Onboard has 7.1, my speakers are 5.1

[jazzwall]

Hi all,

The title basically says it. I've got an Asus A8N-SLI Premium mobo and it has 7.1 audio output (and so, I skipped buying a sound card... plus I'm broke after getting AMD 4800).

I've got Logitech x-530 5.1 speakers. I've connected the center/sub speakers to the 'center/sub' jack, front speakers to the 'front' jack... but not sure whether to connect the other two speakers to the jack labelled 'side' or jack labelled 'rear'?

Also, I've installed the drivers for it correctly (the speakers work... I used the NV Mixer application and can hear sounds from all speakers including 'rear' and 'side'). But in HL2, if there are things behind me in the game, I don't really hear much from the rear speakers (I tried connecting speakers to both 'side' and 'rear'). The audio mode is set to 5.1 in the game.

Any help would be really appreciated.

Thanks!

-Jazz

 

[Mabrito]

Connect it to rear since you have a 5.1. Update your drivers then. I remember when Half-Life 2 came out, it took me 5 driver updates for my onboard sound to work properly in 5.1 mode in HL:2. So it might not work at all. Its the Realtek 880 audio chip.

 

[DougWD]

Yeah that's a Half Life problem really. If you put it in 2 Speaker mode you should at least hear thing in back of you over 2 speakers. Google "Half Life 2 Realtek" and see what you get.

 

[Mabrito]

Yeah that's a Half Life problem really. If you put it in 2 Speaker mode you should at least hear thing in back of you over 2 speakers. Google "Half Life 2 Realtek" and see what you get.

He will hear it in the 2 front speakers, not the rear ones.

 

[DougWD]

He will hear it in the 2 front speakers, not the rear ones.

Yeah, that's what I meant. But he will hear the doppler effect as he turns away form the noise which means only that is will become more faint, and thus we hear that while watching the screen as "in back of us." But yeah you're right. You won't hear things coming from your rear speakers, but you will hear all sounds.

This whole thing is pretty lame. I just installed the RealTek 8-2005 drivers and still nothing from my rear speakers. Should I hear sound coming from them when listening to MPs's from my hard drive? Perhaps that is the problem. MPs have no rear channel. But isn't that what the generic "four speaker" setting is for?

Someone was saying to uninstal the RealTek drivers and instal the nVidia sound drivers. Can anyone verify this?

 

[DougWD]

I just fixed the MP3 problem with WinAmp.

RealTek supprt emailed me back and said to make sure DirectSound was enabled in Win Amp. So I looked at it and changed the DirectSound driver from Windows to the Real Tek driver and it works now. I have rear speaker sound playing MPs. I do not have the center subwoofer sound tho, but I think that is normal.

RealTek released new drivers--my problems are now fixed!
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/dlac97-2.aspx?lineid=5&famid=12&series=8&Software=True