I have a Sound max 1980 integrated sound card. I can get true dolby digital and DTS in my dvds!!! YAY! But when it comes to games EAX sounds like crapp and no surround capabilities, the center channel works. Now whats the deal with EAX?? Is that the same as Dolby Digital or is it a knock off? My external reciever is a Aiwa 5.1 and is using the spdif/coax input. The sound card had a Spdif output. And yes,,i know what ur going to ask, I have the 5.1 surround option selected in sound settings. The digital icon shows when im playing a dvd,,but for games, it registers as analog. I though the sound card was digital or are todays game really not putting out a digital eax/dolby 5.1 output?

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I am pretty sure you will have to have an nVidia motherboard incorporating SoundStorm audio, in order to get 5.1 digital sound from games. Also, please be aware that not all games use digital 5.1 sound, only some of the newer games, such as Unreal II. But you should have no trouble with DVD's getting 5.1, as you said.

As far as EAX, it is not digital 5.1. And if you use it in games that are not encoded for EAX, in my opinion, it does not sound to great at all. But a lot of games ARE encoded with EAX and it adds a lot to the gameing experience if not used in excess. I suggest you go to EAXgaming, and read about it. That page will explain EAX and give you some tests to try out, that will show you the different effects and what they do. Also, it will give you a list of EAX games.

I do have the VIA chipset. If i did have an Nvidia nForce chipset, will my receiver register "digital" when EAX is turned on? How do you tell if your sound card is EAX capable?

thank you chadro

EAX has nothing to do with Dolby Digital, it's just a way of adding environmental effects to audio.
As regards the nForce, yes, if you bought a nForce with the dolby digital encoder (some versions don't have it) then it can indeed encode all audio into that format. If you want 6 channel output for games & stuff with it though (basically, anything thats not in Dolby Digital already) then you'll want to hook up the analog outputs as well.

As Thomas already stated, EAX has nothing to do with Dolby Digital or anything digital at all, really.

It stands for Enviromental Audio eXtensions and patented by Creative Labs. Almost all of their SoundBlaster products support some form of EAX and some of them support even more advanced forms of it (e.g. EAX Advanced HD, EAX 3.0).

EAX adds "realistic" effects (this point is arguable; I personally enjoy EAX but many find it to be corny or unrealistic) to games by making sounds change depending on the enviroment the player is in. For example, if you are in a huge room, the sound will have an echoing effect.

If you sound card's quality turns bad when you turn EAX on, you most likely don't have it. If you really want EAX, pick up any one of Creative's SoundBlaster line beginning from SoundBlaster Live!.

sounds cool...thanks for the info