Audigy > Digital Output > Stereo Receiver > No surround sound in games?

[boyRacer]

So if you hook up a receiver to the Audigy's digital output... you won't get surround sound in games? And you'd have to use analog cables and connect all 3 to the Audigy? Is it because most games are not 5.1? 😱

 

[Heretik]

Is it because most games are not 5.1?

Basically....yes. You could get 5.1 sound from all games if your soundcard is capable of Dolby Digital encoding (like the onboard audio on the nForce)

 

[Goi]

Well, you just said you have a Stereo Receiver, so I think you answered your own question. Stereo is 2 channel only, so you're not gonna get any surround sound unless your receiver has A/B speaker output, then you'd be able to mirror your front and back soundstage for quadrophonic sound.

 

[boyRacer]

What I meant by stereo was stereo system... oops... sorry about that. It's an HT receiver. 😱

 

[Goi]

hmmn, well you should've said HT receiver then 🙂
A stereo system would still be 2 channel only since stereo, derived from stereophonic, means 2 channels.

Anyway, to answer your original question then, you won't be getting any EAX or other 3D sound formats via the digital output, as there's no standard in carrying that sort of signal via S/PDIF. What you can get is DD, DTS and PCM. The former 2 are encoded surround sound formats, but I know of no game that supports these formats. Doom 3 will support DD, but it is also a long way off. PCM is just normal uncompressed sound, and if that's used, you'll be getting stereo(2 channel) sound from your receiver/speakers, unless you do some surround sound processing over at the receiver side(many receivers have DPL, DPL2, DSP modes and other surround sound modes that fill all 5.1 speakers with sound), but this wouldn't be ideal since you wouldn't be hearing what the game developer intended, i.e. you wouldn't be able to get directional/positional cues from your games.

The only way of getting true surround sound from games using the native 3D API formats would be to connect the 5.1 analog output from your soundcard to your receiver's 5.1 analog bypass input, however only the latest and/or greatest receivers have this feature, as its meant for high resolution formats such as SACD and DVD-A.