X-Fi Titanium Disappointment

W

Wolf-R1

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Aug 30, 2004
Messages
2,005
So, just installed an SB X-Fi Titanium sounds card. Let's not talk about the b*tch of a time I had installing the drivers on BOTH of my OSes (XP32/Vista64). My real problem is that I've just discovered via driver and post on Creative's forums that their cards will not output 5.1 sound via any digital medium for anything other than Dolby Digital. All it will output is 2 channel stereo. Sucks that I missed this in my bit of research.

Real question is this: Is there a sound card available that will put out 5.1 sound via optical without having to jump through hoops? At the moment my goal is to pipe the sound to an old receiver I'm using to do 5.1 sound.
 
That isn't an X-Fi issue. Any soundcard would do that. 5.1 can only be sent via SPDIF in Dolby Digital or DTS form. To get 5.1 in games, you'll ned to enable Dolby Digital Live! or DDL, which will encode the 5.1 audio from the games, etc. into Dolby Digital in real time, which will let you have 5.1 on your receiver.

What is your receiver? You might be in luck if it offers 6 channel analog inputs, and DDL doesn't work for you.
 
I must have been the only person to never had ANY problems installing an X-Fi and I did it on XP32 and Vista64.

Anyway, get everything installed and go to the X-Fi's control panel and look for Dolby Digital Live or DTS Connect. DTS Connect will only be available in Vista as it's not in XP for some reason. This will allow you to transmit 5.1 from games over optical/coax to a receiver.

You can transmit multichannel encoded (DD5.1, DTS, etc) streams from DVDs and other encoded sources like that without DDL or DTSC enabled but for games you'll need to enable either of those options so that the sound card can encode the 5.1 in a format your receiver understands.
 
What they said ^^
If you dont enable DDL/DTS connect, your game sounds will be stereo.
 
Thanks for the responses guys. I do have DDL enabled in the audio control panel. My receiver is old enough that it doesn't have the ability to do DTS so I'm stuck with DDL.
When I enable DDL I get sound only out of the two front speakers. Front right/left sound good. Front center, despite being a mix from FR/FL speakers sounds really good. The two rear channels however sound like crap as they're clearly coming from FR/FR but sound muffled and muted. Here's what I've got:

Audio Control Panel tabs:
Mode: Game
Speakers: 5.1 SVM Off
EAX Effects: Enable
X-Fi CMSS-3D: Enable (doesn't seem to matter if this is on or off)
X-F1 Crystalizer: Off
Encoder: Dolby Digital Live
SPDIF I/O: Default
Bit-Matched: Off
Headphone Detection: both checked

I've played with some of these settings and all I can seem to get is either DDL on or off. Thus sound or no sound and it's always the almagamation of sound via the front right/left speakers. Never via the discrete channels.

Note I'm using the Creative Console Launcher to check sound status by clicking on the different speaker icons to see where the sound would originate from. Also note that this receiver worked perfectly before I replaced it with an Onkyo unit and brought it up to use with the computer.
 
Perhaps its the config inside the amp that is set for stereo only?
Try doing a factory reset on the amp, its memory may have corrupted.
 
No, it shows that it's receiving proper 5,1 signal. That's the bizarre thing. Furthermore it would never, or at least has never in the past, mix all incoming signals into the front speakers. I'm not even sure it's capable of doing that.

For the record it's a JVC RX-884VBK
 
CMSS sucks, makes a buncha extra junky noise. If you're playing a game, go to the game's audio settings and make sure it's set to 5.1 and if you're watching a DVD for whatever DVD application you're using make sure it's also set to 5.1. If you're playing an MP3 or other music then chances are very good it's only going to play in 2 channels since music is typically recorded in stereo.

It sounds like something could be funky with the sound card config but I'd also make sure you don't have any other 'enhancements' set on your receiver. I'd reset it to factory defaults. I'd also go into the Creative console and reset everything to default and then make sure to enable DDL and default everything else having to do with sound. :)

Have you used the software auto-update to check for new drivers? Might wanna try that if you haven't.
 
So what I'm gathering at this point is that the DTS mode will do exactly what I'm looking for it to do despite that DDL should. Apparently there's a setting within the DTS mode to transfer all channels from the PC to the receiver in pure 5.1 mode or at least that's what it reads like. However, my old receiver doesn't do DTS and I'm not sure I want to spend the cash on a cheap receiver to replace this one. Unless someone knows of a decent DTS capable receiver for $100 or less. Much more and I might as well just get a brand new Onkyo TX-SR304 for $140.
 
Just hijacking your thread for a split second here..
I've ordered myself a Asus Xonar HDAV1.3 Deluxe and a set of Creative Gigaworks S750 7.1 speakers, will I obtain the Dolby Digital Live / Dolby Digital TrueHD and DTS(HD) Master Audio capabilities when running through the RCA / mini-jack analogue output?

Or does it require some special stuff to be enabled? Some special cables or something? (yeah, I' am a newbie)
 
RamGuy said:
Just hijacking your thread for a split second here..
I've ordered myself a Asus Xonar HDAV1.3 Deluxe and a set of Creative Gigaworks S750 7.1 speakers, will I obtain the Dolby Digital Live / Dolby Digital TrueHD and DTS(HD) Master Audio capabilities when running through the RCA / mini-jack analogue output?

Or does it require some special stuff to be enabled? Some special cables or something? (yeah, I' am a newbie)
Click to expand...

Using analogue, the HDAV1.3 will decode all sound at full bitrate to give the best quality analogue sound.
You need to connect your amp to the daughter board : HDAV 1.3 Deluxe - Premium Multi-channel Analog - HDAV H6 surround channel expansion card.
Halfway down this page
http://www.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=11638
If you dont have the right connectors you will likely need to get a stereo 3.5mm jack socket (female) to stereo RCA connectors (male) for each pair of speakers.


For a Digital audio connection, there should be a Coaxial/Optical port for AC3 quality sound but HiDef digital sound will use the HDMI port.

The card comes with its own Blu Ray player "TotalMedia Theatre" which allows the full sound quality from Blu Ray so you need to use that.
 
Stanley Pain said:
Should've got a Prelude :D
Click to expand...

Other than thread crapping can you elaborate on this? I can always sell the X-Fi and get another card. Might take a loss but it would be better than getting pissed every time I have to deal with this card.
 
Wolf-R1 said:
Other than thread crapping can you elaborate on this? I can always sell the X-Fi and get another card. Might take a loss but it would be better than getting pissed every time I have to deal with this card.
Click to expand...


I have owned Creative cards in the past and now, well, I don't own any. I have had too many driver issues with creative cards.

As far as the Prelude, Auzentech makes their own drivers for their card. From what I hear they are a step above Creative drivers.

Personally I am a big fan of the Asus Xonar cards. I am going to be buying a Xonar D2 soon for this computer (I am currently using onboard) to go along with the new audio setup I am putting together.
 
visionviper said:
I have owned Creative cards in the past and now, well, I don't own any. I have had too many driver issues with creative cards.

As far as the Prelude, Auzentech makes their own drivers for their card. From what I hear they are a step above Creative drivers.

Personally I am a big fan of the Asus Xonar cards. I am going to be buying a Xonar D2 soon for this computer (I am currently using onboard) to go along with the new audio setup I am putting together.
Click to expand...

I have to say that I'm kicking myself for this. I swore I would never buy another Creative card again and did it anyway. My concern was actually for driver support. I was worried that a smaller company wouldn't have as good a support structure as a larger one. However, Creative has shown that paradigm doesn't exactly work. However, even in an analog mode this card sounds incredible. The stereo sound I was getting out of the optical sounded even better so I am in fact toying with the idea of powering through these problems and keeping the card.

What is the audio setup you're looking at? I'm actually considering getting a cheap DTS receiver to accomodate the DTS Connect that this card is supposed to be able to do. However I really want to test things out first and know of no way I can reliably test without bringing a DTS capable receiver into the equation.
 
Wolf-R1 said:
Other than thread crapping can you elaborate on this? I can always sell the X-Fi and get another card. Might take a loss but it would be better than getting pissed every time I have to deal with this card.
Click to expand...

Wasn't intended as a thread crap.


Overall the build quality of the Prelude is better, and oddly enough the most important bit has been the driver quality. The odd part being that the driver portion is from Creative but they seem to have done a better job for Auzentech than their own cards.

I've also seen a lot less complaints from Prelude users about issues that still plague a lots of Nvidia chipset users (crackling/popping, bus mastering issues and the like).
 
Stanley Pain said:
Wasn't intended as a thread crap.


Overall the build quality of the Prelude is better, and oddly enough the most important bit has been the driver quality. The odd part being that the driver portion is from Creative but they seem to have done a better job for Auzentech than their own cards.

I've also seen a lot less complaints from Prelude users about issues that still plague a lots of Nvidia chipset users (crackling/popping, bus mastering issues and the like).
Click to expand...

I apologize for that statement however it's nicer to have a response with something to back it up. :)

I do appreciate the info. I'm willing to bet that Creative is better at driver support for cards they make for other companies because of the potential revenue loss. That's another discussion though. I'm going to take a look at these alternatives. Thanks again.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top