Sound question

OK so I read the stickies and such, but I have a specific situation about the sound that I haven't seen addressed. Laptop is G73JH with Win 7 64. When home, I basically use it as a desktop with external monitor, speakers, keyboard, etc.

The situation is I need to output 5.1 sound to my Z-5500s. On my old laptop, I used a Turtle Beach Audio Advantage SRM. It worked fine. Turtle Beach has updated drivers for Win 7 x64 so I am good there.

However, this laptop seems to have some Creative software deal and if I can do the same thing without the SRM I would like to. I understand that we G73JH owners are getting a raw deal with regard to the Creative software. While that does annoy me, I am willing to purchase either the 1.1 or the 2.0 software if it does what I want it to. I am a little unclear on exactly what I would benefit from the Creative software and what it does / why it should be used.

Now, I am aware that I can use the HDMI to output to a receiver and run the speakers from that. However I do not have an extra receiver for that purpose and I'm not going to spend that kind of money and desk real estate for one. So that solution will not work for me.

Thanks for the help.

 

It's not the Creative's software fault at all. It's the fact that Asus did not license the Realtek chip with SRS capability. If they did, you would have Dolby Digital Live capability over SPDIF.

You can get an external USB soundcard with this ability, such as the Creative SB1095 5.1 Surround Pro. This would give you DD Live + a standard optical port.