3D sound from a digital output? Is this poss???

[Mickey123]

Hi,

At the moment I’m using my Asus mobo’s Realtek built in sound card and getting any speaker to work with anything other than the front left or right (2,1) seems impossible via digital out..

If I upgrade and use a Creative X-fi sound card via its TOS link optical connector to my front room amp/receiver will I get 5.1 or just 2.1 as with the Realtek?

I understand the X-fi series doesn’t use DD or DTS etc etc.

The big Q is would I get Creative 3D sound from a Digital Output?
IE if a sound happens behind me will it only be heard over the rear satellites?

[daveyeah2000]

Dont up grade to anything Creative if you want 5.1 surround it can only be done through the analogue outs and not the digital. The only card that i have found to offer 5.1 surround over a digital out is the m-audio revolution which can be ordered from http://www.thomann.de at a reasonable price. This card will passthrough both DD and DTS to an amp, receiver.

[AML]

Creative have cornered the sound card market and because of that its very hard to get your PC to output Dolby Digital for gaming.

Its not too hard if its just for DVDs, but for games that support DD, its much harder.

Have you all noticed how a few years ago many games like UT 2004 were coming out with DD support? But then they all stopped supporting it?

And now the only sound system games support is Creatives EAX system which only works with creative cards and creative speaker systems.
(all analog)

Creative should be sued the way MS got sued for trying to become a monopoly...