So, did I make the right sound card decision?

[McBain77]

I just bought my M&K 750 MK II THX Select speaker set, my Denon AVR-1802 receiver, and now, I decided to buy the Audigy Platinum Ex(I don't have room in the tower the card is going in to get the regular Platinum). Anyways, will I be able to hear my games in Dolby 5.1? How bout my mp3's? I'm not sure I will, but I don't think any sound card is gonna make my mp3's or games 5.1 if they run through the receiver, right? I admit, I'm not much of an audio guy yet, but I'm learning all the time. It's amazing I've been missing out on such a HUGE thing for so long. I can't believe I've been satisfied with my Microsoft speakers for so long...anyone wanna buy em cheap?

 

[MoleX]

The only Card that will support 5.1 in mp3 is the GTXP.

The GTXP + powerDVDXP make for formidable 5(6).1 music/movie player

MoleX

 

[McBain77]

Don't suppose you have a link that explains that? Just wondering...thanks. I think I'll be happy either way, as I'm upgrading from my MX300(great card that stood the test of time!).

 

[NotoriousJTC]

So the only card that will play mp3's in 5.1 is the GTXP? I never knew that...

Well what about sound cards like SB Live Platinum 5.1? What does it play mp3's in? 4.1? 2.1? Just curious, as i am also ltrying to learn more about audio.

 

[yngtm27]

Doesn't the Phillips Acoustic Edge support true 5.1?

 

[McBain77]

Just found this at 3dsoundsurge.com

Makes me think that if you have the LiveDrive, 5.1 through the stereo is quite possible. Or am I wrong? My receiver should decode to 5.1 if I run digi-out to receiver from the LiveDrive, won't it? Seems like it to me. Then again, I'm not sure.

 

[Oalex]

<< will I be able to hear my games in Dolby 5.1 >>



There are no games in 5.1

If you were talking about positional audio, then its 4.0 (.1 is sub, and the games don't have that decoded in them, the sound card crosses over the low FQ to the sub. The center is also not use in games this is why they stick with 4.0) I am not sure if the Creative has positional audio (the live 5.1 did not). You should get SC or GTXP. They both have positional audio and can playback any music in 5.1 even if it is stereo, by means of virtualy splitiing the channels from 2 to 6)

BTW: 3dSoundSurge.com is very pro "Creative", they get paid by creative, You will be able to tell from the biasedness of the creative reviews in contrary to all other soundcards that they reviewed. Even before the new Creative was out, they were recomending it (with its 2 year old technology) instead of the superior AE, GTXP or SC.

 

[Raspewtin]

nforce is the only board that will be able to take positional audio cues encode them to DD 5.1 for your receiver on the fly. even that will take some time since out of the box nforce boards cannot recognize eax, sensura, etc yet. so only ds3d would be translated as of now

 

[nortexoid]

actually i believe the AE can do 5.1 via Qsound algorithms, including mp3s (directsound, wav, etc. out)

anyway, he couldn't have gotten ANY sound card widely available except for that one, apparently - since he has no place to insert a sound card...

i didn't even know Creative made an entirely external sound card...interesting.

major rip off though...

 

[McBain77]

I have room - meaning I have a pci slot for it. What I don't have is an empty drive bay for the Audigy Drive, so I had to get the external one. I know it is pretty expensive, but looking at it now, I might bo back and get a GTXP, as I think it has more analog outputs than the Audigy. But wouldn't a single digital out comparable to send ALL my analog outs individually? Thanks for the help...

 

[Soccerman]

heh actually I think even the Vortex 2 could do 4 channel MP3 out.. you just needed the player to use the A3D 3.0 API rather than WaveOut or Directsound. there's even a plugin for winamp that does this I think..

anywho, games from what I can tell only have 4 channels at best of audio output (using EAX 1, 2 or AdvancedHD, or A3D 2.0 though A3D 3.0 had some form of Dolby Digital support integrated, so it might have been able to mix in a center and sub channel).

perhaps your reciever might take those 4 channels and make a LFE channel for the sub (if it had an option to do so, I don't know if u can with any reciever).

most likely it'll just pass through the 4 channels of games to your 4 speakers, meaning your judgement on buying speakers has to have been good enough to predict that you won't be depending on the sub for bass in anything other than perhaps DVD situations.

 

[nortexoid]

ok, well that makes sense....an external sound card would've been cooler though...

i thought creative gave up the internal live drive for only breakout boxes...guess i was wrong.

either way, u should've dropped less than half the money on a GTXP, and u needed firewire, u could've picked up a separate dedicated card w/ more firewire ports than the sb audigy offer.s

 

[Goi]

I'm not sure if there are games encoded in any 5.1 format yet, but I'm guessing in the future there probably would be at least a few titles that would make use of it, perhaps in addition to other 3D gaming standards such as A3D/EAX/etc.

As for 5.1 mp3s, your choice of soundcard is a moot point as long as you have S/PDIF output, since you are already connecting it to your Denon receiver, which I believe has a 5 channel stereo mode.