ATI Radeon HD 4600 & 4800 series support 7.1 channel HDMI audio! - Page 93

So I had been happily running the Windows 7 RC since July with...

GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P motherboard
Sapphire ATI 4670 video
Catalyst 9.5 video drivers
9.5 ATI HDMI Audio driver for HDMI audio.
Realtek 2.03 HD audio driver for SPDIF audio.
PowerDVD8 Ultra version 2217
AnyDVD HD
Virtual Clone Drive

This weekend I upgraded from the RC using the Windows 7 Ultimate Upgrade Retail version.

First I had to reinstall VCD before it would successfully mount a virtual drive.

Then I had numerous problems with HDMI audio after the upgrade. 2 channel only, blue-screen from PowerDVD8, no HDMI audio from PDVD, ATI HDMI audio device disappearing from Audio devices, etc.

After numerous uninstalls and re-installs using different audio driver combination, I finally got it to work again so that I can use HDMI audio from PDVD8 and SPDIF audio from WINAMP.

Uninstalled everything... PowerDVD8, ATI Catalyst 9.5, Realtek 2.03.

1) After a restart, uninstalled and DELETED the Realtek HD audio driver that Win 7 auto-installed. Restarted again, this time Win 7 auto-installed a generic High Definition Audio Device driver instead of a Realtek one.

2) Re-installed Catalyst 9.5 including the HDMI driver and PowerDVD8 2217.

I believe there must have been an issue with the Realtek driver included in the Win 7 final release in combination with the 9.5 ATI HDMI driver. Once I deleted that driver all the issues went away.

So while I am tempted to re-install the Realtek 2.03 HD audio driver, I don't want to mess up what I got working if there is no real benefit of using the Realtek driver over the generic HD Audio driver for SPDIF audio out.

Windows Update is also recommending that I download and install a critical update containing a new driver for ATI 4600 series. I have so far skipped that download for fear that it will mess with my 9.5 Catalyst install.

Finally, is there any newer version of Catalyst that justifies replacing the 9.5 version?

I tend to go with the newest CCC suite, which is 10.2 now I believe. Mainly out of concern for the performance fixes they implement, not the least of which is blu-ray playback in Windows 7. If you're not having problems, I don't suppose it should concern you, but I prefer to have the most recent Catalyst drivers on my setup.

So- I shouldn't have to install the realtek driver anymore for 5.1 setup? About to reinstall win7 tonight- am I good to go with the hdmi driver in the latest 10.2 catalyst?

So it's for sure that generic DVI to HDMI adapters will not work for audio? I just built a computer for my roommate with the 4770 in it and it didn't come with an adapter, so we used mine from my 3850 to test it and can't get it to do audio.

Has this been solved? Do I for sure need that $15 adapter from the front page? If so that's a crock.

I'm so tense because I cant get my 4800 and power dvd 10 to play nice. I was able to get ati hdmi audio drivers installed, got powerdvd10 to open without crashing...Now at the moment i think all is good, I try to do settings under powerdvd10 and I can select hdmi out, but only have 2 options for the second portion. The reason I bought power10 is I want to play my dvd-a on my htpc and not have to buy an oppo bluray. I did all the stuff illistrated in the start, but the options for powerdvd10 do not allow many options. Anyway, power10 plays the dvd-a, but no sound is present. If I play as dvd I can get dts sound. Well, I guess I truely want a solution to a-want my onkyo to decode Dolbyhd and DTSHD, lossless and I want dvd-a to play. IF any of you have software alternate software suggestions or fixes I'm down to try anything at this point. My equipment. 4800 hdmi ati card hooked to onkyo nr807 which is being recognized by win7 64 as a monitor. Uge, and I thought a htpc bluray was the right choice and game me the most options. Thanks,
Josh

The 4xxx series cannot bitstream HD audio and never will, only the 5xxx series can.

does the card itself do it? It shows under supported formats...What are my options with this card?

The card has to support it but the 4xxx series do not (regardless of being listed in supported formats). With the 4xxx, you are limited to TrueHD/DTS-HD being decoded by the player and sent multichannel LPCM to the receiver.

Ok, thank you for the explanations to me...However, what program/player can I utalize to even send it? The powerdvd10 isnt sending the dvd-a even though it is playing. Is dvd-a not supported? I cat regular dts to send and show on receiver, but the dvd-a is silent yet playing. Frustrating. Thanks for the help and insight

okay...here me out, I have an idea...can I buy a ati 5450 and install it with the 4830, using 5450 just for audio bitstreaming and the 4830 as the video???

I didn't see this post but I have never tested DVD-A with the 5xxx (or 4xxx for that matter) so I'm not sure I can help there.


Yes, that's doable. You will actually need to connect your display to the 4830 and then clone your desktop to the 5450 output and run it into your AVR since the audio needs to piggyback on a video signal.

I just got around to hooking my HD4870 based rig up to my Onkyo receiver today. The good news is that it seemed to work right off the bat. However, the 20 ft HDMI cable I bought from Monoprice is made with 22AWG cable and is utterly unwieldy. To the point where it's really not gonna work out as far as stringing it across the room (And under a doorway).

I'm thinking of returning it and getting a 26 or 28AWG based cable instead. I do have concerns about signal dropouts with a thinner cable that length however. Is anyone else running a similar length 26-28AWG cable in their setup and if so, do you have any problems with it?

Would appreciate any feedback you can provide.

For longer runs, I use the round cable rather than the flat. It's still pretty stiff but it allows for more movement.

Hello,

I just recently built my first HTPC. The specs of my HTPC are as below:

Asus M4A785-M Motherboard with Phenom II x4
Gigabyte HD4350 Graphic Card
4GB of Crucial Ballistix RAM
Windows 7 Ultimate Edition.

I have disabled the onboard video and used the Gigabyte graphic card. When it was first built, everything works beautifully until one day I get a blue-screen of death. Eversince, I was not able to get nay picture on my TV anymore via HDMI connection. I have went through and replaced with another identical graphic card but no success. However, if I plug in my old monitor via VGA port, the system will works perfectly, but with a blank screen on my TV (only sound passed through). If I unplugged the HDMI and plugged it back in, then I will get both video and sound on my TV. Moreover, if I remove my VGA monitor and restart the system, then everything will go blank again, including sound (it doesn't appear that the system even starts windows. Please help me resolving this issue. I have tried uninstalled the ATI drivers from Gigabyte and used the latest catalyst drivers but still no help. By the way, my TV is a 42" 720P Panasonic LCD with 3 HDMI port (tried all 3 ports but still no luck). Please help me to set up without the needs of the external bulky VGA monitor and having to unplugged and replugged in HDMI cable every time of restarting the system.

No one answered this but yes it is "for sure" that you need the ATi DVI->HDMI "dongle" intended for your card* in order to get audio and a few other video options.

*Different ATi cards use different dongles which is probably why yours from the 3850 would not work.

The ATi dongles have some pins shorted or have some kind of pull-up resistor across some pins or some electrical connection that tells the card it can output audio through the port/over TMDS.

It's not something that "can be solved" though you would think there might be a way for the driver to be hacked to allow it to do so without an official adapter. However it may also be a hardware limitation which means no driver hack would be able to accomplish that feat.

There is no real reason why they made the adapters this way (and ever further less of a reason why they made them differ on different card series).

But then if you think about it there is no real reason for HDMI either, becuase DVI can technically do everything HDMI does and more (the 2nd Link), including audio but it's against standard implementation to pass audio over a DVI connection despite the fact that it is possible. HDMI is just an easier to use plug-in connection, made for the masses.

All that said, there should be a way to hardware modify any given ATi card to have it permanently think a proper dongle is installed on its port(s). I'm actually surprised that no DIY exists on the net to that effect yet.

Ah so this can be done with two video cards, but not one? Could you clone your desktop on both outputs of a single video card to acheive the same thing? (This question is unrelated to that poster's question by the way, it's just something I'm wondering myself.)

Also will display cloning work when playing back a BD (or other format) full-screen?

Won't cloning onto a slower videocard cause, well, slowdown, otherwise? Or is that only going to be an issue in 3D/gaming?

I have a problem that seems to be the opposite of everyone here. I can get 192kHz, but only 192kHz and not lower.

I'm using an ATI 4850 with the DVI to HDMI dongle to output DVD-A, (ripped to 5.1 .flac), but for some reason all audio is displayed as MCH PCM 5.1 - fs: 192kHz on the Integra DHC-9.9, even when it's 48kHz 5.1, or even just straight stereo 44.1kHz.

Anyone have similar issues? I'm using the latest ATI video drivers + HDMI audio drivers(10.6). Cheers.

Use foobar2000 with WASAPI plugin to byspass windows mixer and it should work.

Cheers, that works if I'm playing back audio, (same with winamp + ASIO4ALL), but if I want to watch a movie with a DD/DTS soundtrack it won't lock on to the signal because it thinks it's still 192kHz.

In my move from Ca.to Fl. I misplaced my HD 4870 DVI to HDMI cable. With all the cables I have, I'm not sure I found the right one. To back up a little bit, I first ordered a replacement (you know how unique they are) from Diamond. They insisted it's the hardware piece pictured in the beginning of this thread. UPS is just late getting it here. but since I found what I think is the cable to go between the HD 4870 and my ASUS HDAV sound card. Well my Integra DTC 9.8 says "no signal". I take it that the Diamond hardware dongle needs an HDMI jumper cable to go back into the sound card. Sounds a little hoky.

Question is, how would I determine if my DVI-HDMI cable is the unique Diamond one? And if it is the right one, with no other changes, why isn't my pc putting out a signal to my Integra?

Which model HDAV card do you have?

I don't have quick access to the info. I think it's the HDAV 1.3. It's not the slim model and it was the first one out.

Is there any way to prevent upsampling/downsampling of the audio stream?
I would like to listen to 96kHz multichannel as well as 44.1kHz WAV without having to make changes in the audio configuration.

I installed Reclock but I don't see any improvement. I selected "use reclock renderer for all applications". When I check the output on my receiver it still says 96kHz for 44.1kHz samples.

I configured ReClock to load automatically so I don't see that popup.

I am getting errors about an unsupported audio format when I launch Windows Media Center, so I am pretty sure ReClock is loading. I don't get any error for the other applications I am using.

I also noticed that the ReClock properties is only accessible in my program tray when WMC reports the error. It is not visible for the other applications.

I went ahead and started a thread on SlySoft about this issue.

If I have a DTS HD MA audio source on an MKV I ripped is it possible to get the DTS HD MA source from my PC to my AVR over LPCM with a Radeon 4890? If so how would I do this?

i second that

Only if you have one of the commercial blu-ray players. DTS-MA decoding is not available yet for free. If your receiver can decode it, you could bitstream with ffdshow and a 5000 card (or Nvidia GTX460, or Intel Clarkdale/Arrandale).