5.1 dolby surround for a pc speaker system
Hero
formerly known as XGPHero Icrontian
I have a new 6 channel speaker system, and im trying to get surround out of my computer, but i cant find settings for 6 channel...only 2 channel. can anyone help me? the hardware is there, and my drivers are up to date. Im running windows 7 on a Frankenstein system. the audio jacks for the 6 channel system are integral with the MSI mobo.
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Crap...Now ive accidentally removed the "Speakers" Device, which was the only device that would utilize my speakers at all.
EDIT: System restore point is from a month ago, and id really rather not do that...so, if you know how to fix what i just broke, that would be helpful to
Just restarting your system should reinstall the 'speakers' device. If not: shut down, remove the soundcard, boot up without it, shut down again, put it back, and boot up with it, to try to force it to be recognized.
As to your original issue. Many sound cards/drivers don't natively support more than 4.1, some not even that. You may need a third party software, or additional software from your soundcard manufacturer.
What sound card are you using?
As far as i know, the soundcard is Integral with the MSI P67A-GD65 mobo, since all of the audio jacks are integral to the mobo. if that isnt the case, i suppose the AMD Radeon R9 285 could be handling that. I do know that i do not have a seperate sound card...i built the system.
I was able to find out from the MSI website that the mobo should utilize THX TruStudio PRO, but i cant find any trace of that. instead my computer seems to be using Realtek HD Audio
Realtek HD Audio Manager seems to be doing some of what i wanted...though not exactly what i was looking for. thanks CB. If you know of anything better than Realtek HD Audio Manager, id love to hear about it, but i think i have it figured out for now
The drivers from MSI website should support it and then you actually need an application which will output it (VLC with an appropriate input file should be able to do that, among a whole host of other programs). Page A-5 of the manual talks about 6 channel setup and definitely mentions Realtek driver so don't remove that. I'm not sure what THX TruStudio PRO does, but it is available on the support page under "utilities" instead of drivers. I would probably say it is a good idea to download the latest provided drivers on that page which are applicable and then check out the utilities page for anything useful.
all drivers current, as well as VLC (thats all i use for media.) I do have it set to use the speakers under Audio Devices. Is there more to it than that on the VLC side of things?
I don't think so, but I've never set it up on PC
If your speaker system receiver and motherboard have SPDIF digital connections, just use those.
I second this. I would also like to know what these speakers are. Make and model if possible.
logitech z506. its just a cheap system that i bought because my tv speakers SUCK, and are always buzzing. and no SPDIF, i checked
Hey possibly a dumb thought, but generally the options to enable these things won't show up unless the speakers are plugged in. You already have the speakers plugged in to the mobo right?
yeah...its all running, at this point im just trying to tweek it to get the most out of this cheap little system
Worth noting that the default matrix mixing on "surround" sound uses the center speaker predominantly, followed by the sub, then the front left/right, and last the rear left/right. You will only ever hear sound out of the rear speakers if you're listening to content with 5 channels; and really only ever out of the side speakers if the content has positional sound. Most sources are stereo and anything in both channels at the same time will come out the center speaker.
fortunately @drasnor, my mobo has 6 channel output, designed for this type of sound system, and Realtek has a feature called "Speaker Fill" that will push some of the audio to the rear speakers when nothing would otherwise be going there. aside from the rear speakers though, the front left and right, center, and sub all seem to be getting the correct audio signals.
I also use Realtek. It's what came with my motherboard. I only have a 2.1 sound system hooked up, but I've noticed it has the 4.1 and 5.1 settings. I'm glad you got it working mostly satisfactorily.