oh..
they thought about it, but it boils down to these two things:
1. dolby digital not allowing it
2. the processor would be more expensive if the soundcard could do it
see this is where people might fall off and remain confused..
dolby digital is a copyright.. PCM stereo is not.
that is why there are soundcards that might output a PCM stereo signal from the s/pdif output .. and output a different signal from an analog output.
BUT
s/pdif is a trademark .. and that means the digital connection is under someone's control by law.
the law states what can and cannot be sent across the connection.
dolby digital MAYBE says what can and cannot be done on their processor chips.
the creative x-fi elite pro allows a whole bunch of connections and outputs.
it doesnt really say anything about sending each stereo connection to a specific output.
instead.. it says everything can be connected to a mixer board and the mixer board can mute each connection independantly.
a mixer board is not the same thing as a switch board.
a switch board lets you put all of the audio on one output.. or all of the audio on seperate outputs.. or anything inbetween.
nobody really is expected to stick with stereo sound for movies and video games.
your HDMI connection screams 5.1 or 7.1 capable devices only.
s/pdif screams 5.1 or 7.1 capable devices only.
if the soundcard says it will multi-stream .. the software that comes with the soundcard might not allow anything more than recording one thing and playing back another.
other software, like those jukebox software programs.. they will use the multiple input and outputs.
BUT
it will be stereo, this is mandatory.
it will be analog, this is the standard.
could you use the s/pdif to output PCM for the front left and right speakers?
yes.. probably very easy because the soundcard defaults to doing this.
could you then use the software to output stereo analog from the rear left and right speakers?
yes.. but it has to be audio from the music player (or completely different software).
you wont be able to watch a movie and send surround sound out of the s/pdif outputs.. because that will use the rear left and right output channels for the movie.
7.1 soundcards probably default to using the two extra speaker outputs when a 5.1 movie is being decoded.
you could use the last two speaker outputs if you let the software decode the surround sound and send the decoded audio to the soundcard.
but
lets face it .. you want to play a video game while playing a movie.
you probably wont be playing any good video games if the software is decoding the surround sound.
it will eat up a lot of the CPU power and really get in the way.
the software has to be specific when it says 'use only the front left and right speaker'
that is how you can use the rear left and right speaker for something else.
playing 5.1 on a 7.1 soundcard MAYBE will let you use the two extra speaker outputs, but the soundcard might lock those two channels from being available.
you would simply have to try it out and see what the soundcard says about it.
i didnt want you to get confused or give up because i was talking about stereo outputs.
surround sound output can complicate things a bit more, as i have mentioned those complications in this post.
i really think fighting with it and hunting down the software to make it work in stereo.. it might be worth it if you have the time and you are willing to listen to stereo for both.
but
otherwise, it would be a lot quicker and easier to spend the little amount of money on a generic soundcard (or any soundcard for a small price)
hopefully you have an extra PCI slot for the extra soundcard.
you might be able to get two quadrophonic setups from a 7.1 soundcard.
but
as i said.. you will probably have to decode the movie using software.
but consider this gamble..
you start the movie in the movie player and you tell the software decoder you have two front and two rear speakers (quadrophonic)
then you tell the decoder to output s/pdif.
- your first gamble is .. maybe the decoder sends 5.1 to the soundcard anyways
lets say the movie player did send only four channels of audio to the soundcard with the digital method.
now your soundcard is decoding two front channels and two rear channels of the movie.
- your second gamble is .. will the soundcard allow you to use the four remaining outputs for something else?
the soundcard might say 'i am decoding a movie and i will not let you use the *surround sound* channels for anything else'
this seems to be everything i can come up with on a quick rundown.
two front speakers and two rear speakers is much better than stereo for movies and video games that use it.
you can get positional surround sound from headphones or from a 5.1 speaker system.
**edit**
there is no such thing as dolby digital quadrophonic or dts quadrophonic.
i really dont see how you are going to send two front channels and two rear channels to the soundcard without letting the software decode the audio first.
i think the software will decode the surround sound and remove whatever speaker channels you tell it to (then split the center channel across the two front speakers if the channel is discrete)
this right here alone is going to eat up some CPU power and get in the way.
your video games will be very simple 2d or some very old 3d games.
you could have the most recent and fastest processor available.. and the most recent and fastest video card available .. but the chipset on the motherboard is going to take a hit because something is in the way.
it will be like trying to walk and there is somebody slower in front of you.
it might not be all that bad if you are only sending ONE s/pdif connection to the soundcard.
much better than SIX pcm connections because there is no decoding = much less processing running along the train tracks.
but
if you get a second soundcard to send some spdif to the graphics card.. this would be a good reason to overclock your motherboard and processor.
maybe when you are done with the overclock .. the extra audio and video will be like it never ever happened at all.
makes me wonder if sending s/pdif to the video card slows the frames per second down any.
and i also wonder if you are sending video to the same graphics card.. and if that slows the frames per second down any.
Facebook
Twitter