[Solved] Optical sound pass to 5.1?

[Hottwire]

Hey guys,

Was wondering if anyone could give me some insight, into (if any cables/new hardware is needed) in order to be able to pass 5.1 directly from my pc to my a/v reciever.

Setup as present

Mobo: Asus M5A97 Pro (2 PCI, 2 PCI-E x1, 2 PCI-E x16, 4 DDR3 DIMM, Audio, Gigabit LAN)

Video Card: AMD Radeon HD 6870 (with hdmi out)

Monitor: Samsung Syncmaster 2333HD

Sound Card: Asus Xonar DX (7.1 analog channel or 1 optical out/line in flexi adapter)

A/V Reciever: Pioneer VSX-321 + speakers

basically films already work in 5.1 if encoded properly. Music i just have the A/V Reciever use Dolby Pro Logic II Music/Extended stereo to push to all speakers.

Its mainly for the benefits of my games as i now currently do not get the sound of something coming from behind :P lol

Any help greatly appreciated, if you need more details then please do ask.

Link to a hardware summary from AIDA64 if you need Hardware summary

[ck_kent]

I was actually figuring out this myself just a couple of weeks ago. :D We basically have the same setup. I'm using an optical cable from my on-board sound going to the receiver as my receiver doesn't have HDMI input. I get true 5.1 surround when playing movies after properly configuring media player classic but when playing games like COD Black Ops 2, even after I set the option to use 5.1 and using the digital audio as default in Windows, the receiver doesn't seem to detect it properly and it only uses Dolby Pro Logic II to get a virtual surround. :unsure:

I'm guessing that the option for a 5.1 surround will only work using analog output? As I'm not seeing an option to use an optical or S/PDIF within the game (COD). :huh:

[Algalord]

@Hottwire Since you have an Asus Xonar DX, in order to have 5.1 surround from games using an optical cable you'll need to enable the "Dolby Digital Live" encoder in your sound card options.

@ck_kent If your onboard sound card have "Dolby Digital Live", just enable it and you'll have 5.1 sound from your games. Most onboard sound cards don't have it though.

[ck_kent]

@Algalord, I think you're right. I also read it here. But others say that it will only simulate 5.1 and not output it natively as opposed to using analog connection?

[majithia23]

This is something new . Never read this before.......

If the PC is delivering bitstream audio for movies to the AVR , then it should work for Games too ! :think:

I dont play games , but i just hook up my laptop with the AVR via HDMI and thats it !

Music and Movies . Stereo , Multi Channel and Bitstream .

Try using WASAPI as the sound kernel instead of the inbuilt Windows Sound Mixer .

After installing it , connect your hardware and WASAPI will detect it . Select the WASAPI out for your selected device and done .

WASAPI ensures transmit of exact audio signal with minimal or no interference .

( even also , its recommended to use WASAPI for a better sound ! )

This is the easy way .

You can also try the ASIO driver . This is the best sound kernel . But requires a lil bit more tech knowledge and expertise .

Your sound card should be ASIO capable ....

[Hottwire]

I set the asus sound board control panel to use Dolby digital live under SPDIF ouput (shown below) it made no difference to my games.

Under windows settings for Optical out the following formats (shown below) work as i have tested them and i get 5.1 working fully when set to test DTS and dolby and the A/V Reciever detects this and displays the change in setting.

No idea how to use WASAPI or ASIO as the default output, foobar supports using both and ASIO works fine but seems to crash the audio when anything else tries to interact with it.

Would using ASIO4ALL do any good ?

Any further help appreciated, and any more info needed feel free to ask. I really want to solve this so will be updating where possible.

[majithia23]

My laptop sound card does not support ASIO .

So i use WASAPI and it works fine .

I simply set the output as "WASAPI HDMI Out" in which so ever player i play a file in , Foobar or Potplayer or MPC and thats it .

The rest is handled by the AVR .

If its Bitstream it decodes it and if not then just relays it .

After wards i turn on any DSP's ( ProLogic or DTS Neo ) from the AVR , if i feel like .

Try installing WASAPI . and then play around with it .

If you have not connected the AVR to your PC , does the sound card utility tells you what audio is it receiving ( The sound stream info i.e flags , bitrates , channels etc ) and what is it doing with it ? :think:

And what about the sample rates in the settings menu ?

Why did not you select all the rates ? Why only 44.1K ?

Did you check the game audio for its authenticity ? meaning if it is actually a true Dolby or DTS encoded multi channel sound ?

If it is in some way not properly flagged , the AVR will not be able to decode it ..... ( ..... not actually sure about it ..... :think: )

Just check up , as to how exactly is the audio embedded in the game !

And what does the first setting "Audio Channel = 6 channel " actually refer to ?

Is it the info of the incoming audio signal or is it an instruction to the card ?

And i'm sure you must have played around with the SPDIF settings menu , but what exactly are the options under it ?

You have set it as i can see to relay a Dolby Live bitstream . If the AVR does not understand this code , you shall not get any effects !

And more so , if its a DSP applied by the card to the audio signal , then also the AVR will not be able to do anything .

In this case simply relaying the audio to the AVR , might work ....

Are there any Sound options in the game menu ? Like -- what audio would you like to use , Dolby DTS multi channel or just stereo ?

or

even the preferred output mode ?

( .... simply what i can think of is , just set the sound card to relay the audio from all the sources to the SPDIF and dont mess with any settings .

A bitstream audio signal through SPDIF to the AVR will have all the info and the AVR will automatically output the embedded info ! )

.... just a hunch of few permutations and combinations i can think of !

[Hottwire]

My laptop sound card does not support ASIO .

So i use WASAPI and it works fine .

I simply set the output as "WASAPI HDMI Out" in which so ever player i play a file in , Foobar or Potplayer or MPC and thats it .

The rest is handled by the AVR .

If its Bitstream it decodes it and if not then just relays it .

After wards i turn on any DSP's ( ProLogic or DTS Neo ) from the AVR , if i feel like .

Try installing WASAPI . and then play around with it .

I shall try this soon, thanks

If you have not connected the AVR to your PC , does the sound card utility tells you what audio is it receiving ( The sound stream info i.e flags , bitrates , channels etc ) and what is it doing with it ? :think:

The sound card is connected via optical out to optical in on the AVR. The sound card does not do this no.

And what about the sample rates in the settings menu ?

Why did not you select all the rates ? Why only 44.1K ?

None of the other modes made any sound come out of the speakers although the unit supports these i feel the sound card itself does not

Did you check the game audio for its authenticity ? meaning if it is actually a true Dolby or DTS encoded multi channel sound ?

If it is in some way not properly flagged , the AVR will not be able to decode it ..... ( ..... not actually sure about it ..... :think: )

Just check up , as to how exactly is the audio embedded in the game !

I shall give Battlefield 3 a go as i believe it has a different option as opposed to the standard most games have of 2.0 2.1 or 5.1 and get back to you

And what does the first setting "Audio Channel = 6 channel " actually refer to ?

Is it the info of the incoming audio signal or is it an instruction to the card ?

It is the input source so for games/films should be set to 6 channel and for music set to 2 channel.

And i'm sure you must have played around with the SPDIF settings menu , but what exactly are the options under it ?

You have set it as i can see to relay a Dolby Live bitstream . If the AVR does not understand this code , you shall not get any effects !

And more so , if its a DSP applied by the card to the audio signal , then also the AVR will not be able to do anything .

In this case simply relaying the audio to the AVR , might work ....

Two options PCM or Dolby Digital Live.

Are there any Sound options in the game menu ? Like -- what audio would you like to use , Dolby DTS multi channel or just stereo ?

or

even the preferred output mode ?

( .... simply what i can think of is , just set the sound card to relay the audio from all the sources to the SPDIF and dont mess with any settings .

A bitstream audio signal through SPDIF to the AVR will have all the info and the AVR will automatically output the embedded info ! )

.... just a hunch of few permutations and combinations i can think of !

Cheers will get back with some more info when i can

[Hottwire]

After a lot of playing around and frustration of not wanting to spend money, I gave up and bought 2x HDMI cables.

One from graphics card to a/v reciever (any port)

One from a/v reciever (TV OUT) to the monitor.

Had to make a small change on my monitor to tell it that the HDMI is going to be a pc, by changing its source name. So that the monitor doesn't do any processing and instead leaves it all up to the graphics card.

I now have 5.1 for TV/Films and games where supported :D

I now just have a useless sound card sitting doing nothing.... haha (bit of a pain as i spent good money on it)

[sOLVED]