X-Fi does not support digital 5.1 output?

S

silentwolf

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Dec 4, 2005
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I have jsut been setting up my new computer, and am having trouble getting my new X-Fi Fatality soundcard to work properly.

I want to send my sound out digitally, to a 5.1 Speaker system I have with digital decoders in it. However, in the X-Fi options, it only allows me digital output to 2.1 speakers, and headphones...

I somehoe cant believe that the audigy 2 can export 5.1 sound digitally, and the X-fi cant... What am I doing wrong?
 
Thats correct. You can only output via 2.1 or PCM 2.0 as the X-FI does not do real time digital encoding. If I remember correctly, this is a form of copy protection so that you cannot rip straight from a digital source such as DVD audio. Not sure how that works for say games and what not. What speaker setup are you trying to run in Digital?

-E
 
I am running a set of creative computer speakers... The 5700's I believe (http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=4&subcategory=25&product=439&nav=2) they they support 5.1 through creatives proprietary 5.1 Digital DIN line. I have been running a setup like that since the das of the orignal audigy gamer.

So basically, I can no longer continue using my 5.1 Digital DIN line for my speakers? I now have to find some other way to get 5.1 audio to my speakers? This is just stupid! Why would they go backwards like that? I dont know about you, but all this anti piracy BS is beginning to annoy the hell out of me, being a legitimate consumer...

Anyone know of a hack or third party drivers that will enable this featre, or am I stuck looking for a 5.1 analog to digital converter?
 
crap now this really sucks. I use digital on my 5.1 logitechs z5500. Sheeesh.
 
silentwolf said:
I am running a set of creative computer speakers... The 5700's I believe (http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=4&subcategory=25&product=439&nav=2) they they support 5.1 through creatives proprietary 5.1 Digital DIN line. I have been running a setup like that since the das of the orignal audigy gamer.

So basically, I can no longer continue using my 5.1 Digital DIN line for my speakers? I now have to find some other way to get 5.1 audio to my speakers? This is just stupid! Why would they go backwards like that? I dont know about you, but all this anti piracy BS is beginning to annoy the hell out of me, being a legitimate consumer...

Anyone know of a hack or third party drivers that will enable this featre, or am I stuck looking for a 5.1 analog to digital converter?
Click to expand...

You *do* realize that analog connections are usually better for audio than digital, right? Especially with Creative speakers - no way the DAC in them is as good as that the X-Fi is using.
 
After remembering an interesting review from Maximum PC, I stumled across this little gadget that will convert the analog 5.1 signal, into digital...

http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=13&subcategory=55&product=14191

Guess what? its made by creative... This sounds a little fishy to me, that they will disable it on their soundacrds, yet produce a product that will effectively overcome that disability...

I guess as far as I am concerned, I am screwed... I am going to have to pick one of these up if I want to play games in digital 5.1 again...

Way to go RIAA and govornment... There are ways more important things to be working on in this country then stopping piracy by hurting legitimate consumers...

Anyone who stil lwants to play their games in full digital 5.1, and who do not have analog inputs on their speakers will asically have no choice but to pick this thing up.

And regardless of soundquality or whatever, my speakers do not have 5.1 analog inputs... thats why I am angry.
 
The digital DIN was a proprietary multichannel digital connection by Creative and they had it on only a few of their speaker sets. AFAIK they didn't try to market the connection to other speaker companies or even if they did it probably wasn't worth the cost to implement since the market for something like it is small. Either way, digital DIN has been dead for years now and it was only a matter of time before they dropped support for it.

There really isn't that many people in your situation. The multichannel digital DIN only worked for a handful of Creative speaker sets that are now relatively crap compared to what's out there now. None of their soundcards support AC3 or DTS realtime encoding so anyone who wants multichannel digital sound from non encoded sources have to go with another soundcard company anyways. It just sucks that Creative left out analog input for your speaker set.

It's got nothing to do with copy protection, that only applies to DVD-Audio discs and that cuts off digital out no matter what.

The DTS-610 is even more of a niche product, the only people I see needing it are people with SACD and DVD-Audio players that already have the multichannel analog inputs on their receiver used up or someone with an older kickass receiver without the necessary analog inputs who can't afford to buy a whole new receiver.
 
Indeed Digital DIN was only ever used by a few creative speakers. All it did was use 3 sets of 2-channel pcm streams to send 5.1 audio.

That they dropped support is unsurprising, i don't think its related to piracy in any way but rather that the feature was almost never used.
 
well this just saved me from buying an x-fi

im using an audigy2 right now hooked up to my hometheater setup using that spdif out...
i still find it odd that 5.1 doesnt work even if it's a digital 5.1 source. i thought if it was an analog signal it would just send 2 channel pcm, but if it has digital encoding, then it's just another signal without seperate channels until it is externally decoded
 
Cesium said:
i still find it odd that 5.1 doesnt work even if it's a digital 5.1 source. i thought if it was an analog signal it would just send 2 channel pcm, but if it has digital encoding, then it's just another signal without seperate channels until it is externally decoded
Click to expand...
If it's originally 5.1 encoded, like from a DVD, for example, it will send that just fine over SPDIF. It's just that games, for example, that create 5.1 on the fly, are not sent via SPDIF
 
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