5.1 surround on G1S under XP?

I'm running XP on my G1S, and today I've been trying to get 5.1 surround sound to work.

The Realtek software only allows a choice between headphones or 2ch speakers. I have the very latest version (included in driver pack 1.86), and I've seen screen shots from other systems that show this software giving the option of surround.

So, my guess is that something on my system makes it think my hardware can't support 5.1. But it can, I tried it under Vista before I reformatted. My guess is it's something to do with the Microsoft UAA driver.

Could someone with working 5.1 on a G1S with XP please let me know what version you have of the UAA driver, Realtek Sound Manager and any other software required to get audio working - and, ideally, where you got them?

Thanks
Andy.

 

This is a very common question and I have provided this solution many times on this forum. The Realtek soundcard does support up to 7.1 audio if you were to use SPDIF/Digital Out.

The headphones jack is actually a dual auto-sensing connection that supports both analog (Stereo Headphones Jack) connection as well as digital (Toslink Optical) connection.

In other words you will need a Toslink Optical cable with the 2.5mm adapter which looks like this:


On the recieving end, you do need a highend Digital 5.1-7.1 Speakers system that supports optical in connection.
Example:
Logitech Z-5500 Digital
Cheaper Analog 5.1 Speakers will not work as those require the 3 analog connectors (green, black and orange) commonly used on desktop machines.

 

Yes, thanks, but I have both the optical cable and a compatible A/V amp. However, I only get 2 channel linear PCM output, not DD or DTS, and the Realtek software doesn't give me the option to enable more than 2 channels even with the optical cable connected.

 

Check out these threads:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=99226
http://forums.logitech.com/logitech/board/print?board.id=51_speakers&message.id=9208&page=1&format=page

 

Quick quote from the Logitech forum:

It's a common misconception that once you have 5.1 Speakers that all audio is then output as surround sound. The audio played must be encoded as 5.1 or DTS or Dolby Digital to have Surround sound output, or else you will only have 2 channel audio from the left & right speakers only. Installing an application like SRS Audio Sandbox offers "fake" 5.1 as it re-encodes all audio from 2 CH to all channels.

 

I think this may be a driver issue. You might want to update to newer Realtek drivers via Realtek's website
However with the threads provided, people have indicated that although it is displayed as only supporting 2CH audio, with Digital Output enabled, it doesn't matter what the control panel says. You will get surround sound through either DVD Software (with DTS and DD enabled, Digital out) or with AC3 Filters or other decoders like the SRS Labs Sandbox I mentioned above.

 

I'm an audiophile and an electronic engineer by trade, so I do understand that 2 channel music isn't going to 'magically' transform into 5.1

I agree it sounds like a driver issue, but - as per my first post - I do have the very latest version of the Realtek driver from their site. Hence my request for information about any other software that might be relevant. The Vista driver that came on the machine originally, made specific mention of Dolby Digital and DTS, and it was able to run a speaker test in 5.1.

I had hoped that this meant games would be able to deliver 5.1 audio through the SPDIF interface. But it seems that this is not the case - it doesn't seem to be able to generate the necessary Dolby-encoded signal. All it can do is pass through pre-encoded audio from a DVD.

I can't say I'm entirely surprised, as it would require compressing 6 channels of audio in real time, whereas cards that have lots of analogue outputs don't have to do this. I can't say I'm not disappointed, though.