Dolby Digital in games

[bretty]

G'day all.


I have just bought Unreal2003, and all over the CD's and the box it claims to have Dobly Digital content.
I have my sound card hooked up to a Home Theatre reciever that decodes this stream.

I cannot find it? where would it be? I was looking forward to listening to the game in digital. The reciever (Yamaha TSS-1) has a little light that flicks on when there is a digital stream going through it. It never comes on.

Thanks people.

 

[TS | Thomas]

There is no Dolby Digital in *any* games. It's only available if you're using the nForce 1/2 motherboards that support Dolby Digital Encoding. It's some odd misleading marketing thing that Dolby have going on.

As from the America's Army FAQ;

Q: What are the system requirements for Dolby Digital audio?
A: NVIDIA nForce or other motherboards/soundcards containing the Dolby Digital Interactive Content Encoder required for Dolby Digital audio.

 

[Vehementi]

Makes me want to buy an A7N8x Deluxe all the more. Man, I want Dolby Digital for games! And hardware 5.1 decoding!

nVidia/ASUS really needs to put their sound codec onto a standalone sound card. I'd buy that.

 

[TS | Thomas]

The EAX with the new nForce drivers is actually pretty good too, like far better than other Sensaura soundcards.

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Originally posted by Vehementi
Man, I want Dolby Digital for games! And hardware 5.1 decoding!

Hasn't decoding been there for a long time now? I presume you meant encoding.

I really don't understand what's so difficult in making games wih Dolby® Digital sound. Sound could just be encoded as AC-3 stream, which could be feeded to soundcard's digital out, to speakers or external Dolby® Digital supported amplifier.

Well, now that I think about it, the encoding requires some processing power if done in software..

 

[TS | Thomas]

Yeah that's basically it really, it would be pretty damn taxing on the CPU. NVIDIA won't be making it available as a standalone (PCI) Soundcard either due to lack of bandwidth.

 

[Vehementi]

Encoding, decoding, same difference

 

[bretty]

So really the only way to get the sound is to enable AC3 decoding in the creative soundcard drivers?

 

[Vehementi]

No what he's trying to say is that you can't get the Dolby Digital in the game without another sound chipset. I can't get digital 5.1 to my home theater receiver without an nForce2. Didn't you read the first line of the first reply? The Creative soundcard will not encode 5.1 digital audio or Dolby Digital.

 

[TS | Thomas]

Originally posted by bretty
So really the only way to get the sound is to enable AC3 decoding in the creative soundcard drivers?

The Creative AC-3 decoding option has nothing to do with it as thats for **DE**CODING, not **EN**CODING. It doesn't matter what you set this to, the game wil play audio just fine regardless if you've ever tried it.

& the Audigy/Audigy 2 can output a 5.1 stream digitally without needing to change its format, errm, hopefully this won't confuse you more.

Also I don't think that UT 2003 states it has Dolby Digital content as thats a lie, it has none, more likely it just features the Dolby logo. But like I said in my first reply, if you don't have a nForce 1/2 with DICE then you'll get nothing encoded into that format. It doesn't matter as you gain NOTHING in terms of what you hear & you gain NOTHING in terms of positioning.

 

[bretty]

Thanks for that Thomas.

I was actually looking for the clarity that Dolby provides.

Anyway...I shall survive without it...