A simple surround sound question

[Terranboy]

I have am using the built in sound on my Nforce2 mobo. For speakers I'm using my (rather large) Sony stereo receiver. I found a cord that was speaker jack on one end and AVs on the other. So used them to connect my computer and my Stereo. It works and sounds great (just set the stereo to 'video') Well the stereo is a 5.1 rig. And at first I was just using the front speakers, but I decided to hook up the rear speakers today. I wasn't expecting to get any sound out of the rear speakers since a computers rear output is seperate and I'm not using it, plus the inputs to the receiver and just "L" and "R". But I am getting sound from the rear speakers, even in games. It doesn't seem to by true directional surround sound, but sometimes its close. When I listen to music (from the computer) different parts of the music come out of the rear speakers. My question is since I don't have a rear channel signal coming from the computer where is it coming from? The receiver has Pro Logic, is that why?

 

[DaveSimmons]

Probably, but it's not real Pro Logic just wrongly-placed sound from treating a plain stereo signal as Pro Logic. Or you have one of the fake multichannel modes on like "Jazz Club", "Hall", etc.

If you get more analog cables and your receiver has the 6-plug analog 5.1 in (for DVD players with onboard decoders) you can get true 5.1

A digital cable will also give you 5.1 if your nforce mobo has SoundStorm. SoundStorm mobos are the only PC sound system that does real-time Dolby 5.1 encoding of game audio.

 

[cheesehead]

See if you have a S/PDIF port on the back of your mothereboard, and a non-optical digital port (or just another S/PDIF) port on the back. Connect a cable, and you're ready to go!