How to output game to Dolby Digital thru HDMI?

orangpelupa

Elite Bug Hunter
Legend
I've took PS4's internal Dolby Digital Encoder for granted... now I'm back on PC gaming and the damn thing (NVIDIA GTX 1660 SUPER) only outputs these over HDMI:

  • 2ch PCM
  • Dolby bitstream
  • DTS bitstream

There is no Dolby or DTS encoding at all, no 5.1ch PCM. All games now only runs in 2ch :( :( :( :( :( :(

for videos its not an issue because I use AC3 filter to encode all audio to Dolby Digital 5.1ch with around 0.5 seconds lag (the player automatically sync them)
 
Did you change your PC speaker setup to actually be 5.1 or 7.1 before launching the games and seeing what they offer?

upload_2020-1-2_21-57-12.png
 
Is Nvidia HD Audio driver installed under your Windows apps?
 
Does your receiver accept 5.1 PCM?

It only lists this

Audio Codec AC3(Dolby Digital), EAC3, HE-AAC, AAC, MP2, MP3, PCM, DTS, DTS-HD, DTS Express, WMA

It does able to automatically transcodes 5.1ch AAC and EAC3 to AC3 when using its "smart TV" software (e.g. The mrdia player)

Edit: Maybe the TV doesn't support 5.1ch LPCM. augh....

So I would need a live Dolby encoder thru hdmi.
 
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They're included with Nvidia drivers. Perhaps you did a custom install and excluded them?
I don't think a Dolby Digital or DTS encoder comes with any NV driver. Some Realtek audio chipsets can do it but I dunno if you could pipe it through the GPU HDMI.

Anyway it's called Dolby Digital Live or DTS Connect respectively.
 
That would make all Nvidia-based HTPC setups useless. Most Nvidia GPUs for a long time have been capable of passthrough of many formats.

https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2796/~/which-hdmi-audio-formats-do-nvidia-gpus-support?

They can pass through those formats fine. We're talking about encoding a compressed 5.1 bitstream from the uncompressed LPCM PCs normally output over HDMI. It's a problem that doesn't get a lot of attention because most companies assume if you need 5.1 audio through HDMI your receiver probably supports LPCM, obviating the need for realtime encoding to a compressed format.
 
They can pass through those formats fine. We're talking about encoding a compressed 5.1 bitstream from the uncompressed LPCM PCs normally output over HDMI. It's a problem that doesn't get a lot of attention because most companies assume if you need 5.1 audio through HDMI your receiver probably supports LPCM, obviating the need for realtime encoding to a compressed format.

Thanks! Yep that's my issue.

I need Dolby digital live encoder over HDMI.

I currently use AC3FILTER to do DD encoding but it have 0.5ms lag, thus only useful for videos where the AV can be delayed to be in sync
 
They can pass through those formats fine. We're talking about encoding a compressed 5.1 bitstream from the uncompressed LPCM PCs normally output over HDMI. It's a problem that doesn't get a lot of attention because most companies assume if you need 5.1 audio through HDMI your receiver probably supports LPCM, obviating the need for realtime encoding to a compressed format.
It was a bigger problem before HDMI. If your mobo or soundcard couldn't encode DD or DTS the only way to get surround output was with the 3.5mm analog outputs which requires a bunch of cables and a receiver with 5.1 analog inputs.

TBH orangpelupa must have a pretty ancient receiver for it not support 5.1 LPCM.
 
TBH orangpelupa must have a pretty ancient receiver for it not support 5.1 LPCM.

Most likely, he has historically ignored forum advice and buys the cheapest crap available and then has obvious issues later.
 
Most likely, he has historically ignored forum advice and buys the cheapest crap available and then has obvious issues later.
Lol.

BTW you can still use the analog outputs on your mobo for surround if you receiver has 5.1 analog inputs. All motherboards should support this if you configure the outputs for it but you'll need some of these.
https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics...ocphy=9010995&hvtargid=pla-299948918055&psc=1
Might be the only way for you to get 5.1 in games other than buying a new receiver.

Cool fact: NVIDIA (and maybe ATI as well) GPUs used to have a little internal connector that went to a mobo header to allow audio passthrough over the GPU outputs. Of course your mobo audio chipset still had to support the encoding which mine didn't so I never got to test 5.1 but it did work for 2 channel audio on my 8800GT. This was before GPUs typically had HDMI but you could get audio from DVI with a DVI->HDMI adapter. I don't know how they made that work.
 
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Hey when the cheapest crap is less than 1/3 the price of a decent crap, I took the cheapest crap :p

Inconfinience be damned. Heck, if it's a popular enough niche, I'll take a profit off it by making a YouTube video.

Still, pretty much disappointed with oculus quest tho. I genuinely though it would be an upgrade to PSVR, turns out it's mostly a downgrade.

Aww man, I really am disappointed with oculus quest. I kept bringing that in my posts! (here and reddit hahaha).
 
I could have sworn there was one point where Creative sold a software upgrade to enable DD Live on some of their soundcards, and I remember thinking it was weird Dolby just didn't sell a virtual driver themselves that was hardware agnostic to add the capability to any system.
 
I remember creative sold alchemy to users of audigy cards, it was free to people with xfi cards
 
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