So my trusty Ligitech z560's bought the dust, and I got a real receiver (Pioneer VSX-815) and speakers. My motherboard is an A8R32-MVP deluxe with Realtek HD audio, and I've used an optical cable to connect it to the receiver. I can get stereo sound, but no center or surround channels come through. I have verified I am set to 6-channel (5.1) in both the Realtek audio control panel as well as Windows. The receiver does not indicate it is receiving a surround signal, though. I know the receiver is configured correctly (at least for other inputs) because other sources work fine. Is there a setting I need to change somewhere, on the receiver or on the PC? Back in the day I had an nForce2 PC hooked up to a Kenwood receiver and that worked fine for 5.1, so I (thought) I had some concept of what is going on. I have tried games, and DVDs with both Dobly Digital and DTS (the receiver is capable of both). It seems like the PC isn't outputting what I want it to.
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Help setting up PC with AV receiver
- Thread starter ar1550
- Start date
So I downloaded ac3filter and set the output to SPDIF, so now I can pass through Dolby Digital and DTS surround from DVDs directly to the receiver. Games are still stuck in stereo...I read something on another forum that indicated it might be necessary to use analog outputs on the PC to get surround sound in games. Does anyone have any experience with this? I'd like to stick with just the digital connection if possible.
killernoodle
2[H]4U
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2002
- Messages
- 2,634
Yeah, that is likely that you might need to use the direct inputs.
Right you are.ar1550 said:It seems like the PC isn't outputting what I want it to.
For some reason, the Optical output on your motherboard does not support surround sound, just stereo. To get surround sound, you will need to use 3 analog cables (check your motherboard documentation on how to do this).
It's possible that your old motherboard had DDL (Dolby Digital Live) encoding, and was able to send a 5.1 surround signal through the optical cable.
Your current motherboard does not have this feature it seems.
~Hope this helps
Yeah, the previous motherboard had nvidia soundstorm, and I distinctly recall that it had DD live output; that's what I must have used when it was hooked up to the receiver.
I have another computer with a Turtle Beach Catalina in it, I'll have to see if that is capable of doing what I do. Worst case, I guess I drop back to analog outputs. Not too big of a deal, mostly I wanted to reduce clutter & the number of things I have to replug every time I take the PC to a LAN.
I have another computer with a Turtle Beach Catalina in it, I'll have to see if that is capable of doing what I do. Worst case, I guess I drop back to analog outputs. Not too big of a deal, mostly I wanted to reduce clutter & the number of things I have to replug every time I take the PC to a LAN.