonderfully but the little green light on my speakers (DD) would go off when I played a game.

I later tried upgrading my system - many times but that's another story altogether - and briefly ended up with an Nforce2 board with SoundStorm down. Holy smokes I was playing games with full Dolby and my little green light was on. The way I understood it was that it had a Dolby encoder which in turn would be decoded by my speakers.

I can't find any SoundStorm cards so I assume it's only integrated with mama boards. Are there any other cards that actually encode DD? Preferably one that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. :) I would need a coax digital spdif out not optical.
Click to expand...

You don't *need* DD encode support from your sound solution. If the game (or other source) supports DD natively, you simply need an output that matches up to your speakers (which are handling the decode chores).

Your speakers apparently dictate the type of audio solution you need (because you specify a *coaxial* S/PDIF connection between the sound support in the computer and the speakers). If the sound card *itself* doesn't support coaxial S/PDIF, then you need a breakout box that connects to the sound card (such as the AudigyDrive or new ZSDrive).

For example, because I wanted the sound card itself (not the speakers) to handle the DD decoding chores, support for DD *decode* and upmixing of stereo or mono to 5.1 were primary features. Quality of the upmix was also key. That pretty much left only Creative's Sound Blaster line still standing (specifically at the time, the Audigy series) for what I could afford to pay ($100 USD) in 2000.

Also, not many games support Dolby Digital even today (the *first* PC game to do so was Wing Commander: Prophecy, and fewer than ten titles since then have followed suit).
 
There has been talk of Doom 3 supporting DD. is it just me, but wouldn't that mean that the game must do ALL of it's sound processing in software, without the help of a hardware solution? And at that point, once it IS DD, it must then be decoded- which would require work from the soundcard. Maybe this is only because the game is going to be on Xbox, but that doesn't make much sense either (as all Xbox games are DD, because of Soundstorm).
 
well not many people like the upmixing. but its true though, games don't really need dolby digital. directsound will give you positional audio. but its just that to many people dolby digital just sounds and seems cooler hehehe :D
 
Dolby Digital is just a way of transferring the audio signal.

If you have 5.1 channels of positional audio (A la DirectSound3D or EAX), then you can encode it into DD or just output it discretely.
 
you check the little box in the advanced audio properties to tell the card to only produce digital instead of analog?
 
Gruntled Employee said:
you check the little box in the advanced audio properties to tell the card to only produce digital instead of analog?
Click to expand...


..and that forces the card to output in digital, in 2.0 mode. Period. It WILL pass pre-encoded stuff, such as DVD's through, if you check the other right box, but 2.0 isd a little weak whe you are going for a suround sound experience, which is why Soundstorm is so loved- it took anything and made it 5.1, then encoded in Dolby Digital for any reciever to decode. Good stuff, if that's what you want to do.
 
You don't *need* DD encode support from your sound solution. If the game (or other source) supports DD natively, you simply need an output that matches up to your speakers (which are handling the decode chores).

Your speakers apparently dictate the type of audio solution you need (because you specify a *coaxial* S/PDIF connection between the sound support in the computer and the speakers). If the sound card *itself* doesn't support coaxial S/PDIF, then you need a breakout box that connects to the sound card (such as the AudigyDrive or new ZSDrive).

For example, because I wanted the sound card itself (not the speakers) to handle the DD decoding chores, support for DD *decode* and upmixing of stereo or mono to 5.1 were primary features. Quality of the upmix was also key. That pretty much left only Creative's Sound Blaster line still standing (specifically at the time, the Audigy series) for what I could afford to pay ($100 USD) in 2000.

Also, not many games support Dolby Digital even today (the *first* PC game to do so was Wing Commander: Prophecy, and fewer than ten titles since then have followed suit).
Click to expand...

Quite a few games support DD. Including FarCry, Unreal 2004, Star Trek Ellite 2. But unless you have a sound storm or connect speakers via analog you only get 2.1 sterio via SPDIF. I've never seen an option in any of those games to output direct SPDIF out like PowerDVD/WinDVD has. They just have an option 5.1 surround.

The Creative solution does not encode even digital games writen with DD even if they support it unless you use their speakers or analog. I tried both the Coax and Optical SPDIF neither worked.
 
I'm not loyal to any standard except the one whose audio mix is most absorbing and/or has the higher bitrate.

The point is, the loyalty to Dolby is somewhat unnecessary; Dolby does not insure a high quality of audio, it's really the positioning of the sound that ensures better realism!

Instead of demanding Dolby, which is just more market-ecture, we should demand:

* higher quality sound effects and music in games

* encoded at a higher bitrate

* and better production procedures, such as mixing in at least a 4.1 direct-radiating speaker setup in a professional dubbing stage
 
DTS outshines DD in every way, shape and form. Unfortunately, DD is far more prevalent; and for most things, DD works great. DD is like CD quality, just in 5.1 instead of 2.0. Keep in mind that MOST things we use today are less that CD quality, including most CD's.
 
Its not that I want Dobly Digital its not that special. Its you can't get any for of surround sound from a PC unless its in DD or you connect the Analog ports. Seeing receivers don't have left, right, center, left rear, right rear, and subwoofer inputs we are screwed unless its in DD. Also DTS is a function of DD.
 
SY-CK8 DRAGON Plus
AMD Socket-754 Athlon 64 Processor Based
C-Media 9739 AC97

from C-Media Web Site "Supports real-time conversion of all analog inputs to S/PDIF output."
 
Kingofl337 said:
Its not that I want Dobly Digital its not that special. Its you can't get any for of surround sound from a PC unless its in DD or you connect the Analog ports. Seeing receivers don't have left, right, center, left rear, right rear, and subwoofer inputs we are screwed unless its in DD. Also DTS is a function of DD.
Click to expand...

Actually, many receivers do have analog inputs for each channel. Of course at that point you would be using the sound card to perform the Digital->Analog conversion and most mid-range receivers would be better at that sort of thing I would think. What do you mean that DTS is a function of DD? They are two different multi-channel sound forms and do not rely on each other for anything.
 
I was under the impression DD is a protocol for encoding surround sound data over SPDIF. Where DTS is a format of surround analog or digital. Like I have a DTS reciever but when I play a movie its in Dobly Digital. I never see DTS on the display.

I stand corrected on the receivers. Looks like the new recievers have analog in for all 6 channels after you break the 300.00 mark. I guess if worse came to worse that would be a solution. But I'd wrather go SPDIF even if it takes some of my CPU time through software encode.
 
Kingofl337 said:
I was under the impression DD is a protocol for encoding surround sound data over SPDIF. Where DTS is a format of surround analog or digital. Like I have a DTS reciever but when I play a movie its in Dobly Digital. I never see DTS on the display.

I stand corrected on the receivers. Looks like the new recievers have analog in for all 6 channels after you break the 300.00 mark. I guess if worse came to worse that would be a solution. But I'd wrather go SPDIF even if it takes some of my CPU time through software encode.
Click to expand...

SPDIF output would be better anyway because most receivers would have better digital->analog conversion anyway and should give you better sound quality. Every receiver I have worked with does in fact say DTS on the screen so if your's only says Dolby Digital all the time then you may not be hearing the DTS soundtrack at all. I actually had to go into an option on the menu of my DVD player to get it to output DTS, it was not enabled when I purchased it and would just default to outputing the DD signal, even if I had chose DTS. Dolby Digital is just a sound format like DTS, it's not anything more than that.
 
Kingofl337 said:
I was under the impression DD is a protocol for encoding surround sound data over SPDIF. Where DTS is a format of surround analog or digital. Like I have a DTS reciever but when I play a movie its in Dobly Digital. I never see DTS on the display.
Click to expand...

That's probably because you have to have a DVD with the soundtrack encoded in DTS, and you have to select this from the sound setup menu of the DVD. Otherwise it will presume you don't have DTS support and will default to the DD soundtrack.
 
Kingofl337 said:
Quite a few games support DD. Including FarCry, Unreal 2004, Star Trek Ellite 2. But unless you have a sound storm or connect speakers via analog you only get 2.1 sterio via SPDIF. I've never seen an option in any of those games to output direct SPDIF out like PowerDVD/WinDVD has. They just have an option 5.1 surround.

The Creative solution does not encode even digital games writen with DD even if they support it unless you use their speakers or analog. I tried both the Coax and Optical SPDIF neither worked.
Click to expand...

*Again* you speak of encoding.

I was referring to *decoding* an already encoded-with-DD source. You mentioned UT 2004: no, it does *not* have a *direct-to-S/PDIF* option, however, other sound cards (notably, *all* of Creative's 5.1 sound cards since (and including) the Live 5.1) include this option in the software packaged with the card (in Creative's case, it's the EAX Console).

The latest versions of PowerDVD and WinDVD allow full-software, hardware-assisted, or full-hardware DD or DTS decoding of DVD movies or audio (starting with WinDVD 5, you could even play DVD-Audio with *any* sound card that supported 5.1 audio output, whether analog or digital).

Further, Creative's sound cards *do* include a *Digital Output Only* option (however, if you do a driver-only install, you don't get this feature, because it must be done via software).
 
I've never seen a game with true DD audio. Even FarCry says nForce2 or mb/sound card with DD encoding required for DD.
 
*Again* you speak of encoding.

I was referring to *decoding* an already encoded-with-DD source. You mentioned UT 2004: no, it does *not* have a *direct-to-S/PDIF* option, however, other sound cards (notably, *all* of Creative's 5.1 sound cards since (and including) the Live 5.1) include this option in the software packaged with the card (in Creative's case, it's the EAX Console).

The latest versions of PowerDVD and WinDVD allow full-software, hardware-assisted, or full-hardware DD or DTS decoding of DVD movies or audio (starting with WinDVD 5, you could even play DVD-Audio with *any* sound card that supported 5.1 audio output, whether analog or digital).

Further, Creative's sound cards *do* include a *Digital Output Only* option (however, if you do a driver-only install, you don't get this feature, because it must be done via software).
Click to expand...

Your wrong. If you run any of these games I listed on a Creative or M-Audio it will not send a 5.1/7.1 signal over SPDIF. It will send 2.0 over the SPDIF. Only the Analoge connections will get surround. Even if you are in Digital Only mode.

I spent 2 hours on the phone both with M-Audio and Creative going round and round and it never worked. Creative ended up telling me I had to buy their speakers for DD surround. M-Audio said it would output in DX8.1 or better but never did and they never were able to get it to.

On the other hand if you set these cards to pass through mode then when playing a DVD it will send DD.
 
I don't get this fascination with Dolby Digital audio in PC games. It's certainly a nice feature in console games, but the PC has had "surround sound" with EAX for a while. Now, I'll admit Dolby Digital is far superior to EAX2 and below, but EAX3 and 4 are more than competitive in terms of quality. The only problem here is that you'll have to be using a Creative card to utilize this, and you won't be able to game in digital mode (using spdif). For me that's not much of an issue, I run the Logitech Z-680s and have coax hooked up to spdif, along with my analogue inputs. When I need to game I just switch over to analogue mode. This may be a bit more difficult for people using traditional stereo amplifiers to route their digital output.

Also, since the Soundstorm is encoding Dolby Digital on the fly, isn't it just re-encoding the original audio files? I'll bet those files aren't in any sort of raw format. It's essentially compressing something already compressed. Don't we generally consider that to reduce sound quality?

Anyone still pining for true dolby digital in PC games should pick up a cheap audigy card, you can get the vanilla Aud2 for around $50, and try playing the games with EAX enabled. That should be enough to convince you that Dolby Digital isn't fully supported on the PC yet because it's simply not necessary.
 
DTS standard is NOT that much superior to Dolby Digital, especially in the lower of its bitrate incarnations.

There are two bitrates that DTS is encoded in, one is around 700kbps and the other like 1400kbps. Most DTS DVD's are the former.

Second, much of the perceived quality improvement of DTS tracks is b/c they are actually mastered at -6db or so higher volume lvls, due to Dolby Dialog Normalization!!! For more info on this, check www.videophile.info.

Third, at the aforementioned sight, they show some wavforms of some of the most praised DTS tracks and find that they do not reproduce the signal much more accurately than Dolby Digital.



HOWEVER, for some reason studios seem to devote more effort into encoding DTS, and as such, DTS mixes are often more directional and more natural sounding, with wider sound fields. Also, for whatever reason, DTS tends to have slightly deeper bass response. But most of the perceived difference comes from the -6db volume increase first, and the wider soundfield, second.

So the key is simply to pick the mix that has the most directional, immersive mix, whether it be DTS or Dolby. Even a higher bitrate DTS mix can sound inferior to a more thoughtful, positional Dolby mix, so experiment, don't pass up on Dolby immediately.
 
well guys... sound is sound. and if it sounds good to your ears, then be happy :D
 
tenken said:
I don't get this fascination with Dolby Digital audio in PC games. It's certainly a nice feature in console games, but the PC has had "surround sound" with EAX for a while. Now, I'll admit Dolby Digital is far superior to EAX2 and below, but EAX3 and 4 are more than competitive in terms of quality. The only problem here is that you'll have to be using a Creative card to utilize this, and you won't be able to game in digital mode (using spdif). For me that's not much of an issue, I run the Logitech Z-680s and have coax hooked up to spdif, along with my analogue inputs. When I need to game I just switch over to analogue mode. This may be a bit more difficult for people using traditional stereo amplifiers to route their digital output.

Also, since the Soundstorm is encoding Dolby Digital on the fly, isn't it just re-encoding the original audio files? I'll bet those files aren't in any sort of raw format. It's essentially compressing something already compressed. Don't we generally consider that to reduce sound quality?

Anyone still pining for true dolby digital in PC games should pick up a cheap audigy card, you can get the vanilla Aud2 for around $50, and try playing the games with EAX enabled. That should be enough to convince you that Dolby Digital isn't fully supported on the PC yet because it's simply not necessary.
Click to expand...

That's the point I've been trying to make here.

The insistence on *outside-the-PC* Dolby Digital decoding is utterly pointless (and worse, expensive and about as necessary as a third foot).

Further, if FarCry were encoded in a *non-proprietary* Dolby Digital scheme, *any* sound card that supports DD decoding (not just every Creative sound card since the infamous Live 5.1, but even the SoundMax Pro included with quite a few motherboards today) would be able to decode it!

On the subject of EAX 4 HD, it is not designed to replace Dolby Digital on the PC by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, EAX itself is an augmentation to the Microsoft DirectSound 3D specification, and is also designed to be further extensible (by Dolby Digital, the direct successor to Dolby AC-3, and by DTS, among others).

I deal with a *lot* of Dolby Digital-encoded source material...and very little of it is movie-based content.

While DVD movies are the largest single DD source for most PC users, in my case you can also add television (specifically, cable TV) content, such as movies, sports, music videos, etc.(The current SCI-FI Channel miniseries, "Five Days To Midnight" is DD-encoded.)

Because I have analog speakers (specifically, 5.1 analog speakers), my sound card *must* be able to decode Dolby Digital content regardless of source. (In fact, very few applications can even *detect* Dolby Digital content, let alone route it properly.)

Has *anyone* realized the sheer amount of Dolby Digital content that is easily available *outside* of movies? (I earlier mentioned FM stereo.)

While DVD movies are a *major* source of Dolby Digital content, they are *far* from being the only source. However, they may be the most easily *decoded* source on the PC due to implementation issues.
 
I know HD streams usually include DD audio, but I've never heard of standard cable or FM radio being broadcast with Dolby Digital. In fact with a traditional Comcast cable setup (not digital), I don't see how one can acquire a DD signal since there isn't a digital coax or optical line to route the audio through. Now if you were talking about satellite content, there's much more DD content out there. And since the higher end satellite receivers come with digital audio outputs, this makes sense. So I guess my question is, how can one get these streams without digital coax or optical outputs? Or are you counting Pro Logic streams the same as DD?
 
You must have a SoundStorm-equipped nForce2 board to play a game in Dolby Digital for one very simple reason: games are interactive, and thus cannot be pre-encoded. DVD movies are pre-encoded because when the action hero bursts through a window behind you, it's going to be behind you every single time you watch the movie. In a game, the developers can't predict where you'll be when an enemy fires a rocket at you, so your PC has to wait until after the rocket is fired to encode it into Dolby Digital. The game can't give your PC that ability, as software-based DD encoding has only recently appeared, and it's very CPU-intensive. The bandwidth between the CPU and the Southbridge on a nForce2 motherboard is enough that Dolby Digital encoding can be done in realtime with a delay short enough to not be noticeable.

So why does the game feature the Dolby Digital logo? Marketing. In the case of Far Cry (where the Dolby Digital option is actually selectable), it adjusts the sound settings to perform better with Soundstorm (which supports 64 hardware-accelerated channels as opposed to the 32 of the Audigy line). I believe Dolby Laboratories has a certification program that outlines certain standards a game must meet to feature the DD logo, but they don't appear to be very stringent.

Of course, DD is not inherently better than analog 5.1 (as has already been pointed out). In fact, the sound quality is technically worse since the signal is compressed. However, the advantages of Dolby Digital become apparent when you hook up home theater speakers to your PC. Most PC sound cards (particularly those made by Creative) have absolutely horrendous bass management. It's so bad, it doesn't even provide enough power to keep my subwoofer from going into standby mode. The average user doesn't notice this because speakers that are made for the PC have bass management systems built into them (either in the subwoofer itself or in the decoder box). Home theater speakers do not, as they rely on a receiver to handle that. Yet only the most expensive top-of-the-line receivers are capable of doing bass management on 5.1 analog inputs (which were made for DVD-Audio and SACD, formats that have a dedicated LFE channel). With a Dolby Digital signal, not only do you have the dedicated LFE channel, but your receiver can apply its own bass management because the signal is digital.
 
The bandwidth between the CPU and the Southbridge on a nForce2 motherboard is enough that Dolby Digital encoding can be done in realtime with a delay short enough to not be noticeable.
Click to expand...

Think firewire or USB 2.0 would have enough bandwidth? That'd be cool. Probably going to have to wait for PCI-E before we see SoundStorm in a card format.
 
Ok lets forget DD, but we want surround sound of any kind via SPDIF. The only way to get that is DD. If its not DD its stereo.
 
Well, there's also DTS, but the only game I know of to feature real-time DTS was Grand Theft Auto: Vice City for the PS2. I'm not sure how much processing power is required to encode it versus Dolby Digital, or whether the PS2 actually has hardware support for that.

USB 2.0 maxes out at about 60MBps and Firewire at 50, while the PCI bus runs at 133MBps. PCI is supposedly too slow for a sound to encode Dolby Digital in real-time, so that rules out USB 2.0 and Firewire. A one-lane PCI-Express slot has a bandwidth of 500MBps, which should be more than enough.
 
Kingofl337 said:
Its not that I want Dobly Digital its not that special. Its you can't get any for of surround sound from a PC unless its in DD or you connect the Analog ports. Seeing receivers don't have left, right, center, left rear, right rear, and subwoofer inputs we are screwed unless its in DD. Also DTS is a function of DD.
Click to expand...

No DTS is NOT a function of DD. And it schools DD in every way possible.
 
einsig said:
einsig said:
No DTS is NOT a function of DD. And it schools DD in every way possible.
Click to expand...

It is not a part of DD , but the rest you said is not true. Go to www.videophile.info for the explanation, but part of the perceived quality difference is due to dialnorm compensation. The graphs also show that DTS does not recreate the waveform objectively better than DD. The detailed data also shows that there is not objectively better bass response. this is just one DVD, but if the improvement was inherent to the codec itself, it'd probably evident as this is a standout title.

Also, there are two bitrates for DTS, and the lower end is not much higher quality than the common DD bitrates.

HOWEVER, it's not the codec, it's how it is used. Many DTS mixes have smoother bass and more directional surrounds. Perhaps the studios do this to create the impression that DTS is worth paying more for.

The moral of the story: pick the codec that sounds best to you, whether it be DD or DTS.
 
IMO, surround sound of any kind is overrated and pointless.. movies are the only exception.
 
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