Any games out that would use digital encoding?

[deadken]

Ok, so a while back I bought a Creative Labs Audigy 2 ZS Platinum and a set of Logitech Z-680 Speakers. I was tired of getting snuck up on when Sniping and figured that the Digital Audio features of the soundcard and the speakers would be able to keep me alert as to what was going on around me.

Well, I gotta tell you, BF1942 only comes across in 2 channels when you use the Digital Audio settings. So, I went back to (3) Anolog inputs and was content, but certainly angered over how much I spent. Now that I am playing BF2, I wonder if any games have started to use Digital Encoding in their gameplay?

I will dig around some, but figure that this would be as good of a place to start as any.

-Thanks, Ken

 

[DaveSimmons]

Some non-Creative cards use Dolby Live encoding to make surround from any game work properly through a digital cable.

Creative are too lazy in their market dominance to bother offering this feature.

That said, a digital cable is just a convenience over analog cables. Dolby encoding uses lossy compression (just like MP3 files) so it's technically worse than using your analog cables which send an uncompressed signal.

In short, analog 5.1 surround is actually better than Dolby digital 5.1, if you don't mind the rat's nest of cables.

 

[deadken]

Wow.... It makes sense. I thank you for your time. I am again annoyed at Creative Labs for not offering a workaround for Dolby Live encoding, but at least knowing what I now know, I wouldn't use it anyway.

As I re-read what I wrote early this morning, I see that I stated that I was "certainly angered over how much I spent". While true, I honestly have to admit that I am still VERY pleased in the way my PC sounds. These speakers/soundcard produce much better results then what I was using before (onboard and Z-640's). I have rationalized it by admitting that if I occansionally spend huge sums of cash on a Video Card, why not spend a very large sum of cash on my Audio components (in this case 'just once', which is more then I can say for my Video cards).

Thanks for your help!