GA-Z68XP-UD4 Dolby Live 5.1 in games

[miker33]

Hi All,

Apologies if this has been answered already but after googling it for hours I can't seem to find a straight answer

When Dolby Live is enabled on this motherboard should it output DD 5.1 from games or just DD 2 channel stereo when in games?

It works fine when you run the Dolby Live test (in the control panel where you can select DTS\Dolby Digital and the khz frequency) and outputs in succession to all speakers but just can't seem to get 5.1 from any games.

Should this work or not as the primary reason for this mobo was since is supported DDL so I could use it with my surround amp the same way I used to use my creative sound card with DDL enabled (this used to work perfectly fine in all games but don't have a spare PCI slot to use now)?

Using latest BIOS\Drivers.

Many Thanks,
Mike

[Flatline]

Hi Mike,

I have the same motherboard and use an external 5.1 receiver, and get 5.1 sound from all sources, so I can confirm it does work. (How well it works depends on the source)

Dolby Digital Live will only work when you use a digital output. So if your using the coloured mini-jacks it won't have any effect and the output will be as source. (Hence why DDL is only shown on the digital tabs default format and not the analog speaker tabs)

Mine is connected via digital to my amp (Whcih is preferable anyway, as it reduces the number of conversion from analog to digital (You get 3 when you use the mini jack-plugs and only 1 using a digital connection)).

http://www.dolby.com/us/en/consumer/technology/home-theater/dolby-digital-live.html

Uses a single digital connection to ensure the integrity of the audio signal. It also eliminates confusion, hassle, and clutter of multiple analog and digital connections.

I suspect your using the coloured mini-jacks, as you talk about a test and outputs in sucession to all speakers, and that is only available via analog speaker tab .

I hope that helps.

[miker33]

Hiya,

Thanks for the reply.

I am using the digital coax connection to the amp not the individual cables.  It's really strange that it works fine in 5.1 for the sound test and DVD's etc but just not in any games (the amp goes into Dolby Digital mode in all cases).

Is it possibly a limitiation of coax rather than optical otherwise it sounds like a driver problem somewhere

Cheers,
Mike

[Flatline]

Mike,

Only other thing I can suggest is the Dolby Home Threater v4 should be switched on under Digital Output (Optical) Properties, Dolby tab

Again something that is suppose to turn 2 channel input into multi-channel.
http://www.dolby.com/us/en/consumer/technology/pc/dolby-home-theater-v4.html

Surround Decoder
Creates 5.1 or 7.1 sound from any two-channel input
Creates 7.1 sound from 5.1-channel input

Is it possibly a limitiation of coax rather than optical otherwise it sounds like a driver problem somewhere

Nope, it's a digital signal so coaxial or optical no difference really.

[miker33]

Hiya,

Yep Dolby Live is checked in the Digital (optical) properties.  I have dropped an email to support and see what they come back with, i'm thinking it may be a BIOS issue as it had a few problems when flashed last time to F5.

Cheers,
Mike

[miker33]

Still no reply from Gigabyte support it seems that 5.1 DDL in games just doesn't work.

Have now tried updated BIOS, reinstall of drivers, clean windows installation.

I downloaded the Dolby Live Control Panel from Intel and that works fine with all 5.1 speakers in the test yet games still only 2.1

Think i'm going to throw this piece of crap in the garbage and get a proper board with enough slots so I can put my very old PCI Audigy back in there as that worked a treat in 5.1 with DDL in all games.

This Gigabyte board is just utter s***e and the lack of responce from support just confirmed my suspicions that they know full well that 5.1 DDL doesn't work in games despite being advertised as a fully DDL board.

[Rolo42]

How many slots do you need?  I have a SB X-fi in my UD4.

I don't use digital, so I wouldn't know, but wouldn't the games have to support 5.1 or the sound process has to encode it?  Can you test analog 5.1?

[miker33]

Hiya,

I've got 2x 560Ti's in there which pretty much cover most of the space, there is one PCI at the end but if I put the Audigy in there it totally blocks the airflow off to the bottom 560.

Can't use analogue as the amp is Dolby Digital only for multi channel hence why I specifically chose this board as my replacement.  The old Audigy with the DDL add on worked really well.  Did look at a low profile PCI-E X-Fi as that would fit between the graphics cards but they look to be only digital out via optical which means a new amp as well as the card

Just quite annoyed as if i'd known that games were limited to DD 2.1 I would have gone for an alternative setup

Cheers,
Mike

[Rippedgeek]

I remember running into this very problem a few years ago when I had my Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatality and a Logitech Z-5500 set.  I was also palpably disappointed when I found that the digital output didn't give me the sound I had expected in games but soon realised that *very* few games have in-game encoded Dolby Digital sound whereas on the other hand most games have analog 5.1/7.1 output.  I was also under the impression that digitally output in-game sound *must* be better than analog... but I was mistaken on that front as well.
Just use the analog output for games and the digital for if and when you watch movies on the PC.

[miker33]

Hiya,

Yep I gave up on DDL and just bought a new surround amp that supported 7.1 ext analogue input as well as DD\DTS etc for movies.  Sounds great in games in 7.1 but still very dissappointed that DDL didn't seem to encode the games into DD 5.1 correctly, it was almost as if the games only detected 2 speakers when DDL was enabled so didn't output the full channels for DDL to encode them but irrelevant now and got a nice surround setup again.

Would I buy another Gigabyte motherboard next time, no chance as the only responce I received from the support group about DDL was an automated email about 10 days after raising a ticket to say they were 7 days behind on support calls so would need to raise the problem again if I still wanted a responce.

Cheers,
Mike