5.1 sound through digital output

[xyyz]

back to my audigy 2zs and my DTT2500's. i got the DIN and DIN adapter from creative. the DIN has gone to the back of my DTT2500's decoder, and it's terminated in the digital out on the audigy.

i figured it would work right... well not exactly. i've set the audigy to do the SPIDF passthrough, but i can only get 4 speakers working. the center and sub don't generate any sound.

can anyone help me out? will i only get the 5.1 in movies, and not games? do i need to use the analog inputs on the audigy to get 5.1 surround sound?

 

[PurdueRy]

yes you can only get 5.1 in movies while using the digital out. You would need to use the analog outs to get the 5.1 in games

 

[imported_rod]

if you want to get it when not in movies, you may need to change settings, on the soundcard driver and in the games. Many games require you to select what type of audio output to use (2.0, 2.1, 5.1 etc...). Have you tried changing this?

RoD

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Even if you select 5.1 in games, unless the game itself has the capacity to encode itself in Dolby Digital, the only way you're going to get 5.1 out of it through digital is using a soundcard that can encode DD in real time. That means the HDA X-Mystique or the Turtle Beach Montego (or nvidia Soundstorm on some NF2 motherboards).

Using analog for games is a lot easier.

 

[xyyz]

i've changed the settings in whatever way i can. i still can't get the center and the sub in any audio tests.

the games i'm playing do have DD. the audigy 2 zs does real time encoding doesn't it?

if not, the montego will do DD decoding? that means connecting the montego's digital out to my DTT2500's DIN connector, playing games that are encoded using DD, i will get 6 distinct channels?

if this is the case, i'm gonna return this card and get the montego.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: xyyz
i've changed the settings in whatever way i can. i still can't get the center and the sub in any audio tests.

the games i'm playing do have DD. the audigy 2 zs does real time encoding doesn't it?

if not, the montego will do DD decoding? that means connecting the montego's digital out to my DTT2500's DIN connector, playing games that are encoded using DD, i will get 6 distinct channels?

if this is the case, i'm gonna return this card and get the montego.

The Audigy 2 ZS (and all variations thereof) does not do real-time Dolby Digital encoding. And yes, the Montego DDL card would.

However, I'm a little unclear on this DIN connector of yours. Is it the only connection that the speakers have (i.e., no analog)? If I remember correctly, I thought that the DIN thing was actually used to pass along 4/6 channel uncompressed PCM audio digitally, since at the time of those speakers' production, there was no such thing as DD encoding (or any other ways to send compressed multi-channel audio digitally). I'm not really sure if this strange connector would necessarily work with the Montego either...

 

[Accord99]

Originally posted by: xyyz
back to my audigy 2zs and my DTT2500's. i got the DIN and DIN adapter from creative. the DIN has gone to the back of my DTT2500's decoder, and it's terminated in the digital out on the audigy.

i figured it would work right... well not exactly. i've set the audigy to do the SPIDF passthrough, but i can only get 4 speakers working. the center and sub don't generate any sound.

can anyone help me out? will i only get the 5.1 in movies, and not games? do i need to use the analog inputs on the audigy to get 5.1 surround sound?

The DTT2500 will only support 4 channel audio with games for both digita DINl and analog. It was released a long time ago, during the original Live! era when there were only 4 channel soundcards. The 5.1 support is for DVDs. But since it appears to have digital coaxial input, you could get 5.1 game audio with a DD encoding soundcard, but the money would be better spent on a newer, better set of speakers.

 

[willstay]

What's use of real time Dolby Digital decoding if your game outputs only four channel audio signal? It would be like using software/hardware filter/emulators to convert mono into stereo.

In the same context, I never enable audio filters of my Sound Blaster Audigy to force Stereo signal to expand to Multiple channels (I mean to say audio effects like Hall, Concert that span to more than 2 channel output).

If you have 5.1 option selectable in your game but there is no Center and Woofer signals, I suggest you to test directly from analog ouputs located at the back of your PC (on the card).

-----------------
Not related to the topic though, I had really frustrating experience. I bought SBAudigy and Sony DVD Hi-fi D1000 (with touchpad). Since this Hi-fi got optical SPDIF input, I thought 5.1 channel output from SBAudigy will play over 5.1 speakers of my Hi-fi. Unluckily, Sony Hi-fi, since it already got DVD player inside of it, accepts only stereo signal from optical SPDIF input. I tried to locate answers from Sony but to no avail. Japs do have communication problem when it comes to chatting with no Jap speaking customers. (Well, there is remote possibility - SBAudigy is not at all outputting 5.1 over its optical SPDIF).

 

[xyyz]

hang on... i thought the DTT2500's decoder did the DD decoding, why do i need a real time DD-able soundcard to decode a signal that will again be decoded?

please clear my confusion here.

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: willstay
What's use of real time Dolby Digital decoding if your game outputs only four channel audio signal? It would be like using software/hardware filter/emulators to convert mono into stereo.

The game can output true 5.1, but only analogue on the SB cards, while the Mystique-X can recode the channels into a 5.1 Dolby Digital signal, so you don't need analouge for 5.1 gaming.

hang on... i thought the DTT2500's decoder did the DD decoding, why do i need a real time DD-able soundcard to decode a signal that will again be decoded?

the realtime is not decoding it's encoding

The SB cards does not support DD realtime encoding, so it cannot transform the games 5.1 signal to DD, hence the DTT2500's decoder cannot not recieve a DD feed from the SB souncard while gaming. That's what's possible with realtime encoding.

game 5.1 sound is encoded to DD on the mystique-X, the DD signal is sent to the DTT2500 which decodes it to analouge sound.

When you watch movies the DD signal already is encoded, so the SB card passes this to your DTT2500 and it then decodes it, if you use digital out.

the SB card can also decode DD in movies, but then you need to use analogue out.

 

[xyyz]

ahhh... that makes perfect sense.

i assume the montego does the same thing the mystique-x does? how much does the mystique-x cost?

how do these cards stack up to the audigy 2zx - for music mainly, then games second?

 

[biostud]

Review

$99.95 @ Newegg

another review

 

[xyyz]

this DD encoding... i was reading that it's really processor intensive. how bad of a hit will the CPU take while playing games with DDL enabled?

 

[bREwIn dOdgEr dUDe]

3Dextreme review on the x-mystique...

Review- X-Mystique

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: xyyz
this DD encoding... i was reading that it's really processor intensive. how bad of a hit will the CPU take while playing games with DDL enabled?

There's some benchmarks in the review that biostud linked to.

 

[Mavrick007]

Wow, that Mystique-X 7.1 card rox. I'm actually considering one myself. Too bad Creative tech is pushed so much in games, since this card will only do EAX 2.0, but I guess the DD Live sounds just amazing without EAX 4.0 HD.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: Mavrick007
Wow, that Mystique-X 7.1 card rox. I'm actually considering one myself. Too bad Creative tech is pushed so much in games, since this card will only do EAX 2.0, but I guess the DD Live sounds just amazing without EAX 4.0 HD.

The amazing-ness of it is mainly dependent on your speakers.

If you have some highend computer speakers, then an X-Mystique doesn't make sense.

The only time I think it would be a good idea is if you want to hook up digitally to a receiver.

If that's what you have planned, then :thumbsup:

 

[xyyz]

hmmm... the mongego DDL has an optical out and i need the coax instead.

i guess the audigy 2zs goes back and a mystique gets ordered from newegg.



EDIT...

this is a bit OT... but i was told to look at a better set of speakers.

how about refurbed Z-680's for $167 w/ free shipping? do these speakers have an external decoder or do they do the analog thing?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: xyyz
hmmm... the mongego DDL has an optical out and i need the coax instead.

i guess the audigy 2zs goes back and a mystique gets ordered from newegg.



EDIT...

this is a bit OT... but i was told to look at a better set of speakers.

how about refurbed Z-680's for $167 w/ free shipping? do these speakers have an external decoder or do they do the analog thing?

The z-680s accept digital and analog. It has a decoder in the control pod.

If you already have a audigy2zs, I wouldn't bother getting an X-Mystique unless you are going to be hooking up to a receiver and HT speakers.
The Audigy2s are very good cards for gaming and pretty good cards for music.

The z-680s have a coax input, so they would accept the digital out of the audigy2 if you wanted to use that connection for DVDs etc. The analog would be preferred for gaming.

I had z-560s (4.1 version of the z-680s) for $140 that lasted me 3 years and then I sold them for $100. They were very nice for the price and got amazingly loud.

 

[xyyz]

do they have a optical out to coax digital out adapter or something? i'm looking to get the montego DDL, but it doesn't have a coax out.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: xyyz
do they have a optical out to coax digital out adapter or something? i'm looking to get the montego DDL, but it doesn't have a coax out.

The 680s have an optical in and a coax in just so you know (if I remember correctly).

 

[BionicSniper]

I have a soundstorm board and I don't think I could manage without realtime dolby digital encoding!

I LOVE IT


updated ty

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: BionicSniper
I have a soundstorm board and I don't think I could manage without realtime dolby digital encoding!

I LOVE IT

Fixed

 

[BionicSniper]

What did you fix? A spelling and a grammar mistake??

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: BionicSniper
What did you fix? A spelling and a grammar mistake??

realtime.