Issues with X-Fi and 5.1 through Receiver

T

ThinJ

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Jan 20, 2007
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Here's the deal.. my current HT setup is combined with my computer.

I have the Westy 37w3 as both my computer monitor and my TV. To keep with the "everything in one place" idea I went ahead and tried hooking my X-Fi up to my Sony 5.1 receiver.

This has not gone well.

Initially I just hooked it up with stereo RCA cables and left it at that. But then I wanted my sound localization in games to be there so I went looking for a solution.

The one that seemed the easiest was to use three miniplug to stereo RCA cables to connect my X-Fi directly to the multi-channel inputs on the receiver. There's a diagram on the creative site showing this.

Great. There's just one problem.. only the front speakers receive sound this way. Playing music.. firing up games.. whatever. They all play sound through the front left and front right speakers. No sub, no center, no rears.

So in an experiment to see if the outputs from the soundcard were even working at all.. I turned on CMSS3D. Bam. Sound through everything. The Subwoofer goes active, the rears receive sound.. great.

The problem with this is that I listen to music on my PC a lot and CMSS3D adds a lot of noise and distortion to music and I've grown to hate it. But without CMSS3D turned off to listen to music... my Subwoofer sits completely silent. This, of course, makes music sound like shit coming through two satellite speakers.

Is there an easy fix for this?
 
You probably need to tell the X-Fi to do bass redirection. Receivers do this normally, but they usually disengage it on the multi-channel input since they assume it's a high quality source that handles it, and it would require redigitizing, I don't know quite where the setting is as I use a 4.0 system but if you hunt around in the THX menu of the mixer, you should find it.
 
Make sure you are in entertainment mode.
Then find the THX control panel and adjust your speakers, bass redirection, calibration etc...
 
Look at Bass Redirection or Bass Management.

If you want to hear better sounds from all of your speakers, look at the settings on your receiver instead of the sound card? Set up the card for normal stereo and then set Prologic and to one of its DSP effects like "Live", "Hall" or "Music". Each receiver might have different names for these Effects, experiment?
 
A lot of people consider this to be the Achilles' heel of the Creative sound card world. Your current setup is really the only way to get true surround sound from games without buying extra hardware. However, for everything else besides games, there are better options because even the most basic Sony receivers have surround decoding that is worlds ahead of anything that Creative has ever put in their cards. What I would suggest is that in addition to using the multi-channel input for games as you do now, that you use the digital output from your card into the digital DVD input on your receiver for movies and music. If you use digital and set your receiver to the correct surround mode, then it should decode stereo sound to every speaker in a way that sounds natural and you get the added bonus of digital surround from movies. The only problem with this is that games will never be true surround via the digital connection, simply because the card is not equipped with the capability to encode digital surround on the fly. Still, switching between the two inputs only requires a press of a button on your remote and then you can bypass Creative's software altogether.
 
Donnie27 said:
Look at Bass Redirection or Bass Management.

If you want to hear better sounds from all of your speakers, look at the settings on your receiver instead of the sound card? Set up the card for normal stereo and then set Prologic and to one of its DSP effects like "Live", "Hall" or "Music". Each receiver might have different names for these Effects, experiment?
Click to expand...

The problem lies entirely with the X-Fi.

If the receiver is in Multi-Channel it's not really doing anything but passing the information it's receiving on the inputs on to the speakers. If it's only playing sounds out of the front two.. well then it's only getting data from the computer for the front two speakers.

Prologic (which is how it's setup now, with a single 1.8mm to Stereo RCA cable going straight from the computer to the receiver) works ok for music and whatever else.. but it sucks for gaming.

Thrash said:
What I would suggest is that in addition to using the multi-channel input for games as you do now, that you use the digital output from your card into the digital DVD input on your receiver for movies and music. If you use digital and set your receiver to the correct surround mode, then it should decode stereo sound to every speaker in a way that sounds natural and you get the added bonus of digital surround from movies. The only problem with this is that games will never be true surround via the digital connection, simply because the card is not equipped with the capability to encode digital surround on the fly. Still, switching between the two inputs only requires a press of a button on your remote and then you can bypass Creative's software altogether.
Click to expand...

I tried hooking the digital output in the card up to the digital coaxial input on my receiver but couldn't get any sound of any kind in any situation out of it that way, bet it games movies or music. Nothing.

Oh, and I don't have the THX mixer and all that stuff installed right now. I have just the basic creative driver. I skipped on the full driver package because I didn't like all the insane processes it starts up.

Do I really need to go back to the full driver and software package to get it working?

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I'm playing with it again now in the hopes that something mentioned here will work.
 
Do you still have the amnual for the receiver? I would suggest forst of all to check and see what Digital formats your receiver unit will accept. Make sure your using The proper output and digital is enabled properly and set to the right format and all should be good. You may have to set your receiver for digital mode. Sometimes it's a little tricky to get working but once it's working you'll be fine.
 
Sure enough, hooking up the speakers through the multi-channel inputs on the receiver and then going back and reinstalling all of creative's various consoles fixed it.

All it took was the above mentioned bass redirection setting in the THX setup menu and some tinkering and I'm set.

Thanks a lot to everyone that popped in with suggestions!
 
ThinJ said:
The problem lies entirely with the X-Fi.

If the receiver is in Multi-Channel it's not really doing anything but passing the information it's receiving on the inputs on to the speakers. If it's only playing sounds out of the front two.. well then it's only getting data from the computer for the front two speakers.
Click to expand...

Not when you're using a 2Ch source. You get two channel output and more times than not, native 2Ch sounds better in that format. Use stereo and then have your receiver Matrix the sound to the other speakers. Or, you can use the CMSS 3D but on with it. Try the Xpand feature and NOT the surround stuff. All receivers don't like this. Make sure your card is not sync-ed with Windows Sound system. That's for limited software based sound cards. If games aren't being heard in 5.1 Surround Sound, you then need to;

Set the Card to Gaming Mode
Then on the Game Mode Panel or GUI Mode App.
Disable CMSS 3D
Disable Crystalizer
Use EQ to your liking, mine is OFF.
Enabled EAX and select the other boxes on that page.
Set Speakers to 5.1, The very next thing you want to do is go to the THX Console or Panel on the applet. Pick you Center Speaker placement
Select Bass Redirection Rule of thumb, start with 60% and no Bass Boost or 40% with Bass Boost. Test the volume slider because unlike previous Creative Cards, you can send too much bass to the Sub LOL! Make sure Speakers are set to SMALL!
Now read up on the speaker calibration app? The number you pick means a DECREASE in volume to that speaker. I do -3 since my fronts are floor standing, 0 on the rear and -2 on the Center Speaker.

When Finished Go back to the Game Mode Console or Panel, to Speakers and see if all of the settings stuck. If they did, click close. Start up a game, make sure the Game is set to 5.1 and check the sounds.

Oh, and I don't have the THX mixer and all that stuff installed right now. I have just the basic creative driver. I skipped on the full driver package because I didn't like all the insane processes it starts up.

Do I really need to go back to the full driver and software package to get it working?
Click to expand...

NO, All you really need are the Drivers, THX console (maybe) and the Audio Control Panel. The Audio Control Panel is a no none-sense File Folder Based version that can do what the GUI does. The setup is called "Performance Install" right on the CD, no hacks are needed. If that Option doesn't pop up, select Custom and un-check all of the boxes except, Drivers, Audio Console and THX panel.
 
ThinJ said:
I tried hooking the digital output in the card up to the digital coaxial input on my receiver but couldn't get any sound of any kind in any situation out of it that way, bet it games movies or music. Nothing.
Click to expand...


It's probably still set to microphone mode... If you can't find the setting to change the jack from microphone to digital i/o, I think all you need to install is the basic console to change that setting.
 
If you didn't install the applications from the CD you can enable Digital I/O from within the volume mixer under XP, enable Advanced settings then click on the 'Advanced' button below the main volume control.

You will likely have to toggle this option off and on every time you restart the system however, since the latest drivers (under both XP and Vista) don't properly remember this setting.
 
The setting for the flexijack mode is in Entertainment Mode > I/O tab. Set the flexijack mode to Digital I/O instead of the default Line2/Mic2, and you should get sound off a digital coax connection. I just hooked this up on Sunday because I was not thrilled with the analog connection to my Z5500s for movies.

By the way, put me down as another who finds the flexijack thing pretty annoying, especially considering the way it works with BF2 and other VOIP enabled games.
 
ballpoint said:
The setting for the flexijack mode is in Entertainment Mode > I/O tab. Set the flexijack mode to Digital I/O instead of the default Line2/Mic2, and you should get sound off a digital coax connection. I just hooked this up on Sunday because I was not thrilled with the analog connection to my Z5500s for movies.

By the way, put me down as another who finds the flexijack thing pretty annoying, especially considering the way it works with BF2 and other VOIP enabled games.
Click to expand...

Can't do that if you don't have the software installed;)

Even more screwed up is that you have to switch it back and forth between MIC and Digital for it to work. The Newer Drivers did this and the old ones doesn't.

TO: ALL

The card can't run correctly without at least the Damned small easy to use Audio Console app, sheesh folks! I've shown the whole package working to several folks. Now, could it be streamlined, hell yes. Could it be tweaked, damned straight:) Folks asked for a small app and I'll be damned if folks aren't still afraid to install that, why? Mostly because of BS posted on forums and many times (not all the time) by Anti-Creative Labs posters LOL!

Do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT sync with Windows, its Crap! Most of MS features block are renders some of EAX's features inop. EAX starts with Speakers placed in Corners and MS doesn't support this or 4.1 BTW, same goes CMSS 3D, and etc............

Install a basic amount of software and see for yourselves if the software works?
 
I've always had the flexjack in Digital mode.

It does seem to work now after the install of the various audio consoles (I just had the basic one before, and that one doesn't give access to much) but it only puts out stereo and when I try and select a surround mode on the receiver it says "NOT USED"

Then if I hook my DVD player up on that same input I can pick all the modes I want.

Whatever.

It works through the multichannel inputs for both games and music, and that's all I really need. I'll be doing my movie watching on my dedicated DVD player anyway.
 
ThinJ said:
I've always had the flexjack in Digital mode.

It does seem to work now after the install of the various audio consoles (I just had the basic one before, and that one doesn't give access to much) but it only puts out stereo and when I try and select a surround mode on the receiver it says "NOT USED"

Then if I hook my DVD player up on that same input I can pick all the modes I want.

Whatever.

It works through the multichannel inputs for both games and music, and that's all I really need. I'll be doing my movie watching on my dedicated DVD player anyway.
Click to expand...

The X-Fi doesn't encode mulichannel sound over SPDIF, you are limited to 2channel PCM. (with the exception of movies which are already encoded in DD/DTS)
 
ThinJ said:
I've always had the flexjack in Digital mode.

It does seem to work now after the install of the various audio consoles (I just had the basic one before, and that one doesn't give access to much) but it only puts out stereo and when I try and select a surround mode on the receiver it says "NOT USED"

Then if I hook my DVD player up on that same input I can pick all the modes I want.

Whatever.

It works through the multichannel inputs for both games and music, and that's all I really need. I'll be doing my movie watching on my dedicated DVD player anyway.
Click to expand...

Great! As I said on another thread, the Bloatware does work! Going with a Set Top isn't a bad option at all for DVD. Circuit City and Best Buy had them on sale from $21.95 to $29. One for $32 with Progressive Scan, sheesh!
 
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