How do you enable "digital CD audio" in Windows 98???

[pg22]

I have a Plextor SCSI drive and a Toshiba DVD drive. Inside my comp, I have the cd audio cable going from the sound card to the Plextor, not the Toshiba. I did this because in Windows 2000, there is a setting in the properties of my Toshiba drive that allows me to enable "digital CD audio" and from what I understand, it then plays music through the IDE cable (so in essense, the CD audio cable is not needed).

But the ptoblem is, in Windows 98, I cannot find that setting. Is it only available in WIndows 2000? This is important because if I install a game on my Toshiba drive in Win98, and it uses redbook audio (CD music), I won't hear the music at all.

Thanks guys.

 

[Slacker]

Click on "multimedia" in the control panel, there you will see the "cd music" tab, check the box that says enable digital cd audio for this device.

 

[MWink]

That option has always been grayed out for me in Windows 98 however now that I upgraded to Windows ME, I can't disable it!

 

[subman]

The options for digital CD audio can be found like so....

double click the speaker icon in the tray next click on options then select properties here you will see the option "show the following volume controls" scroll down the list and you will see the option CD Digital - tick this on and you will see this included in the list under play control which pops up when you double click the speaker icon in the tray

By the way I use a SBLive value and this works for me.... if you have a different sound card your options may differ.

I was under the impression that Digital CD Audio was used via the 2 wire cable which is attached to the CD player and sound card. I may be wrong with this.

 

[MadRat]

Yes, that "skinnier" 2-hole, 2-wire cable is what you meant.
The "wider" 4-hole, 2-wire cable is the regular audio cable.

 

[MWink]

My SB Live! never had that as an option! BTW, Windows idea of digital audio means it comes over the IDE cable (no extra cables needed).

 

[LocutusX]

If you can rip CD audio tracks to your hard drive using CD-DA, then you can "play CD audio tracks over the IDE bus" which is the same thing. There is a plugin for Winamp which lets you play CD's that way. I was doing that on my ancient P166 + no-name soundcard + 12x CD-ROM drive.

 

[Goi]

LocutusX, is the sound quality better than a normal analog solution? Seems like it would since you're bypassing the analog stage and keeping it digital until it gets piped outta the soundcards DAC at the end.

 

[MadRat]

The digital bypass cable allows you to play the CDROM without cpu utilization, not necessarily any performance improvement.

 

[LocutusX]

Goi, the method I am talking about, the sound quality is as close to perfect as you can get. Think about it; the quality is the exact same as if you were ripping your CD tracks to WAV format on your hard drive, except you are "listening" to them in real time rather than saving them. So unless your CD-ROM is messed up and doesn't support CD-DA properly, or inserts lots of pops/hissing (some drives do that) I think it's the best method.

I know there's also the traditional analog CD audio cable method, and that 2-pin digital cable method, but I'm not sure about the 2-pin cable method - never tried it.

I personally just do it the "normal" analog way most people do, since I don't really care about CD audio quality, I rarely listen to CD's on my computer anyways.

 

[NaughtyusMaximus]

Can anyone give me a link as to where I can find the plugin for winamp that lets me use digital audio over the IDE bus?

 

[Goi]

Hmmn, interesting. I would think the digital cable would produce a similar sound quality, and perhaps even better performance since the 16bit 44KHz data is travelling only on that dedicated cable between the CD-ROM and the soundcard, rather than via the IDE cable and hence the PCI bus. Sound quality shouldn't be any different coz its all kept digital until the DAC conversion stage on the sound card, unless there's some sort of up/downsampling involved.
Anyway, I'm still using the normal analog cable too, and I don't think I would really be able to tell the difference in a blind test, but I might try it out...know where I can get the plugin?

 

[NaughtyusMaximus]

^

 

[Zucchini]

Best thing is to have the two wire digital cable. it just bypasses the crappy dac on the cd drive and uses the much better dac on your soundcard. Doesn't waste cpu either.

 

[NaughtyusMaximus]

...If I had digital in on my SB Live.

 

[Zucchini]

huh? my sblive xgamer had a digital cd in+ the cable my turtle beach santa cruz also does.

 

[LocutusX]

Guys, I found a link to that plugin on the plugins section of Winamp's website. I know isn't very helpful but if I remember correctly, the website of the author was a *.ru domain.

 

[NaughtyusMaximus]

SBLive! value's don't have the digital in.

Thanks, I'll look around. If I find it I'll post here.