Game surround sound question

[sbdjaro]

I have a SB Live 5.1 card and i have a surround sound receiver. I have the sound card hooked up through SPDIF (coax) and i would like to know how it is possible to play games in surround sound. Is there some sort of software out there that will encode the sound to ac3 so my receiver can play surround? The only things that i can play in surround are DVD's and the ac3 files that came with the SB live installation disc. Help would be appreciated. Thanks.:cool:

[-N-]

first off, the game you're playing has to support 5.1, or THX, or whatever. Otherwise... you'll get "surround sound".. meaning sound that is surrounding you just beacuse your speakers are surrounding you :D :D .

DVD's support 5.1 channels, that's why you sound card is able to decode and process it to your speakers. I'm not sure if any games support Dolby Digital though.. but games support EAX!!... which should have some kind of real-life 3D positioning audio format to it.

[sbdjaro]

the thing is, when i plug analog speakers into the front and back i do get true surround sound in games. i just want it to be so that it feeds through the coax by changing the surround sound in games into a digital surround signal. ie. durring the surround test in the creative speaker setting screen, i can hear "Rear left challel" and "Rear right channel" in the rear left and right speakers. But when running the same test with digital output enabled, no sound comes out at all during the rear left and right channel tests....

[-N-]

hm... how wierd.. that happens to my speakers also.
When I do the speaker test, i can hear front right/left, but no rear. But then when i switch my speakers (Altec Lansing ACS-56) to the "game mode" then I can hear it say "rear right/left". But not while in normal mode..

hm, wierd... :rolleyes:

[skahtul]

Originally posted by sbdjaro
the thing is, when i plug analog speakers into the front and back i do get true surround sound in games. i just want it to be so that it feeds through the coax by changing the surround sound in games into a digital surround signal. ie. durring the surround test in the creative speaker setting screen, i can hear "Rear left challel" and "Rear right channel" in the rear left and right speakers. But when running the same test with digital output enabled, no sound comes out at all during the rear left and right channel tests....

And here is why. When you hook up your speakers to the analog output for the front and for the rear you are getting "surround sound" but you are not getting true 5.1 Dolby Digital encoded sound of any type. Your computer is "simulating" surround sound by changing the volume levels and stuff in the rear, but it is not an AC3 signal. I know that UT2k3 supports Dolby Digital. Also when you have your receiver hooked up through your coax to your computer, change your receiver from a digital signal to an analog and you will get Pro-Logic surround sound (I think when I use mine I keep the sound card setting to "digital out" though.)