5.1 Surround Soundcards?

[pg_exoshear]

I have my PC hooked up to a very nice Dolby Digital 5.1 Hi-fi.

Although saying that, it isn't getting used to its full potential seeing as the Soundcard in my PC isn't one for surround :}

So, my question to you (whoever happens to come across this post) is: What is the best type of sound card to have which is surround compatible?
I don't want to break the bank with this, so it has to be reasonably priced.

Any help will be great!

Cheers

 

[tris-]

Audigy 2 or SB live 5.1. i got my audigy 2 for £50odd i think not sure on live 5.1 but i think its cheaper.

 

[FatBusinessman]

One thing to bear in mind: the SPDIF-out facility on most sound cards will not encode Dolby 5.1, it can only pass it through from a DVD movie. If you want something which will encode SPDIF from games, music or anything except DVDs, then the only* consumer-level product which will do this is an nForce2 motherboard. Odd, but there we go...

On the other hand, if your hi-fi accepts 6-channel audio, then you should be fine with some kind of Creative card (probably an Audigy).







*To my knowledge - someone may well correct me on this

 

[Yaka]

sound wise the M-Audio 7.1 card is hard to beat, but for games its cpu useage hits the fps abit too much:/

 

[Big G]

I've got a bog standard SB Live! with the digital I/O card. The daughtercard has a coax SPDIF out on it, which i connect to my Sony external decoder.

It's cheap and cheerful and does the job. Additionally, because im using the pass through function, it means that the stream from the DVD can be DTS (which i prefer to use if it's available) or dolby digital EX (6.1) as opposed to cards that have onboard decoders and you're stuck with 5.1 dolby digital and 3 pairs of outputs. Pass through is tres important.

I'm partial to the single piece of coax from the sound card to the decoder.

G

 

[lovedaddy]

Businessman is right, the nForce and nForce2 is the only system thats going to encode true 5.1 DD streams, in real time.
The audigy, audigy2 etc can do 6 point analog discrete out, but its using either EAX to create 4 point surround or a software solution.

My view, nforce2 every day.

 

[Big G]

On this note, i've just realised a potential pissy issue with the nforce2.

I took my external decoder to my mates house who has an nforce2 mobo and wired it up to the coax SPDIF out on the nforce2, and the digital coax in on the decoder.

It seems you can't allow a digital pass through on the nforce2? (please let me know if i'm wrong). What i mean is that when i select "digital audio" in the soundstorm control panel, i have to select "dolby digital encode" to get a 5.1 signal: it won't allow me to select a pass through to allow the external decoder to choose on the necessary decoding. This is particularly important to me, as i want to be able to select a DTS audio track if it's available on the DVD. When i do this, I get no indication of DTS decoding on the external decoder; infact there is no audio at all.

Can anyone confirm this, or is there a way to select a pass through?

G