Use other computer's soundcard through network

[PrayForDeath]

I have 2 computers in the same room, one for music and movies and stuff with an Audigy, and the other for gaming. They are connected with a network. I have 5.1 Klipsch Promedia 500W speakers in the room connected to the music/movies PC. But I wanna run my games with this sound system too. So is there a way that I can use the Audigy for gaming through network? I heard I might be able to do it through remote desktop.
Any thoughts?

 

[Philippine Mango]

nope

 

[Lorn]

Get an 1/8th inch audio cable splitter so that your speakers can accept connections from two sources. Make sure it's long so it can reach both computers. Maybe that would work?

 

[PrayForDeath]

Originally posted by: NOLOVE
Get an 1/8th inch audio cable splitter so that your speakers can accept connections from two sources. Make sure it's long so it can reach both computers. Maybe that would work?

That way I can plug it into two different computers? Does that work? Can I find this cable at Fry's?

 

[PrayForDeath]

I found this website but I don't know which cable to get. Can you help me there?

 

[PrayForDeath]

Any ideas?

 

[thraxes]

forget the cable splitter! You will need a real switch to select between two sources and output to one speaker system. Infact you'd probably need 3 of the things for the 6 lines needed for 5.1 surround as they are mostly stereo. I wouldn't know where to look for this stuff in the US, somebody here will probably help out though.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Unless I'm missing something, this shouldn't be too hard at all.

So, the Klipsch sub has 3 x stereo headphone jack type inputs in the back, right?

And you have 2 computer, each with the capability of outputting 5.1 via 3 x stereo jacks.

If this is correct, you can just get 3 of these splitters and plug the male end into the sub. Connect 1 computer with the cables you already have and then get 3 of these cords and plug them into computer #2 and the other half of the y-splitter.

Alternative:
If your audigy has something that can turn a single line input into 5.1... or your klipsch speakers have a setting that maps stereo to all the speakers, you can just send a single one of these from the front output of computer #2 to the line input on your audigy. and just run the audigy alone to the speakers as it's working now.


EDIT: reading thraxes's post, maybe I'm missing something for why the y-splitters wouldn't work. Even if what I said wouldn't, you could still hook up a ghetto manual switcher = you. Run 3 x Male to Female lines from the sub to somewhere you can get to them easily. Then run 3 x Male to Male lines from each computer and connect the ones you want to the speakers when you want them.

I don't know if all that switching would get annoying for you, but it's a really cheap way to do it and I know for sure it would work without damaging anything (turn the speakers off before you switch cables though)

EDIT #2: I re-read what I just wrote and I'm not sure if it's easy to understand. If you want me to draw a little diagram of what I mean, let me know.

 

[PrayForDeath]

Thanks alot for your help.
I just wanna tell you that the computers are infront of each other, each against a wall. And the distance from the Subwoofer to each PC is around 3 meters, so are these cables long enough for that?
Thanks again.

edit: just found out these are 25" cables, so I don't think they're long enough for my setup. What should I do?

 

[stevty2889]

It can be done with a remote desktop program like you said you heard in your first post. It can even be done with the windows remote desktop, one of the options is for local resources, and you can set it to leave at remote computer, or bring to this computer. If you leave it at remote computer, you can play your music on the remote computer, but control it from the other computer.

 

[stevty2889]

never mind, remote desktop won't work for what you are trying, playing games on your computer, and using remote desktop to have the sound on the other computer. Only way I can think of is to connect line out from one computer, to line in on the other.

 

[Brian48]

Wouldn't it be easier to simply just buy a used Audigy and run with two cards in the same box?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Acutally they're 25' (foot) cables... they have ones that are shorter though, go for ones that are shorter if you can, you don't want to do really long runs if you don't have to.

6 feet

12 feet

Do you think you want to do the "manual switch the cables" thing?

if so, you'd probably want to go 12 foot male to female from the sub and then use the cables that you already have for connecting one computer to those, and then male to male of whatever distance you need to get to the second computer from wherever you're doing the switching

i hope that made sense heh.

 

[CSMR]

Looks like the Audigy card is in the wrong computer (the Audigy is a gaming card).
What is the point of your two-computer set-up?
Switching option:
Move movie duty to the gaming computer with the audigy. Get a sound card with good stereo for the other computer. Now you only need to switch one 1/8" cable, since the multichannel speakers are only in use for movies. Actually why not move music duty to that computer? Actually why not move all duty to that computer?

If you can get the Audigy to do multichannel digital out and find a computer that takes multichannel digital in you can keep your set-up and just connect the sound cards with a digital cable.

 

[PrayForDeath]

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Acutally they're 25' (foot) cables... they have ones that are shorter though, go for ones that are shorter if you can, you don't want to do really long runs if you don't have to.

6 feet

12 feet

Do you think you want to do the "manual switch the cables" thing?

if so, you'd probably want to go 12 foot male to female from the sub and then use the cables that you already have for connecting one computer to those, and then male to male of whatever distance you need to get to the second computer from wherever you're doing the switching

i hope that made sense heh.

I think I'll go with your second plan. When you said: If your audigy has something that can turn a single line input into 5.1, did you mean SPDIF output? If that then yes, my audigy has it. So should I just get a spdif cable and connect it to the line in slot in the gaming system?

Originally posted by: Brian48
Wouldn't it be easier to simply just buy a used Audigy and run with two cards in the same box?

How would that help me?

Originally posted by: CSMR
Looks like the Audigy card is in the wrong computer (the Audigy is a gaming card).
What is the point of your two-computer set-up?
Switching option:
Move movie duty to the gaming computer with the audigy. Get a sound card with good stereo for the other computer. Now you only need to switch one 1/8" cable, since the multichannel speakers are only in use for movies. Actually why not move music duty to that computer? Actually why not move all duty to that computer?

If you can get the Audigy to do multichannel digital out and find a computer that takes multichannel digital in you can keep your set-up and just connect the sound cards with a digital cable.

I can move the movies duty to the gaming rig, but I can't move the music because all of our music CDs are on the other system's HD, and my brother uses it frequently. In my gaming rig I have the nForce 4 integrated sound card.
The Audigy card does have Spdif out, but the thing is, my nforce 4 sound card only has spdif out, it doesn't have spdif in. Or do I just use "line in" or something else?

Thanks

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

What I meant by If your audigy has something that can turn a single line input into 5.1 is I wanted to know if you could use a regular cable like i've been linking to to run to the "line in" which should be a regular jack in your soundcard and have the audigy change the stereo to 5.1 to use all the speakers.

Maybe the Klipsch have an option for that even. My logitech z-560s had a mode where you could send it a stereo signal and then it would take that and send a signal to the 4 surrounds not just 2. It didn't work very well, but maybe there's something similar on the promedias.

Does your audigy have a regular line in? You could try hooking up a cd player or something to it and seeing if you get sound out of all the speakers. If you can find a way to do this, you can just send the front output from the second computer to the line in of the audigy and never move any cables around.

EDIT: Oh, and for spdif, is that via digital coaxial? I've never had an audigy, just a TBSC and now a Chaintech AV710. I doubt you can feed an spdif signal to a standard line in and have it work unless the audigy can somehow detect it and cope with it. I think my TBSC had the option to change its versajack to digital in, but I never tried it.
The downside to this is that you won't be able to get true surround from that computer as it will only be giving a stereo signal and if you can get it to all speakers, it will only be "guessing" as to where sounds should be coming from, or it might even just give you the same signal on the rears as the fronts.

I can't think of an easier way to get the true 5.1 signals from each computer than the way i described earlier with the manual cable switching.

 

[PrayForDeath]

If I do what you're saying, I won't get true surround, right?
I just found out that my Audigy has a Spdif-in, so can't I just buy a spdif cable and connect the spdif-out from my nfroce 4 to the Audigy and I am done?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

oh cool....

On my Chaintech AV710, I output to my receiver via digital optical and it only outputs stereo unless i have a dolby digital or dts source i'm playing on my computer. With the stereo output, my receiver then uses the equivalent of "dolby pro-logic" (except it's an HK and I use Logic 7) to map to my 7.1 system.

My point with that is that if you're using the spdif output from your gaming computer, you might only get a stereo signal (in digital form) to the audigy and then it might still only give you output on your klipsch's like a 2.1 source would. So, if you're playing a game, you wouldn't get the "oh, i'm getting shot at from rear left" effect anymore, it would be either straight 2.1 or maybe 2.1 signal split to all the speakers if the audigy or speakers can do this.

I think the nvidia soundstorm digital outputs acutally have a 5.1 signal (i could be way off on that) but other than that, i think if you're just playing a game, the spdif output on the non audigy computer is just going to be a stereo signal.

EDIT: oooh, 500 posts

EDIT #2: yes, "If I do what you're saying, I won't get true surround, right?" is all i'm saying. worst case you'll only get sound out of 2 satellites and sub, best case is it will be on all speakers but wont really be true surround

 

[Philippine Mango]

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Unless I'm missing something, this shouldn't be too hard at all.

So, the Klipsch sub has 3 x stereo headphone jack type inputs in the back, right?

And you have 2 computer, each with the capability of outputting 5.1 via 3 x stereo jacks.

If this is correct, you can just get 3 of these splitters and plug the male end into the sub. Connect 1 computer with the cables you already have and then get 3 of these cords and plug them into computer #2 and the other half of the y-splitter.

Alternative:
If your audigy has something that can turn a single line input into 5.1... or your klipsch speakers have a setting that maps stereo to all the speakers, you can just send a single one of these from the front output of computer #2 to the line input on your audigy. and just run the audigy alone to the speakers as it's working now.


EDIT: reading thraxes's post, maybe I'm missing something for why the y-splitters wouldn't work. Even if what I said wouldn't, you could still hook up a ghetto manual switcher = you. Run 3 x Male to Female lines from the sub to somewhere you can get to them easily. Then run 3 x Male to Male lines from each computer and connect the ones you want to the speakers when you want them.

I don't know if all that switching would get annoying for you, but it's a really cheap way to do it and I know for sure it would work without damaging anything (turn the speakers off before you switch cables though)

EDIT #2: I re-read what I just wrote and I'm not sure if it's easy to understand. If you want me to draw a little diagram of what I mean, let me know.

I think what he is asking is if he can output his audio across the network and have that computer process the audio all with one ethernet cable.

 

[PrayForDeath]

Originally posted by: Philippine Mango

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Unless I'm missing something, this shouldn't be too hard at all.

So, the Klipsch sub has 3 x stereo headphone jack type inputs in the back, right?

And you have 2 computer, each with the capability of outputting 5.1 via 3 x stereo jacks.

If this is correct, you can just get 3 of these splitters and plug the male end into the sub. Connect 1 computer with the cables you already have and then get 3 of these cords and plug them into computer #2 and the other half of the y-splitter.

Alternative:
If your audigy has something that can turn a single line input into 5.1... or your klipsch speakers have a setting that maps stereo to all the speakers, you can just send a single one of these from the front output of computer #2 to the line input on your audigy. and just run the audigy alone to the speakers as it's working now.


EDIT: reading thraxes's post, maybe I'm missing something for why the y-splitters wouldn't work. Even if what I said wouldn't, you could still hook up a ghetto manual switcher = you. Run 3 x Male to Female lines from the sub to somewhere you can get to them easily. Then run 3 x Male to Male lines from each computer and connect the ones you want to the speakers when you want them.

I don't know if all that switching would get annoying for you, but it's a really cheap way to do it and I know for sure it would work without damaging anything (turn the speakers off before you switch cables though)

EDIT #2: I re-read what I just wrote and I'm not sure if it's easy to understand. If you want me to draw a little diagram of what I mean, let me know.

I think what he is asking is if he can output his audio across the network and have that computer process the audio all with one ethernet cable.

But after finding out that I can't, I think I'll use cables.

 

[stevty2889]

"but I can't move the music because all of our music CDs are on the other system's HD, and my brother uses it frequently."

Umm, you can always just network the computers, then you can play the music on either computer, and it won't matter which hard drive they are on..I have all my music files on one computer, but share the folder on the network so I can play them on any of 3 computers..

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: stevty2889
"but I can't move the music because all of our music CDs are on the other system's HD, and my brother uses it frequently."

Umm, you can always just network the computers, then you can play the music on either computer, and it won't matter which hard drive they are on..I have all my music files on one computer, but share the folder on the network so I can play them on any of 3 computers..

I think the computer is a "music/movies PC" as he stated in the OP, I wouldn't want to try to stream a movie heh.

 

[CSMR]

Originally posted by: PrayForDeath
I can move the movies duty to the gaming rig, but I can't move the music because all of our music CDs are on the other system's HD, and my brother uses it frequently. In my gaming rig I have the nForce 4 integrated sound card.

Well then access the music over the network. Unless that will involve too much noise (noise of two computers).