Audio Dropouts with SB Z over optical

[iamtherealmiggy]

I don't see a forum for audio cards, so putting this here.

I recently upgraded systemboard, CPU, memory (Ryzan 7 2700X, ASUS B450 Plus, if it matters).

I had my SBZ set up for Dolby Digital Live (or I actually prefer the dts version, whatever that's called) to push the 5.1 signal to my Yamaha receiver to decode. It was working fine before the upgrade. Now I am getting constant audio drops, just half a second or less but enough to be annoying. I cannot play a whole song without a drop.

I put the card in another slot, I reinstlled the driver, tried another optical cable, tried another input on the receiver. Nothing has helped. I did listen to a few songs through headphones plugged into the line out and, as I expected, no audio drops.

What else can I try?

 

[iamtherealmiggy]

Update:

I did some testing by turning off the decoder and enabling stereo mix through digital output. I listened to some music for a while and no dropouts. I was incidentally building up a computer with my old board for a friend. So after I put that together and loaded Windows 10, I put this sound card in there. Once back on my original board, no dropouts.

So I returned to concentrating on software. I realized while looking at the uninstall program list that there are separate entries for Dobly Digital Live and dts Connect. I hadn't tried to uninstall that. So before the card back in, I uninstalled the SB drivers and DDL and dts C. For a time I thought that was my solution, because I played a bunch of songs with no dropouts. Now, here I am a couple of hours later and played some songs while I'm working on something, and I experienced a couple of more dropouts. It doesn't seem to happen as often as before, but it is still occurring.

So has no one else run into this issue or have any ideas?

The only thing I know to do is try another card, like the 5.1 card from ASUS that also supports DD Live and dts Connect.

 

[gamerk316]

That's odd; it almost sounds like the realtime encoding is somehow not able to keep up with what the PC is doing, since it works fine in Stereo (which implies the physical connection is good).

Is there any difference between Dolby and DTS, or do they both drop out about the same?

Creative's drivers have always been a bit on the "unstable" side; not sure if Daniel_K is still making third-party Creative drivers or not, but you can give those a try if there's a driver pack for that card.

As for ASUS, most of their cards only support encoding to one of the two formats (mostly Dolby). I've never had a problem with their cards, though their software is also a little on the finicky side.

 

[iamtherealmiggy]

gamer,

Thanks for you response.

Yeah, dts and DDL both drop out about the same.

I'm familiar with Creative Labs software. I remember having an issue when I first discovered DDL and dts connect a few years ago. The sound would start to break up and the fix was to switch - if on DD then switch to dts, etc. Or I suppose I could have turned dts encoding (my preferred) off and then back on again. I don't know what fixed it. It just quit happening over time.

I found a thread in some tech forum where a guy said he fixed this issue by changing the power profile to performance, because the CPU throttling is what was causing the dropouts. I tried that last night, but it didn't fix my issue.

In my research I ran across the idea of using HDMI to my receiver. I had always just assumed using your video card's HDMI for sound was mainly for watching movies, which I don't do. But supposedly games will output their 5.1 mix through HDMI if that is your selected sound device. So I ordered a 6' HDMI cable and will find out tomorrow if that does what I need it to. If it does, it should not only fix my dropouts but give me better sound than I had before. So here's hoping.

 

[gamerk316]

HDMI through the Video Card is better then Optical, since Dolby/DTS are heavily compressed formats that do degrade audio quality. Remember that when you output via digital though you lose most of a soundcards advantages, since the device at the other end of the connection will be handling the conversion of digital audio back to analog.

 

[iamtherealmiggy]

HDMI through the Video Card is better then Optical, since Dolby/DTS are heavily compressed formats that do degrade audio quality. Remember that when you output via digital though you lose most of a soundcards advantages, since the device at the other end of the connection will be handling the conversion of digital audio back to analog.

OH yeah, HDMI is better. I just hadn't considered it before because as I said, I always assumed it was for watching DVD, Blu-ray, which I only do on my HT system. But if it does actually push out a game's 5.1 mix, then I'm all for that.

I think it will, at least it makes sense. My big concern is what to do with the second display that'll be created. Extend it, and I'll be annoyed at the cursor going off the right side of the screen. Mirroring it, I think, will rescale my monitor to the receiver's limit of 1080p. I'd like there to be an option of just ignoring or disabling the second display device and just use audio.

ETA: If by sound card advantages, you mean things like Scout Mode and Crystal Voice and EQs... I disable all that stuff anyway.

 

[iamtherealmiggy]

UPDATE: Got it hooked up via HDMI and as far as the sound goes, everything's working great. It might have turned out for the best that DDL and dts Connect were giving me trouble with the new system, because the uncompressed PCM does sound so much better.

As I suspected, I have this extended display to deal with. I saw a solution in a thread to duplicate it, then force the combined monitors in Windows display settings to your monitor's normal resolution (1440 for me). That worked, but it really lowered the refresh rate and then grayed it out so I couldn't change it.

So I think I'll leave it for now and just get used to cursor going off the right side of the screen when I'm trying to X out of a window.

ETA: Oh... I just discovered what dragging the monitors around in NVIDIA's control panel does. I moved the 2nd monitor over to the left side. I think it will cause less trouble over there. At least I can X out of windows normally now.

 

[gamerk316]

Glad to hear your problem is solved.

Nowadays, Optical really serves no purpose; Dolby and DTS are horrible formats that existed only because it was too difficult to fit uncompressed 5.1 audio onto media. That's not really a problem anymore.

 

[iamtherealmiggy]

Glad to hear your problem is solved.

Nowadays, Optical really serves no purpose; Dolby and DTS are horrible formats that existed only because it was too difficult to fit uncompressed 5.1 audio onto media. That's not really a problem anymore.

The only issue I've found is that if I power on the computer while the receiver is on, I don't get video. It obviously successfully boots and then goes into Windows, but I think it's sending the video out through HDMI instead of DP to my monitor. I can't find a setting in BIOS to have it always choose DP. Not too big a deal, though; I just have to make sure the receiver is off if I cold start the computer.

As far as the original problem, I can only assume this processor's so fast that DDL and dts Connect can't keep up with it. Would have to see if someone else with a Ryzen using DD or dts has the same issue, but maybe not too many people still using it.

 

[gamerk316]

Glad to hear your problem is solved.

Nowadays, Optical really serves no purpose; Dolby and DTS are horrible formats that existed only because it was too difficult to fit uncompressed 5.1 audio onto media. That's not really a problem anymore.

The only issue I've found is that if I power on the computer while the receiver is on, I don't get video. It obviously successfully boots and then goes into Windows, but I think it's sending the video out through HDMI instead of DP to my monitor. I can't find a setting in BIOS to have it always choose DP. Not too big a deal, though; I just have to make sure the receiver is off if I cold start the computer.

As far as the original problem, I can only assume this processor's so fast that DDL and dts Connect can't keep up with it. Would have to see if someone else with a Ryzen using DD or dts has the same issue, but maybe not too many people still using it.

I used DDL with an old Q9600 without issues back in the day for what it's worth.