Cannot play Half Life in 5.1 using ASUS Xonar Xense

[Cheeru]

Right now I am using the ASUS Xonar Xense Audio cards. I found them as the first class audio cards for Desktop computers because you have different choice to choose from them depending on your needs and I think that all of them come with quality headphones also. The problem while playing the team fortress and Half Life 1 game, I can only get stereo mode with this sound card. There is no way I can set to 5.1. I would like to play games like this in 5.1. I tried the GX emulator and it seems that that does not effect at all. However the modern games which are recently released work perfectly in 5.1. Then what could be the problem with older games. Should I need to install any patch or mods for games?

[sushantbankar]

First of all make sure that you have the newest drivers for the Audio card. The Optical is able to carry one of three audio formats:

• 2.0 PCM
• 5.1 Dolby Digital
• 5.1 DTS

Each and every one PC audio is uncompressed PCM, which optical can NOT broadcast as 5.1 over optical. Just Dolby/DTS tracks can be transmitted by 5.1 by the use of optical. So it is possible for you get 5.1 only in movies or video but not in games. In order to get the 5.1 out of the optical port for games, the sound card should have a a real-time encoder to either Dolby or DTS.

[Arun K]

For films with multi-channel audio and video assets if we pass-through SPIDF, the audio signal should go "raw" up to 5.1 that if the receiver has the ability to DE-Encoding Dolby Digital and DTS audio stream will recognize and understand whether it is sound 5.1 or not, pointing it at the cash properly. Not all Dolby and DTS are supported, for example if there is a high-end modern receiver or may not recognize the DTS Master Audio and Dolby True HD, but stops at "normal" DTS 5.1 and Dolby Digital. If the receiver does not support decoding of the boxes, you will have a big problem. For games like already said the ideal is to use the DDL, or I can think of solutions, the point is that the PC must be able to send multichannel audio stream to the de-coder without intervention, otherwise this sees it as a simple stereo signal.

[raghini]

ASUS Xonar Xense card is basically a D2X with some modification, for me the most important is the implementation of an amplifier Texas Instruments 6120A2 * 1 headphone that was what was missing from the original to be compatible with the Sennheiser PC 350, impedance issues . The chip is the AV100, which I have read only the AV200 differs in that the latter includes support for software DTS Connect technology. My intention is to connect to a computer by analog 5.1 that yield to the height of the card and my budget is between 200 and 300. The SUV will use music, movies and games but certainly not looking for pc speakers. The truth is that in the field of analog sound speakers and overall I'm pretty lost and I do not know where to start.

[Pamina]

If you are connecting by optical / coaxial / HDMI, it is absurd to spend the money on a dedicated sound card, as to bridge it perfectly integrated on the motherboard. On the other hand, if you wanted to connect to digital, certainly would use an HDMI connection and not SPDIF, since the latter does not have enough bandwidth. The SPDIF is too small for movies and games, it can carry only 5 channels compressed (Dolby Digital and DTS) or 2-channel uncompressed (PCM 2.0), while HDMI can enjoy 5 or 7 channels without compressing (5.1/7.1 PCM). Dolby Digital Live and DTS Connect technologies are real-time compression designed to overcome the limitations of transferring the SPDIF interface. When we play on our PC, we generate 5.1 or 7.1 PCM audio, so if you try to send it by SPDIF to amp this will only get PCM 2.0, DD Live and DTS Connect what they do is grab PCM 5.1 and compress it in real time (severe loss of quality) to DTS or Dolby Digital 5.1 lifetime, which is the maximum that transfers SPDIF.

[killerboy]

I mean multichannel digital sound. For music is the only thing that SPDIF is not a limitation, because if you can transfer 2 channel uncompressed (PCM 2.0). For games and movies is different, because we use more than 2 channels and that is where the limitations of SPDIF are. To make this possible would be k sound cards with HDMI output, and there are, besides the receiver to this signal by HDMI interpreter:

• Asus Xonar HDAV 1.3
• Auzentech Home Theater HD

Not an option to recommend, as both are expensive by analog processing and it's something to get the HDMI audio will not use. My case with the Asus Xonar Xense has nothing to do with digital sound, indeed, for that matter I want to do everything with analog and ask for to choose the speakers.