[SOLVED] 5.1 Surround not working

[Flamesjowel]

Hi,

This is driving me mad and I can't seem to resolve this on my own despite reading and trying multiple solutions...

I have a Logitech Z506 5.1 surround sound speaker system hooked up to my computer (mobo). The cables are correctly plugged in, I know they are because Win10 sound management shows 5.1 Surround in my configuration and the test does output audio from all speakers front left, front right, center, rear left, rear right. The Asus Realtek driver is installed, and just to double validate that everything is well connected, the surround test in Realtek also output sound in 5.1 from all speakers.

Now my issue is; No other software or game will output any sound from the rear speakers. For example playing a "surround sound" video on youtube only plays in front left/right//center/subwoofer.
All games I've tried (with 5.1 enabled in the sound options) aren't able to generate any sound from both the rear speakers.

So, the speakers are working and are correctly connected to my computer, as proven by two audio tests, but it looks like applications can't leverage the 5.1 surround at all.

The only thing I changed recently is my graphic card, and I made sure to disable "Nvidia Audio" in the device manager to avoid HDMI audio to takeover.

I'm out of ideas, how do I debug this?
Thanks


My rig:
Asus ROG RTX 2080 Ti Matrix
Asus ROG STRIX z370-E
Intel 8700k on NZXT x62 Kraken AIO
G.Skill Trident Z RGB 16GB
M.2 / SSDx3 / 3TB HDD
Corsair RM1000w PSU Plus Gold
Alienware 34" Curved 120hz Ultrawide
Phanteks P400S Tempered Glass
Corsair K95 / Logitech G933 / Razor Deathadder Chroma

 

[boju]

I can kind of understand youtube not working as many surround tests there are fake/emulated. Can get complicated between browser audio support, dolby licensing etc and how the videos were recorded. I wouldn't rely on youtube for audio testing.

Games is a concern though since they should have raw audio files included for surround if the games we're talking are AAA. What games are you playing?

Try swap the black and blue jack and set back or side pairs if you can, just to see what happens in game. If you change speaker configuration in Windows, restart the game, never configure while the game is running, games get confused.

Nvidia's hdmi audio shouldn't get involved unless it is selected in playback devices.

 

[Flamesjowel]

Games is a concern though since they should have raw audio files included for surround if the games we're talking are AAA. What games are you playing?

Well, looks like I wasn't testing with AAA games lol

Before your comment, I tested Metro Exodus, Devil May Cry 5 and Plague Tale : Innocence. None of which worked.

But you made me doubt these games support 5.1 so I just tested Overwatch and it works! Now I'm kind of pissed Metro Exodus doesn't support 5.1... There's the "dolby" option but no standard 5.1 is kinda weird for a game I though kind of AAA

Oh and another thing, maybe someone has a clue; Every time my computer starts or wake up from sleep, I'm back to stereo. I have to manually reset it to 5.1 each time, this is very annoying, any idea how to fix this?

 

[boju]

Odd that some of those games don't play, i'd guess if it's possible there may be a setting or something. Might find workarounds if search 5.1 issues with those specific games.

Example for Metro, View: https://www.reddit.com/r/metro/comments/aqz8lc/metro_exodus_audio_issues_steam_pc/


Regarding audio changing with sleep or restart is probably software/driver glitch or Windows. I don't know why it would do that after a restart but possibly with sleep you can control what powers down etc in advanced power management for the audio device.