Problem with subwoofer channel playing Crysis

[Beatmatcher247]

I'm running a soundblaster X-Fi Fatality sound card on Windows Vista 64 bit, through a Marantz Av 7005 preamplifier. My problem is that there doesn't seem to be any sound being ran through my subwoofers in the game but the speakers seem to be all working. I'm using optical output on soundcard to the Preamplifier.

What's the best "decode" mode to use?

Are there any settings people commonly have wrong on the soundcard's software that would prevent the explosions in the game from having the depth that they do in movies?

Newb to this, any thoughts would be appreciated. Going to try with a few different games and see if it's Crysis specific or across the board on all my games.

Thanks.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

I'm running a soundblaster X-Fi Fatality sound card on Windows Vista 64 bit, through a Marantz Av 7005 preamplifier. My problem is that there doesn't seem to be any sound being ran through my subwoofers in the game but the speakers seem to be all working. I'm using optical output on soundcard to the Preamplifier.

What's the best "decode" mode to use?

Are there any settings people commonly have wrong on the soundcard's software that would prevent the explosions in the game from having the depth that they do in movies?

Newb to this, any thoughts would be appreciated. Going to try with a few different games and see if it's Crysis specific or across the board on all my games.

Thanks.

Your best mode to use is Pass-Thru - your Marantz Av 7005 is more than capable of decoding the digital signal

 

[Beatmatcher247]

Having some difficulty doing this on Windows Vista 64 bit. Looked at some various guides on the net and not sure if I'm doing it right. Something still doesn't sound right when listening to pandora in stereo and multi-channel audio games.

 

[jinjuku]

Get back to basics:

Get online and find a ~40hz mp3. Play it and see what happens.

 

[Beatmatcher247]

It plays in stereo, multichannel stereo, neural, etc... it sounds heavily colored. I dont think im accomplishing true pass thru. Is my particular soundcard capable of just passing along the audio signal along via optical for my marantz av7005 to automatically decode? Ive read this isnt possible with my card. Looking in the sound card control panel i dont see any passthrough options. Just different modes like "entertainment mode", game mode, and music creation mode. Any products that can help me do what i want to do if its not possible with this one? Ive also read that the optical output doesnt have enough bandwidth to pass along lossless audio.

The sound sounds really thick in the low end and midbass. My subs dont seem to be getting any kind of useable signal. I got this x-fi fatality titanium card to save my rig few fps. Seems ive chosen a poor vehicle and connection technology to get lossless, uncolored audio from games, movies music etc from htpc to my preamplifier.

Hoping to get this to work afterall. Maybe ill try using my mobos onboard as it looks lime that has optical out as well. Is that a bunch of baloney about optical not having enough bandwidth to do.lossless proper?

Thanks for your help. Im a complete newb to this.

 

[Beatmatcher247]

I've tried getting passthrough to work on both my Creative soundcard and my onboard audio and it seems that in Crysis, Fallout etc.., it defaults to stereo and if you want to do true surround sound it isn't possible. The closest you can get is one of the pseudo-formats, neural, multi-channel stereo, etc..

Maybe it is what pandora is outputting that is colored. It sounds just fine on my shitty pc speakers at work but when I get it home and run it over my more revealing synchrony ones it seems heavily colored, thick in the mid-bass and low bass. WMP files don't seem altered as badly. This happens with both my creative and my on-the-motherboard adapter. I think I've got pass-through to work with both of those. High bit rate is selected.

In any case, until they mix surround sound on the games that I play in a standard format, true multichannel may not be possible. Seems at least Fallout Vegas and Crysis default to stereo output when preamp is set on "auto detect". Maybe there is a workaround in some of the game's .ini files to get it to output in a true lossless surround sound format.

 

[TLS Guy]

It plays in stereo, multichannel stereo, neural, etc... it sounds heavily colored. I dont think im accomplishing true pass thru. Is my particular soundcard capable of just passing along the audio signal along via optical for my marantz av7005 to automatically decode? Ive read this isnt possible with my card. Looking in the sound card control panel i dont see any passthrough options. Just different modes like "entertainment mode", game mode, and music creation mode. Any products that can help me do what i want to do if its not possible with this one? Ive also read that the optical output doesnt have enough bandwidth to pass along lossless audio.

The sound sounds really thick in the low end and midbass. My subs dont seem to be getting any kind of useable signal. I got this x-fi fatality titanium card to save my rig few fps. Seems ive chosen a poor vehicle and connection technology to get lossless, uncolored audio from games, movies music etc from htpc to my preamplifier.

Hoping to get this to work afterall. Maybe ill try using my mobos onboard as it looks lime that has optical out as well. Is that a bunch of baloney about optical not having enough bandwidth to do.lossless proper?

Thanks for your help. Im a complete newb to this.

Optical does not have the bandwidth for Dolby True HD and DTS Master HD.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Optical does not have the bandwidth for Dolby True HD and DTS Master HD.

Technically it didn't in the past, but the problem is it's prohibited by Industry DRM regulation is it viewed spdif is not secure enough ...

 

[Beatmatcher247]

So what are my options?

Got Creative X-FI Titanium Fatality with analogue and optical outs
Got Realtek on mobo HD Audio board with analogue and optical outs

Marantz AV7005

What is the ideal way to get lossless audio stream straight to the Marantz preamp to be decoded there? What would you do?

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

So what are my options?

Got Creative X-FI Titanium Fatality with analogue and optical outs
Got Realtek on mobo HD Audio board with analogue and optical outs

Marantz AV7005

What is the ideal way to get lossless audio stream straight to the Marantz preamp to be decoded there? What would you do?

HDMI out from Video card

 

[Beatmatcher247]

My video card is an Nvidia 8800GTX. Don't think lossless audio is an option on my current rig without changing out the card.


Here is an option? Looking at upgrading to a new rig soon anyway. Just wondering if it be worth it to wait till mid 2012 for the sandy bridge hexacore flagship asskicker.

http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/amd-radeon-hd-6000/hd-6950/Pages/amd-radeon-hd-6950-overview.aspx#2

A pair of these in crossfire in a sandy bridge rig would absolutely smoke @ 1920x1080 with everything cranked and would handle all of my audio needs? No need to use onboard or standalone card at all with one of these is there?

Any audio issues when using these in crossfire mode?

 

[Beatmatcher247]

■Integrated HD audio controller
◦Output protected high bit rate 7.1 channel surround sound over HDMI with no additional cables required
◦Supports AC-3, AAC, Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio formats

*copy and paste from amd's website for above mentioned video card*

Will this make what I'm trying to do possible?

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

■Integrated HD audio controller
◦Output protected high bit rate 7.1 channel surround sound over HDMI with no additional cables required
◦Supports AC-3, AAC, Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio formats

*copy and paste from amd's website for above mentioned video card*

Will this make what I'm trying to do possible?

yes, Radeon card series since 5xxx generation does support lossless HiDef audio formats you are looking for

ps: http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/3762/sapphire_radeon_hd_6950_2gb_unlocked_to_hd_6970/index.html

 

[spooony]

Crysis used 3,500 sound events, built from nearly 15,000 individual sound files, requiring over 30 gigs of uncompressed audio data, revealing that in the end about 1.7 gigs of the game DVD is audio.
Its all software emulated your card is just doing the coversion if you use analog. Analog on the HD is only stereo i believe? Think that card is made for headsets to provide dolby to steoreo headphones which creative calls it CS3D or something or whatever. So in short use cans with that card otherwise you wasted over a 100usd on Creatives software with a card bundled with it it