Sound Engine

[Zachstar]

How are you getting 5.1 from the motherboard from a single cable if DTS connect isnt enabled? Do you mind looking at the things console and seeing if it says Dolby Digital or DTS? From what I understand DTS connect is a mode you have to enable manually.

What you MIGHT be getting is some kind of Dolby Pro Logic or Matrix mode which many games sadly do not take advantage of.

Edit: What is worse is I cant tell if you mobo has DTS Connect enabled or not. Some say you have to have the UD7 version of the mobo but its page dosent list it either.

The benefit I am speaking of is dedicated output of high quality 5.1 audio to that system. 2 channel audio will still go to the correct ports so the headphones ought to still be able to be used by that system as it is now.

For instance you can run an experiment by connecting that systems analog cables to the 5.1 out on that realtek and running a game designed for 5.1 (Make sure you set the windows audio settings right tho) You ought to notice the difference at once. (If you happen to do that BTW let me know the quality of that codec as a friend is soon purchasing a mobo with that same codec and I am curious if he needs to get a card right at the moment as he dosent have the best speakers)

[Black Patriot]

The Realtek HD audio manager says that it's running Dolby Digital Live as it's output, which seems to be 5.1. I have run surround tests in the past, and there are 6 discreet audio channels coming from the audio chip, and I seem to get positional audio from most games, at least the well designed ones, but it can be difficult to tell when the games is running, especially some of the faster paced games.

The Logitech receiver handles the conversion from 5.1 to 2.0, and it seems to be pretty good at it, I still get faux positional audio from the headphones.

[Zachstar]

DDL is the same as DTS connect (Connect is just higher bitrate) It converts 5.1 audio into a standard DD signal on the fly. I should have thought of checking for that as it is part of the normal spec.

Just curious (I believe you when you say you have true 5.1 nice!) Is your windows audio set for 5.1 speakers and Realtek to DDL?

On my Turtle Beach to get DDL working I have to first set windows to "speakers" and set them to 5.1 then go into my turtle beach manager and enable DDL. I notice if I try to use "Digital Output" in windows it will override the card settings and just send PCM 2 channel. That was a pain in the butt to find out.

Edit: Just wanted to say that you have an awesome setup there and one that is very different from the simple setups most people have. Even at the lower bitrates of Dolby Digital live (Higher end cards will beat that with their analog but the analog on that current realtek cant) It is true seperation of 5.1 audio and it is deserving on good audio to feed it in my opinion.

I agree with cut off of high end of distant audio. I just want it there. A distant explosion or torpedo impact coming from the side or rear will be something to drool over! That is if the sound engine can handle it.

[Black Patriot]

I'll have to check the audio settings later, on my phone at the moment, but from what I recall I did have to select 5.1 output, and I also enabled Dolby pro logic, though from what I understand that's just for turning 2.0 into 5.1.

The only real problem with my system is that my tv won't take a 5.1 signal over hdmi, even if I tell it to passthrough the audio to it's optical out port. If I had that then I wouldn't need to switch source on the receiver at all, the tv would handle it. I sort of understand why samsung designed their tv that way, if your going to do 5.1 over hdmi then you'd do it through the audio receiver rather than the tv, but it's still annoying.

I'd also like to point out the audio designs used by Bungie for Halo 3 onwards, where they would actually simulate the distant audio from battles in multiplayer, it works quite well and sounds pretty authentic, can't remember whether they added the delay for the speed of sound or not, I know that Valve did for the source engine.

[Zachstar]

Pro Logic is for hiding 5.1 in 2 channels through matrixing. I would not enable that unless the program is mistakenly saying it will convert 2 channel into multichannel.

That is where I ran into a huge issue with my setup. For the games that worked better using pro logic and music ( Some Modern music hides surround channels did you know that?) I had to disable the "speakers" in windows and revert the audio to digital audio (Overriding the card settings) And setting my receiver itself to pro logic II.

Any chance of a screenshot showing this pro logic function?

BTW nano and whoever else is interested. I am finding several interesting choices for sub 100USD sound cards.

Big edit!: To answer your TV question almost ALL TVs completely fail to just strip the PCM or DD info from HDMI for optical. Most of the time their optical port is JUST for the DD or PCM info on Over the air broadcasts. However, in your situation you do not need to do that as an optical connection (Or coax or analog) is easy as pie compared to that of a normal receiver. Just run an optical line from the TV just for OTA and do get that switch box! You are going to wear out the optical port on that logitech from switching so much!

[Black Patriot]

Hmm, I assume that Pro logic is only used when there's a 2 channel source, and is ignored for full 5.1, otherwise I'll have to turn it off, don't need everything downgraded to 2.0. Checked and I do have DTS enabled as an output format, along with Dolby Digital. I did have more frequencies selected for output, but when I reinstalled the drivers I lost the settings and I haven't been bothered to go back and fix them, I think everything except 192 kHz worked with my receiver.

I knew it output 5.1 from it's built in tuner, however since I don't watch TV it hasn't been an issue. I might end up getting that switch, just to save myself some effort, but I don't think it'll make a huge difference overall, but you never know. I'm not concerned with stressing the optical port on the receiver, I don't switch the cable on that end, it either goes from the receiver to the Xbox or the receiver to the PS3.

[Zachstar]

IIx is supposed to be used to help simulate height channels. I would play around some with it off and see if it affects anything.

Realteks have gotten quite advanced from even my MSI mobo but that is the digital output part so is that what is "enabled" and "default"?

I also found a better expination to this weird issue of having to use the "speakers" device to get DDL and DTS connect. Its part of this crappy new sound system introduced with vista. If you have digital out selected it will report that as a 2.0 device no matter what you do. So the old tried and true method of doing the DDL encoding on the card has to be used.

[Zachstar]

LoL I am way too much into sound lately.

Edit: Removed That statement was not fair considering the state of many other sound engines.

What I am seeing is a general Clusterfrak when it comes to 3D audio. My guess? Is that after the Vista Directsound3D disaster the industry just started writing their own sound engines with some exceptions. That is needless when it comes to this project in my opinion tho.

I found this interesting. This appears to be a maintained LGPL implementation of modern OpenAL api (Software mixing) http://kcat.strangesoft.net/openal.html