[ammarmalik]

I have a GTX 970, Yamaha HTR-3064 receiver and a Samsung K8000 TV. No matter what I do, optical audio (through motherboard), through HDMI, through ARC, I'm unable to get 5.1 audio in games. It's always in stereo. What am I doing wrong here? Do I need a dedicated sound card?

 

[Kain]

Is Window's sound setting set to 5.1?

 

[ammarmalik]

Is Window's sound setting set to 5.1?

Windows by default shows stereo as the only option. However whenever I play a DTS or DD 5.1 movie, my receiver automatically switches to 5.1. This doesn't happen in games.

 

[blastermaster]

Windows by default shows stereo as the only option. However whenever I play a DTS or DD 5.1 movie, my receiver automatically switches to 5.1. This doesn't happen in games.

I have Windows 10 also and a gtx970 but haven't had that problem (I'm using HDMI). So, when you right click the speaker icon in your taskbar and choose playback devices, then right click your receiver and click on configure speakers, you only get stereo as an option? You should get the whole gamut of choices up to 7.1 even if you don't have 7.1

 

[HeadRusch]

Games on the PC are not coded to use Dolby Pro Logic or DTS (the way Console games are).

If you are connecting via Optical, the best you can do is 2 channel stereo output via PCM. In this case, set your receiver to DOLBY PRO LOGIC and enjoy simulated surround (which usually works well enough). If you are connecting via HDMI, you should be able to get surround sound outputting as PCM Uncompressed via your windows settings (to output 5.1+ and compressed or uncompressed) and then setting your receiver to MULTICHANNEL or DIRECT mode.

 

[ammarmalik]

I have Windows 10 also and a gtx970 but haven't had that problem (I'm using HDMI). So, when you right click the speaker icon in your taskbar and choose playback devices, then right click your receiver and click on configure speakers, you only get stereo as an option? You should get the whole gamut of choices up to 7.1 even if you don't have 7.1

It only shows stereo there. However whenever I playback a 5.1 DTS/DD movie, my receiver automatically switches to 5.1 and plays back surround sound just fine.

 

[blastermaster]

It only shows stereo there. However whenever I playback a 5.1 DTS/DD movie, my receiver automatically switches to 5.1 and plays back surround sound just fine.

Well that's weird. If it were me, I'd try going into the device manager and under sound, video and game controllers, disable any other audio devices apart from your NVIDIA High definition Audio. Then I would see if you can right click on the nvidia tab and upgrade the audio drivers. I would definitely use HDMI for true surround sound at any rate.

The last thing I would check is to first make sure you've got your receiver on, with hdmi plugged in from your graphics card to your receiver. Then go into the Nvidia control panel and under display, go to set up digital audio and configure from there. Apart from that, maybe try a different hdmi cable (doubt that will help, but hey, gotta try everything). Finally, make sure that the the input you're using on your receiver for your PC (eg, game/tv, DVD, etc.) is set to HDMI. After that I'd try going to either the windows or Nvidia forums and report back if you have any luck - you may be able to help out the next guy that has the same problems. Cheers.

 

[Graff Vynda-K]

Games on the PC are not coded to use Dolby Pro Logic or DTS (the way Console games are).

If you are connecting via HDMI, you should be able to get surround sound outputting as PCM Uncompressed via your windows settings (to output 5.1+ and compressed or uncompressed) and then setting your receiver to MULTICHANNEL or DIRECT mode.

This is something that has been confusing me for a while. My PC is connected to my receiver via HDMI and I definitely notice surround sound when I'm gaming, but if PC games don't support traditional surround-sound standards (like Dolby, DTS, etc) then what exactly is going on? Is the receiver doing something or was the audio stream already encoded with some form of surround sound by the game maker?

 

[HeadRusch]

This is something that has been confusing me for a while. My PC is connected to my receiver via HDMI and I definitely notice surround sound when I'm gaming, but if PC games don't support traditional surround-sound standards (like Dolby, DTS, etc) then what exactly is going on? Is the receiver doing something or was the audio stream already encoded with some form of surround sound by the game maker?

Yes, basically PC games send their audio streams out discretely. So you set the game to output surround, its going to send the OS/Audio Hardware 5.1 unique streams of audio info to deal with.

At this point your PC should be set up to pass those 5.1 streams of audio out via the HDMI port you are using, usually an OS setting is configured here in your drivers, perhaps. That's all you want your PC to do, take the audio and send it out on the HDMI cable to your receiver.

Now, assuming your receiver has modern chips inside of it, it should have a setting called "DIRECT" or "MULTICHANNEL".....look in your manual. This is the setting that tells the receiver "Look, don't touch this stuff, just send it to the correct speakers, don't do anything but route it and amplify it". At this point, you *should* get discrete 5.1 surround sound from the game.

If its still problematic, my advice is to just set your receiver to DTS NEO 6 or PRO LOGIC x or whatever the current standards are and use simulated surround sound, most of the time it works just fine.

 

[Graff Vynda-K]

Yes, basically PC games send their audio streams out discretely. So you set the game to output surround, its going to send the OS/Audio Hardware 5.1 unique streams of audio info to deal with.

At this point your PC should be set up to pass those 5.1 streams of audio out via the HDMI port you are using, usually an OS setting is configured here in your drivers, perhaps. That's all you want your PC to do, take the audio and send it out on the HDMI cable to your receiver.

Now, assuming your receiver has modern chips inside of it, it should have a setting called "DIRECT" or "MULTICHANNEL".....look in your manual. This is the setting that tells the receiver "Look, don't touch this stuff, just send it to the correct speakers, don't do anything but route it and amplify it". At this point, you *should* get discrete 5.1 surround sound from the game.

If its still problematic, my advice is to just set your receiver to DTS NEO 6 or PRO LOGIC x or whatever the current standards are and use simulated surround sound, most of the time it works just fine.

Interesting, thanks for the info. So I was playing around today and noticed that when using my PS4, the receiver (Denon X3000) always goes to "Multi Ch IN" for the sound mode, and when playing a PC game it switches to "DTS Neo X". Both seem to sound good to me, and clearly are surround... I do have my PS4 set to bitstream the audio when I'm playing back a Blu-Ray, and in those cases the AVR will show DTS, DTS Master, Dolby True HD, etc, depending upon the movie.

 

[Kain]

If you are on an NVIDIA graphics card, do you have the NVIDIA HD Audio driver installed?

 

[rbrb]

So the games are encoded 5.1? Or is the info just distributed to five separate channels. I never hear game developers or publishers ever talk about the multi channel discrete audio of their games. Or am I just missing it? It never seems to be a big priority in game reviews either. It's always video quality, frame rates etc.

 

[HeadRusch]

They don't need to compress the audio, so they don't need DTS or DD, this is why PC versions of games used to take up two or three times the space on a hard drive, a lot of the sounds were left uncompressed...because I think then they wouldn't have to pay a DD or DTS licensing fee to encode the audio. Could be wrong on that, so don't quote me.

The audio engine of the game usually lets you choose from the available outputs it supports...then so long as your PC has the hardware to play all the channels you choose and you've set up your audio drivers as necessary, it should work. Or, just let it send stereo and use a Dolby Pro Logic..not perfect, but not bad either.

 

[ammarmalik]

So the games are encoded 5.1? Or is the info just distributed to five separate channels. I never hear game developers or publishers ever talk about the multi channel discrete audio of their games. Or am I just missing it? It never seems to be a big priority in game reviews either. It's always video quality, frame rates etc.

When I had the Logitech Z5500 connected via analog connections, I could easily do 5.1 surround sound in games. Almost all games have in-game options of setting the number of channels.

 

[rbrb]

Thanks for the replies. I probably should not have posted in a surround not working thread because my surround does in fact work. I'm just trying to wrap my head around the actual recording and reproduction method being used in PC games.

I'm kind of left with the impression that multi channel audio in games is low on the priority list when the game is being made. Understandable I suppose since most PC game systems will be desk top. In a home theater environment I'm somewhat underwhelmed compared to the audio in a modern movie on Blu-Ray for example.