The question: Is it possible to configure the X-Fi such that Dolby Digital Live (or DTS Connect - I don't really have a preference) is enabled, without losing the ability to do AC3/DTS passthrough?
Background (my apologies for the length): I'm running a Creative Labs X-Fi Fatal1ty Titanium PCIe sound card on my HTPC, sending sound over SPDIF optical to an Onkyo TX-SR606. The rest of the system is an eVGA nForce 750 SLI FTW motherboard, 3.0 Ghz Core 2 Duo, 8GB RAM, and 2 x PNY GeForce 260 GTX Core 216 w/ 896MB in SLI. I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate x64.
I primarily use XBMC to access my video library, which I stream from a server on my LAN. Many of these video files contain a single stereo audio track, which goes over the SPDIF optical out to my receiver as simple stereo. A large portion of my videos also contain alternate audio tracks, some of them Dolby Digital 5.1 (AC3), and others DTS. They all work exactly as you'd expect. When I select an AC3 or DTS track in XBMC, the corresponding DD or DTS icon lights up on the receiver, and I get perfect surround. So far, so good.
I recently purchased Bad Company 2 and Modern Warfare 2, and immediately noticed that I was not getting surround sound in either game. I've tried every possible option that might give you 5.1 audio in these games, but it simply doesn't work. Configuring MW2 to output 5.1 audio still just results in stereo sound. I can enable Dolby Digital PLII on the receiver to simulate surround, but that's obviously not the same. After doing some research, I discovered that I needed to enable either Dolby Digital Live or DTS Connect. Doing so would take the 5.1 audio from my games and convert it into a corresponding stream that my receiver would pick up and be able to decode.
In order to enable DDL/DTSC, you must do two things. 1: Enable the corresponding option in the Creative configuration app, and 2: Configure Windows to use the regular speaker output - not the SPDIF output. The Creative app has a pulldown where you select the digital output you want to use, which on my system contains only the SPDIF audio output. The app notes that the "above selected device" will be used "exclusively" by DDL or DTSC. The implementation seems obvious: the card takes the audio Windows sends to the speakers, encodes it as Dolby Digital or DTS, and sends it out over SPDIF. After so configuring the system, I was able to get 5.1 surround from my games, just as I wanted. The respective lights lit up, and it seemed to be working as advertised.
Unfortunately, this broke audio in XBMC. There would be no sound at all, and playing any media resulted in a notification that XBMC had failed to initialize the audio device. After a bit of reconfiguration, I discovered that the only way to get sound from XBMC was to choose the "Analog" (not "Digital") sound card option. This, of course, disabled the options for selecting a Dolby Digital- or DTS-enabled receiver. AC3/DTS passthrough was no longer available, presumably because DDL/DTSC had "exclusive" use of the SPDIF port. I did try to configure XBMC to use the SPDIF output specifically, to no avail. Selecting the Speakers as the output device did produce sound, but only when the "Analog" sound card option was used. My expectation is that DDL/DTSC would be active until something began sending AC3 or DTS over SPDIF, but that does not appear to be the case.
I can reconfigure my sound settings to suit the particular application I'm running (XBMC vs. games, for example), but would like to know if there is a "set it and forget it" configuration that works.
As I understand it, the card does have built-in DD and DTS decoding, so I could theoretically switch to analog outputs to my receiver and leave the decoding to the card. I'm trying to avoid that and stick strictly to the optical cable, although I realize that may not be possible. If that's the case, so be it. If there is another audio card that will accomplish what I'm trying to do, I would love to know. I'll gladly pay a reasonable price for the convenience, although obviously I'd rather not have to do so.
Any help/insight is appreciated. Thanks!
Background (my apologies for the length): I'm running a Creative Labs X-Fi Fatal1ty Titanium PCIe sound card on my HTPC, sending sound over SPDIF optical to an Onkyo TX-SR606. The rest of the system is an eVGA nForce 750 SLI FTW motherboard, 3.0 Ghz Core 2 Duo, 8GB RAM, and 2 x PNY GeForce 260 GTX Core 216 w/ 896MB in SLI. I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate x64.
I primarily use XBMC to access my video library, which I stream from a server on my LAN. Many of these video files contain a single stereo audio track, which goes over the SPDIF optical out to my receiver as simple stereo. A large portion of my videos also contain alternate audio tracks, some of them Dolby Digital 5.1 (AC3), and others DTS. They all work exactly as you'd expect. When I select an AC3 or DTS track in XBMC, the corresponding DD or DTS icon lights up on the receiver, and I get perfect surround. So far, so good.
I recently purchased Bad Company 2 and Modern Warfare 2, and immediately noticed that I was not getting surround sound in either game. I've tried every possible option that might give you 5.1 audio in these games, but it simply doesn't work. Configuring MW2 to output 5.1 audio still just results in stereo sound. I can enable Dolby Digital PLII on the receiver to simulate surround, but that's obviously not the same. After doing some research, I discovered that I needed to enable either Dolby Digital Live or DTS Connect. Doing so would take the 5.1 audio from my games and convert it into a corresponding stream that my receiver would pick up and be able to decode.
In order to enable DDL/DTSC, you must do two things. 1: Enable the corresponding option in the Creative configuration app, and 2: Configure Windows to use the regular speaker output - not the SPDIF output. The Creative app has a pulldown where you select the digital output you want to use, which on my system contains only the SPDIF audio output. The app notes that the "above selected device" will be used "exclusively" by DDL or DTSC. The implementation seems obvious: the card takes the audio Windows sends to the speakers, encodes it as Dolby Digital or DTS, and sends it out over SPDIF. After so configuring the system, I was able to get 5.1 surround from my games, just as I wanted. The respective lights lit up, and it seemed to be working as advertised.
Unfortunately, this broke audio in XBMC. There would be no sound at all, and playing any media resulted in a notification that XBMC had failed to initialize the audio device. After a bit of reconfiguration, I discovered that the only way to get sound from XBMC was to choose the "Analog" (not "Digital") sound card option. This, of course, disabled the options for selecting a Dolby Digital- or DTS-enabled receiver. AC3/DTS passthrough was no longer available, presumably because DDL/DTSC had "exclusive" use of the SPDIF port. I did try to configure XBMC to use the SPDIF output specifically, to no avail. Selecting the Speakers as the output device did produce sound, but only when the "Analog" sound card option was used. My expectation is that DDL/DTSC would be active until something began sending AC3 or DTS over SPDIF, but that does not appear to be the case.
I can reconfigure my sound settings to suit the particular application I'm running (XBMC vs. games, for example), but would like to know if there is a "set it and forget it" configuration that works.
As I understand it, the card does have built-in DD and DTS decoding, so I could theoretically switch to analog outputs to my receiver and leave the decoding to the card. I'm trying to avoid that and stick strictly to the optical cable, although I realize that may not be possible. If that's the case, so be it. If there is another audio card that will accomplish what I'm trying to do, I would love to know. I'll gladly pay a reasonable price for the convenience, although obviously I'd rather not have to do so.
Any help/insight is appreciated. Thanks!
