@ sticky thread "Digital Connections, SPDIF.

Question

Hi there,
In the thread is mentioned it is NOT possible to play games with surround sound over a digital connection because of the GAMES lack the possibility to encode Dolby:
PC Games
PC games usually use technologies like as EAX to create surround sound, not Dolby Digital. So even if your speaker system has a Dolby Digital decoder, it will be of no use when playing games. The EAX processing is done on the soundcard, and the 6-channel sound is output via the analogue (or digital DIN if available). So you still need analogue connections to your digital speakers for games, if you just use an optical/coax cable you will only get the front left/right sound.
(N.B. X-Box games do support Dolby Digital, so if you connect your X-Box to your Dolby Digital receiver/speakers with the optical cable, you can get full surround sound.)
I think this is not quite correct!
X-Box games do not support Dolby, it is the X-Box!
Sure, PC games do not encode their sound in Dolby, but it is the task of the soundcard to do so. Games create surround sound using EAX, directSound and APIs like that.
(by the way: Dolby Digital is no possibility to create surround sound, it is just an encoding of the final signal)
The digital surround sound, computed by the soundcard (that is why I have bought it, to have it create the sound, and not the CPU) is then passed to the digital interface for CL's speaker systems, or converted to an analog signal.
And there, on the soundcard, I am missing the ability to encode Dolby Digital.
There is no way games will provide Dolby, nor would it be useful to transfer the sound from the soundcard to the CPU and back again for this task.
Why is there no card supporting that? Would it be to expensi've?
What about a Sounblaster series like X-Fi Fatalty Pro Dolby?Message Edited by MCsnuffBobbyK on 08-04-2006 09:24 PM

Answer 1

finchy wrote:What?With all do respect Dale-Cl, don't tell pepople bull**bleep** 'cause I can't stand it anymore."This is because it takes much overhead to encode Dolby, and the sound card isn't fast enough to do this."Part me, but my 4 year-old INTERGRATED music chip (NVidia SoundStorm) can encode to Dolby Digital easily. So the X-fi Processor got more MiPS than Pentium 4 and still cannot handle encoding to DD? C'mon, people are not stupid. Every major card from other producer can encode it to DD and the best ones to DTS Connect.How about You are going to write straight that Creative Labs does NOT want pay licences for using above technologies? Even the worse true is better than constant cheating on your customers.RegardsFinch
The nVidia SoundStorm is the same chip as the one in XBox and it is a dedicated HARDWARE encoder. And nVidia doesn't have the license to produce it anymore. There is NO other sound card chip available now that can do hardware encoding. Only CMedia (not like you sayd "every major card") has some chips that can do software encoding, but from my experience with them, the CPU load is important and in games that is bad.Message Edited by SoNic2367 on 08-04-2006 06:50 PM