VOGONS


First post, by matcarfer

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Hello guys, I just acquired after 20 years of wanting one, a 5.1 Sony Home Theater, and god it sounds fantastic.
Already tried PS3,PS4,XO,X360 using optical audio directly from consoles or coaxial from TV, and succesfully hear 5.1 using DTS or DD(AC3).

Thing is, I wanted to try old games from Win98SE that support 5.1 on it and I just noticed that can't get 5.1 from coax or optical from SBLive/Audigy2/CMI8738/AurealAdvantage/Realtek650/etc. The only option I got is using my Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe using coax and SoundStorm, but that motherboard is problematic (already had many repairs). I cant seem to figure it out how to output Dolby Digital (AC3) o DTS from ANY card from Win98SE except SoundStorm.

What are my options? Can anyone enlighten me?

Reply 1 of 11, by Gahhhrrrlic

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matcarfer wrote:
Hello guys, I just acquired after 20 years of wanting one, a 5.1 Sony Home Theater, and god it sounds fantastic. Already tried P […]
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Hello guys, I just acquired after 20 years of wanting one, a 5.1 Sony Home Theater, and god it sounds fantastic.
Already tried PS3,PS4,XO,X360 using optical audio directly from consoles or coaxial from TV, and succesfully hear 5.1 using DTS or DD(AC3).

Thing is, I wanted to try old games from Win98SE that support 5.1 on it and I just noticed that can't get 5.1 from coax or optical from SBLive/Audigy2/CMI8738/AurealAdvantage/Realtek650/etc. The only option I got is using my Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe using coax and SoundStorm, but that motherboard is problematic (already had many repairs). I cant seem to figure it out how to output Dolby Digital (AC3) o DTS from ANY card from Win98SE except SoundStorm.

What are my options? Can anyone enlighten me?

Did you check the headers on the card? I've never done it before but I though there were all kinds of digital I/O on the card itself. Maybe SPDIF can be used somehow.

https://hubpages.com/technology/How-to-Maximi … -Retro-Computer

Reply 2 of 11, by matcarfer

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Gahhhrrrlic wrote:
matcarfer wrote:
Hello guys, I just acquired after 20 years of wanting one, a 5.1 Sony Home Theater, and god it sounds fantastic. Already tried P […]
Show full quote

Hello guys, I just acquired after 20 years of wanting one, a 5.1 Sony Home Theater, and god it sounds fantastic.
Already tried PS3,PS4,XO,X360 using optical audio directly from consoles or coaxial from TV, and succesfully hear 5.1 using DTS or DD(AC3).

Thing is, I wanted to try old games from Win98SE that support 5.1 on it and I just noticed that can't get 5.1 from coax or optical from SBLive/Audigy2/CMI8738/AurealAdvantage/Realtek650/etc. The only option I got is using my Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe using coax and SoundStorm, but that motherboard is problematic (already had many repairs). I cant seem to figure it out how to output Dolby Digital (AC3) o DTS from ANY card from Win98SE except SoundStorm.

What are my options? Can anyone enlighten me?

Did you check the headers on the card? I've never done it before but I though there were all kinds of digital I/O on the card itself. Maybe SPDIF can be used somehow.

Its not a matter of physical connection but Dolby Digital or DTS hardware/software ENCODING.

To answer myself, I think its not possible EVEN with SoundStorm as it *seems* to require XP and I desire 98.
I also have an Auzentech X-Fi Forte, which *seems* to support DTS and DD without hassle on Vista/7, but no XP.
This is turning out to be really difficult.
Currently my options are SoundStorm on XP hardware (which I dont like as CPU/RAM/MB is slow for what I seek), or Auzentech
X-Fi Forte on Win7 (which I dont like as I intend to play really old games on 5.1 from Win98SE era and want to avoid compatiblity issues).
Thoughts?

Reply 3 of 11, by ZanQuance

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I know the Aureal Vortex 2's actually did support this, but Aureal had a Dolby license issue and it was disabled in the later drivers. I never investigated this much, might be worth a look to see if it's present in the <2041 drivers.

Reply 4 of 11, by matcarfer

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ZanQuance wrote:

I know the Aureal Vortex 2's actually did support this, but Aureal had a Dolby license issue and it was disabled in the later drivers. I never investigated this much, might be worth a look to see if it's present in the <2041 drivers.

Sorry, I dont have an Aureal Vortex 2 and couldnt get one for the last 2 years.

Reply 6 of 11, by matcarfer

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squiggly wrote:

The breakout box of the Hercules Game Theater XP does RCA out on all 5.1 channels, as well as digital/optical out, which probably does Dolby Digital 5.1/AC3.

Sorry but probably it doesnt. The point if this thread is the difficulty of finding a card that ouputs DD 5.1/DTS 5.1 from optical, and almost no card except SoundStorm and some X-Fi are able to.

Reply 7 of 11, by squiggly

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matcarfer wrote:
squiggly wrote:

The breakout box of the Hercules Game Theater XP does RCA out on all 5.1 channels, as well as digital/optical out, which probably does Dolby Digital 5.1/AC3.

Sorry but probably it doesnt. The point if this thread is the difficulty of finding a card that ouputs DD 5.1/DTS 5.1 from optical, and almost no card except SoundStorm and some X-Fi are able to.

The XP outputs optical from the breakout box. It actually goes up to 6.1. What more do you want?

Reply 8 of 11, by matcarfer

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squiggly wrote:
matcarfer wrote:
squiggly wrote:

The breakout box of the Hercules Game Theater XP does RCA out on all 5.1 channels, as well as digital/optical out, which probably does Dolby Digital 5.1/AC3.

Sorry but probably it doesnt. The point if this thread is the difficulty of finding a card that ouputs DD 5.1/DTS 5.1 from optical, and almost no card except SoundStorm and some X-Fi are able to.

The XP outputs optical from the breakout box. It actually goes up to 6.1. What more do you want?

I dont have it, its unavailable where I live, expensive to buy outside, and I already have 2 options. Will try them on the weekend and post here how it went.

Reply 9 of 11, by chinny22

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I tried earlier this year with Logitech Z-5500 speakers and Audigy 2 ZS card in both Win98 and XP as well as a X-Fi Titanium in XP and was surprised how not straight forward it was.

From memory it was not possible with digital connections, only analogue at least with those cards.

Reply 10 of 11, by matcarfer

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chinny22 wrote:

I tried earlier this year with Logitech Z-5500 speakers and Audigy 2 ZS card in both Win98 and XP as well as a X-Fi Titanium in XP and was surprised how not straight forward it was.

From memory it was not possible with digital connections, only analogue at least with those cards.

Yeah, thats my conclusion, and thats the easiest way. Optical/Coaxial output is really difficult to get cause 99% Sound Cards do not support it, and when it do, they do on Vista and above, except nForce 2 SoundStorm (XP), and maybe a few others.

Reply 11 of 11, by tgod

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chinny22 wrote:

I tried earlier this year with Logitech Z-5500 speakers and Audigy 2 ZS card in both Win98 and XP as well as a X-Fi Titanium in XP and was surprised how not straight forward it was.

From memory it was not possible with digital connections, only analogue at least with those cards.

For audigy you need :
http://software.store.creative.com/p/software … gital-live-pack
If your x-fi didn't come with the feature you need:
http://software.store.creative.com/p/software … ts-connect-pack

Creative stopped selling it on their store, so I'm not sure how you're suppose to buy them anymore.
I don't know if the audigy dolby digital live pack works on windows 98, I've only tested it on XP.