[oreoboy13]

After reading past threads all summer my arca cabinets are turning up next week which means i will be building a HCPC, however i am still not completely clear on the actually day to day use of some of the more upmarket sound cards.


I will be using the PC for games, web, music and film storage and scaling to a panny 42PHD6.


All sources will be switced via my denon AVC-11SR and so this is what i will be connecting the sound card to.


---The thing is dont know weather which/if higher end sound cards will support games?


---Obviously i will need to output via spidif for 5/6/7.1 (games and films)but for music would i be better using the phono outs of the card (i.e. are the amp's or the soundcard's DACs better), and is it easy to switch between the analogue and digital outputs?

 

[derazmus]

If you're into games, you might consider an nForce2 motherboard. The onboard sound chip is capable of encoding Dolby Digital 5.1 on the fly, so you get to send that out from the PC via SPDIF, unlike most other sound cards which can only do 5.1 or better via analog outputs which are prone to noise (at least on the low end cards I've used). For movies you just use the DD/DTS passthru and let your receiver handle it.

 

[oreoboy13]

Thks for the reply,


the thing is i am really into games and music, and while this sounds like a great solution for movies and games it cannot be winner for music, can it?

 

[derazmus]

I don't see why not. Are you satisfied with the performance of your Denon for music now? If so, there's no reason why SPDIF out from the PC won't be good enough for music as well.

 

[oreoboy13]

i see what you mean, are the nforce boards as good as the lastest asus mobo's?


I have thought about another possible solution. I am going to be using HyperOS so i could run:


1) a games os with a cheap live card installed

2) a media os with a revo installed using both the analogue and digital out.

 

[derazmus]

My nForce2 mobo IS an Asus. An A7N8XDLX to be exact. I haven't really kept up on motherboards since buying it though, so no idea what is top dog these days. Worth researching which nForce2 is best if that's the way you want to go.


As for sound cards, you could probably just use both in the same Windows installation. Don't know how convenient it is to switch between them though. Your DVD player software will probably let you decide which audio device to send output to, but music might just play through the default sound device which is specified in the sound control panel of Windows.

 

[hwj]

As far as I know, the Asus A7N8X Deluxe is still one of the highest-rated and lauded nForce2 motherboards available.


Hiya, Dave.

 

[oreoboy13]

this does look like a good idea just a few questions before i order:


1) will this do (pass through) 6.1, dts ex, etc?


2) what will it do with music, will it upsample everything to ac3 or will it pass through pcm so i can run the amp in true stereo?


3) is there a new nforce board about to come out e.g. nForce3 ?


Thanks for the patient help.


just realised, that nForce is only available with AMD board. I was always told that intel is a better way to go for htpc? or should i not really worry?

 

[Puwaha]



Originally posted by oreoboy13
Quote:

1) will this do (pass through) 6.1, dts ex, etc?

Yes. A digital stream is a digital stream. The computer doesn't decode any of the sound data... it just "passes-thru" the data for the reciever to decode. If your reciever can handle 6.1 then it will play 6.1... same with dts, etc.


Quote:

2) what will it do with music, will it upsample everything to ac3 or will it pass through pcm so i can run the amp in true stereo?

In the case of the NForce2 boards, you have the option of conversion to Dolby Digital, or Dolby Pro-Logic. You can specify if you want a center channel or not, or a subwoofer channel or not. This is for any software that hits the sound card directly, instead of utilizing the SPDIF-passthru. Typically, your DVD software or HDTV card software will use the SPDIF-passthru... which as stated above, just skips the whole soundcard completely and just sends the digital signal directly to your reciever.

Quote:

3) is there a new nforce board about to come out e.g. nForce3 ?

Yes, but it's for the new 64-Bit AMD CPUs that are coming out later this month.

Quote:

just realised, that nForce is only available with AMD board. I was always told that intel is a better way to go for htpc? or should i not really worry?

Who told you that? No... AMD is the way to go if you are concerned about your price-to-performance ratio. Nothing wrong with Intel, though. You can't go wrong either way.

 

[RayL Jr.]

I thought AMD VIA chipsets were not the best way to go too. From HTPC meta FAQ:


Part 1 caveat «« Paraphrasing Karnis, note some oversights: VIA chipsets aren't HTPC-friendly - http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=144381

 

[oreoboy13]

Puwaha


Thanks for the reply, although i didn't really understand your answer to question 2.


and.......


what Rayl Jr. said

 

[oreoboy13]

this asus board has 6 channel audio spidif out, would this not allow me to do the same without having to have an amd chip?

http://www.asus.com/products/mb/sock...d/overview.htm