Vista - Dolby Digital 5.1 Issue Under Vista Ultimate 32bit

I am running a dual boot system with the following:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6000+ @ Stock 3.02GHz
Asus M2N-E SLI Motherboard w/ Onboard C-Media CM6501 Like Sound Device
4 GB of Memory
Nvidia Geforce 8800 GTS OC2
372 GB SATA Windows XP
298 GB SATA Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit
Random DVD drive (:-p)

I am using the motherboards onboard spdif/rca jack (the yellow plug thingy) which goes directly to my stereo system. Connected to my stereo I have 5 speakers, Front(2), Center and Rear(2). No subwoofer unfortunately, maybe soon.

The problem which I am having is that using the spdif output mode limits my sound card to 2 speaker output resulting in emulation through all my other speakers and a rather lack luster surround sound experiance. I have tried many things to solve the problem on my own as far as changing drivers, switching to analog output from my motherboard and a few other minor changes. Sadly nothing seems to work. All I want is true 5.1 output that will actually take advantage of my speakers at this point, even though I would really love it to be true dolby digital 5.1 output I'd settle for analog as long as its not just emulating stereo through all 5 speakers.

Any suggestions or help that you can provide me would make me soo happy as I have run out of ideas myself. I bought this motherboard because I owned an Asus Nforce2 for years and absolutly LOVED the dolby digital 5.1 it was capable of.

That would be SoundStorm and was only ever available on the NF2 based motherboards,

SoundStorm - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

One thing that in all likelihood that is causing your problems are the drivers you are using. Unfortunately at the moment there is no way of knowing (short of searching Google for who knows how long) if C-Media released a driver newer than the one that is currently available from Asus, which is almost a year and a half old. Problem with C-Media at the moment is that the license they had for Sensaura expired and they have pulled ALL drivers from the download page,

Drivers | C-Media Electronics

and has been that way for close to two months.

Now with all that being said the only way I can see around it at the moment is to get an actual sound card. Now if you decide to go that route, what kind of budget dso you have for one before making any recommendations.

First I would like to just say thank you for explaining those two things to me. Though I had seen them I was hoping maybe someone else could shed some light on the situation for me. I had feared the only option would be as you reccomend to purchase a stand alone sound card. Which while very frustrating maybe I can find one that out does my expectations.

Now as far as budget goes, maybe you can help me with this. I have absolutely no gripes about the quality of sound with the cmedia onboard audio, its actually quite good quality. The only thing that could get me to buy a seperate audio card would that it has true Dolby Digital 5.1 through SPDIF on Vista. Preferably without me having to do hotfixes or anything like that. As far as quality goes it doesnt have to be the super ultra mega platinum edition or anything, like I said my main concern is the honest to god seperation of 5 speakers which output sound independently. Where as right now the same sounds for the rear speakers on my set up are coming from the fronts causing the rears to be basically non-existant to the ear due to the size difference and positioning. Basically money isnt too big of a deal, but I dont want to spend a rediculous amount ya know? True Dolby Digital 5.1 is priceless IMO. ONLY after you have achieved smooth outstanding visuals to go with it though, and that is where my sound is keeping my immersion factor down because I was so spoiled by the soundstorm you mentioned.

Thanks again for the info. I hope you understand what I am looking for in a card and appreciate the help so much. I've been so frustrated wracking my head against my desk after installing driver after driver hoping to get the sound I'm looking for. And I dont trust going to any old best buy and asking one of their employees what I'm looking for because they would probably just look at me like

Ok so I've been browsing sound cards and most of them are really not too expensive. Still a little upset that I have to be even buying one in the first place but oh well. I am looking at two specifically right now and dont know which to go with.

The two cards which I'm not sure about. Both seem to offer this "creative alchemy" thing which brings surround sound to Vista which being a problem I'm having seems to make sense. Though the the more expensive one says it has Dolby Digital Live Encoding which sounds really good.


This is the one with the Dolby Digital Live Encoding which sounds like what I'm looking for. According to the website it goes for 100$.
Creative PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium SB0880 70SB088000004 - Sound Blaster - Intense audio for your games, music and movies

The other card while not stating Dolby Digital Live Encoding says it offers this feature which I have a feeling is simply proper/correct Vista drivers which brings the surround sound through optical/spdif back. Why hasnt microsoft fixed this themselves considering how long vista has been out now?
PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio 70SB104000000 - Your Movies and Music. Way Better

What are you using to try and output 5.1? (Software and content wise)

In addition to that, what is the main use going to be, for gaming or for music/movies?

I am using the default Cmedia audio controls program. And it is mostly for games. Currently I have the latest software/driver package installed from the asus website. After trying countless others and getting fed up after completely losing sound, I uninstalled everything deleted all the packages I had downloaded and figured whatever Asus had was probably the most reliable. Though unfortunately not the best, because still it does not allow me to get true 5.1 dolby digital through the spdif output. I am almost begining to wonder if the motherboard itself is even capable of doing more than 2 channels in Dolby Digital and that is simply my problem but I am uncertain of this and could be wrong.

To answer your question though my main concern of use is with games, generally I dont play any where seperation is important for skill like online FPS games. Though I am having trouble with immersion in games like Crysis, Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Call of Duty World at War when the graphics look great so it makes my inadequate sound all the more noticable when it comes to feeling truely involved in the game. Such as getting in an itense fire fight and turning to move back for cover yet the sound of bullets and explosions or monsters/spells still all comes out of my front speakers rather than true 5.1 seperation of the sound source making it come from my rear. I understand that maybe this is being picky but I am an avid gamer and immersion is something I love. I do listen to music on my PC as well but that I dont really care as much about for surround sound, though it would be nice for if I want to watch a DVD on my PC, though not that important. At least not as much as gaming.


PS. Sorry I was away and didn't respond for so long, spent the day out with my girlfriend. Went to see Quantom Of Solace and stopped by a few stores to see what sound cards they had. It seems none of the retailers in my area carry either of the two cards I placed links for above leaving me forced to make the purchase online if I am unable to fix my software error or come to find that the motherboard is truely only capable of 2 channel Dolby Digital output.

If you can go that high, you will be hard pressed to find anyone that will dispute that this is one of the best cards for gaming (and very good for music and movies),

Newegg.com - AuzenTech Auzen X-Fi Prelude 7.1 7.1 Channels 24-bit 192KHz PCI Interface Sound Card - Sound Cards

In fact you can find a very lengthy discussion about it here (107 pages and counting),

Auzentech Prelude Discussion Thread - Guru3D.com Forums

If you read enough of you you will discover one thing and that is most there will agree that the best sound out the card comes from using the analogue connections over the digital, if for no other reason than that the DAC on the card is better than just about anything on a digital (still no such thing) speaker system, and better than the DAC's in most HT systems.