How to get sound on rear speakers with vis

Question

?I found, on very obscure intructions, how to enable surround sound on vista 32 and 62 bit drivers.
?Do not install the disk that came with the sound card, if so, then uninstall. Then use (only) the vista drivers for vista 32 bit or 64 bit. The disk, and the drivers on this website, together installed?won't work.
?Then?click Start,?then go to?programs then creative. There in the controll panel select xifi-cmss 3d. Under stereo envelopment put 50% that equals the sound between front and back speakers. and that's it. It worked 00% for me, it might work for you.Art.

Answer 1

after having slept a couple of hours and read about a bit about pulse and jack the general feeling I get is that they cause people trouble.
Understanding how to write a good .asoundrc seems to be the best option, but a bit complicated. Since I didn't actually want sound from both cards, but merely a simpler way to switch, I've given up for now. I wrote a simple script to do it for me, and running that is actually simpler than fiddling in alsamixer, finding and muting/unmuting channels/cards
I don't feel I've solved the issue, since I didn't get what I asked for (sound from both cards at the same time) but I have what I want (a simple way of switching) and I know where to look (finding out how alsa handles virtual cards, setting one up and send all sound that goes there to my actual cards or configuring pulse/jack this thread was sort of helpful as it begins to explain a .asoundrc) if I feel a need for it in the future.
Thanks anyway for all the help. After 4 years of Arch use (and more then I can remember on linux) I still feel like a noob sometimes. It's good to have a community.
here is my, almost, solution
#!/bin/bash
#creating or uncreating the .asoundrc config file by renaming it
if [ -f $HOME/.asoundrc ]
then mv -v $HOME/.asoundrc $HOME/.asoundrc-no-use
echo "this should give audio to your speakers"
echo "more specificly, audio from the motherboard (default) soundcard"
elif [ -f $HOME/.asoundrc-no-use ]
then mv -v $HOME/.asoundrc-no-use $HOME/.asoundrc
echo "this should give sound from the HDMI on the graphicscard"
else
echo "this script doesn't do your setup"
fi
#restarting alsa is needed to read(or not find) the .asoundrc config file
#and to do that you need privileges
sudo /etc/rc.d/alsa restart
exit 0
combined with
~/.asoundrc
pcm.!default {
      type hw
      card 1
      device 9
Last edited by openess (2012-08-18 20:08:26)