hi i have my computer connected to my receiver via a fiber optic cable. normally when an application is outputing 5.1 my receiver switches and starts playing it perfectly. for example if i play a bluray movie or a movie on my hard drive that has 5.1, it works great. but when i load up crysis 2 it just plays stereo. why??? i want 5.1!!!

You must be using a Realtek soundcard. Those films you have contain a pre-encoded compressed dolby or DTS signal for your reciever. All games on the PC don't have pre-encoded dolby audio - because you can't pre-encode something that's "live". Most new games use OpenAL for realtime surround, but since Realtek cards can't convert OpenAL calls into a Dolby Digital Live bitstream, you just get un-compressed stereo instead.

Dedicated cards like most of the Creative X-FI line, or Asus Xonar series can convert multi-channel game audio on the fly in realtime (and in hardware), into Dolby Digital Live or DTS streams. You'll need one of those, or hook up anologue speakers to your computer for surround in almost all computer games...

Crysis 2 doesn't support advanced features.

You must be using a Realtek soundcard. Those films you have contain a pre-encoded compressed dolby or DTS signal for your reciever. All games on the PC don't have pre-encoded dolby audio - because you can't pre-encode something that's "live". Most new games use OpenAL for realtime surround, but since Realtek cards can't convert OpenAL calls into a Dolby Digital Live bitstream, you just get un-compressed stereo instead.

Dedicated cards like most of the Creative X-FI line, or Asus Xonar series can convert multi-channel game audio on the fly in realtime (and in hardware), into Dolby Digital Live or DTS streams. You'll need one of those, or hook up anologue speakers to your computer for surround in almost all computer games...


Took the words right out of my mouth....If I had had half a brain and an education and a higher IQ ;p

hi i have my computer connected to my receiver via a fiber optic cable. normally when an application is outputing 5.1 my receiver switches and starts playing it perfectly. for example if i play a bluray movie or a movie on my hard drive that has 5.1, it works great. but when i load up crysis 2 it just plays stereo. why??? i want 5.1!!!


I have my system setup running off my receiver as well. Optical cable can only pass 2 channel direct or Dolby digital signal(not true separation/encoded). I tried several things and the best solution I came up with was to run anolog wires to each channel on back of receiver (center/sub, front L/R, rear L/R). I purchased the asus xonar d1 for less than $100 off the egg and also picked up three "stereo" 3.5mm to RCA cables. In my opinion this is the best way to hook your pc to your amp. It sounds amazing with discrete sound to each channel.

@geekl33tgamer
thanks, i thought my motherboard had that capability.. its an Asus Rampage III Extreme with an onboard HD sound card..
that also helps to explain why the 5.1 works when i use my GTX 570's HDMI for audio... i guess new Nvidia cards are capable of encoding audio?
@w1zrdf1ngrz
yea i thought about trying that option but it seems like a shame that i have a 6ft optical cable going unused the other thing is that when the optical input is selected on my receiver i use a 7 channel enhancer for music and other stereo signals from my PC, but when 5.1 is being sent i just use a PureDirect setting that sends the signal it receives straight to the speakers without any effects.. when you use the multi channel inputs it disables the enhancer so it wont spread music to all the speakers
btw its a Yamaha HTR-6290

Delete

Ya I wasnt thinking about you using the hdmi. My receiver can only pass thru hdmi audio and upconvert video signal so I used the other stuff. I haven't tested using the encoded signal versus direct, but I read it wasnt as good. I have the option to send the encoded signal thru the asus optical as well so I may give that a try one day for **** and giggles. 7 channel stereo is indeed great for music

the audio that the 570 sends through HDMI is great quality on all the channels the only reason i dont use it is because routing the video through the receiver before my tv gives it a tiny delay that gets annoying