I am gonna write a lot here, so beforehand I'm jut saying that I got my 5.1 fully working on Windows 10 on the end. Movies, audio
AND GAMING.
after way too much trouble and time spent reading every reply about the 5.1 problem everywhere, and coming up with a solution, I think we need to make some things clear here that too many people don't understand about this topic ( It's not their fault, it's
just not simple when it should be). So, I am gonna try to clarify some things and hopefully, help some people out there.
First you need to understand the possible surround outputs, and its limitations, most PCs have:
1- Optical cable: can ONLY transfer 2.0 (2 channel) audio. period. (same goes to coaxial outputs, as far as I know)
2- HDMI: can transfer from 1.0 up to 7.1 LPCM ( 8 separate channels).
3- P2 cable (3.5mm jack): each P2 on the back of your Mother Board can transfer 2.0, making 5.1 possible with 3 cables (6 independent channels = LPCM), BUT it needs an amplifier (audio system, receiver) to connect to the speakers.
Now, most are asking me right now "if optical can only do 2.0, how was my 5.1 system working on Windows 8?"
right, that's where Dolby, DTS, AC3(the CODEC, not the Ac3 Filter program) comes in...
Dolby Digital, DTS, AC3 are mostly there to make a recorded 5.1 surround compressed to 2.0, so it can be transferred through optical cables, and then be decompressed by a compatible player to experience 5.1 surround.
There is too much confusion over this, but Dolby Digital, DTS and AC3 are functioning in windows 10 to play 5.1 recorded audio from movies and music (if you use Media Player Classic or VLC with the Ac3 Filter program to "pass-through SPDIF", and set your
windows audio options, it is just a matter of right configuration, as far as I tested it worked every time), but not from games.... Why?
Because 5.1 surround on games is not a recorded audio, it depends exactly on what you are doing and where you are on the game, so it is
processed in real-time and generates every sound channel separately on the fly.
And here begins the real problem: this signal is generated in LPCM, meaning that optical cables couldn't use it. So Dolby, and DTS created the Dolby Digital Live and DTS Interactive respectively, which compresses the generated 5.1 LPCM from the game to a
2.0 DD/DTS audio signal, that can go through your optical cable and can be played by any DD/DTS compatible player. And it worked perfectly on windows 8.
Here is the real problem:
Windows 10 is not compatible with Dolby Digital Live or DTS interactive yet. but it is compatible with "regular" DD/DTS, so
5.1 gaming through an optical cable is not possible
for now. But downloaded movies with DD, DTS or AC3 audio encoding are definitely working on windows 10, you just have to keep trying to get it right.
To the solution then:
since DDL is not working on W10, we can't use optical connections if we want to game in 5.1, so you could try using the several P2 ports on the back of your PC, but it needs at least 3 cables and an amplifier for each cable, and I don't know a single person
that has this set-up.
So the obvious solution is the HDMI out on your Video card (aka GPU, VGA) that has the all the function you could need. Now, this is
very important, if you plug your PC with and HDMI directly to an INPUT on a 5.1 LPCM compatible player, and
set your windows audio configurations right
EVERYTHING WORKS! (remember that your media player has to send unmodified audio through the HDMI, so again I recommend using Media Player Classic with the Ac3 Filter set to "Use SPDIF pass through" )
5.1 surround set-up turned out to be very tricky for me because I have a very complex set.So that you understand a little better I'll share my experience now.
On W8.1 I bought a creative Sound Blaster X-Fi 5.1 surround Pro (SB1095), an USB audio card with Dolby Digital Live to play my games on 5.1 and every thing else through its Optical output to my Samsung 5.1 Home Theater.
This PC was hooked to a Sony Bravia 40" LCD(LED) TV through the DVI,
on the same TV was the 5.1 Samsung Home Theater (HDMI), a PS3 (HDMI), and a WiiU (HDMI).
My TV and Home Theater have the HDMI ARC (audio return channel), so all my systems (excluding the PC) were sending 5.1 surround to the TV on Dolby Digital through their respective HDMI, then my TV sent the Dolby Digital audio through the ARC (HDMI) to the
Home Theater, that played the 5.1 Dolby digital surround from every system.
But my TV only supports Dolby Digital, this means that
my PS3 or WiiU cannot play DTS this way. but that is fine with me.
I had Dolby Digital Live from the PC on the optical cable, and regular Dolby Digital on everything else. Happy =D
then came windows 10... and I didn't expect that suddenly for no apparent reason, the most used 5.1 gaming surround solution would be unsupported. =''[
the first thing I tried was to hook the PC through the HDMI to the TV, and thought that my TV could send the LPCM through ARC to my Home Theater... that failed, since my TV can only receive Dolby signals, it just ignored all the other channels.
Finally, the only solution and salvation to us all, is to have an HDMI audio INPUT on your surround system and it has to support LPCM, and hook your PC directly to it.
Since my Home Theater had a free Input, simply plugin the HDMI to it and setting Windows to output 5.1 surround and voilá =D all is fine!
I am not an expert, just an experienced user, so I might have made some mistakes here, but I hope I could help some people with this.
My PC-> i5 760, 12gb ram, MoBo P7P55D-PRO, SSD 256gb 840 EVO, Seagate 1tb, Nvidia 660Ti, Sound Blaster X-Fi 5.1 surround pro (SB1095)(NOT in use on W10)
