Latency / lag using Digital connections and onboard sound

[achangb]

I am currently running the onboard sound on an ASUS p5b deluxe (Soundmax AD1688 chipset) which supports DTS:interactive and DTS:connect. However, when I use a digital connection (both coax and optical have the same problem) and connect my Z-5500 speakers, it takes approximately 0.5 second for my speakers to "lock" onto the digital signal. Its like the onboard doesn't send any digital signal until a sound gets played, after which the receiver takes a bit of time to lock onto the signal. I get this lag mostly when I use DTS connect. It also happens with just plain optical (no processing) but to a lesser degree (maybe 0.1-0.2 second lag). It happened with my A/V receiver too, so I am thinking it is something strange with the onboard sound. With a constant sound source (eg games or music) there is no problem.I dont even hear my normal windows system sounds because the receiver doesn't lock onto the signal until the sound is 3/4 finished playing. However, when I am playing a song, and the receiver locks into DTS mode, then system sounds come through.

Does anyone have this kind of problem with any add-in sound cards? Basically is there any lag between when the sound is sent from the computer, and when the receiver locks onto the DTS-signal (using digital connections and DTS connect)

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: achangb
I am currently running the onboard sound on an ASUS p5b deluxe (Soundmax AD1688 chipset) which supports DTS:interactive and DTS:connect. However, when I use a digital connection (both coax and optical have the same problem) and connect my Z-5500 speakers, it takes approximately 0.5 second for my speakers to "lock" onto the digital signal. Its like the onboard doesn't send any digital signal until a sound gets played, after which the receiver takes a bit of time to lock onto the signal. I get this lag mostly when I use DTS connect. It also happens with just plain optical (no processing) but to a lesser degree (maybe 0.1-0.2 second lag). It happened with my A/V receiver too, so I am thinking it is something strange with the onboard sound. With a constant sound source (eg games or music) there is no problem.I dont even hear my normal windows system sounds because the receiver doesn't lock onto the signal until the sound is 3/4 finished playing. However, when I am playing a song, and the receiver locks into DTS mode, then system sounds come through.

Does anyone have this kind of problem with any add-in sound cards? Basically is there any lag between when the sound is sent from the computer, and when the receiver locks onto the DTS-signal (using digital connections and DTS connect)

There is always some lag because the connection is digital. It has to sync to the signal before it plays anything. Once this occurs, short sounds are often already over. This will not happen if you use PCM out(which you should be doing unless you are playing a game) as there is much less overhead for standard PCM output.