Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Troubles

[Dan Bilawchuk]

So here's my problem, I've been trying for months to get this to work and I've had no luck even going through steps that others have posted about. I have a home theater system that allows 5.1 and i would like to use it. Windows says (under advanced in the properties tab) that my sound card can only play "2 Channel 96000Hz" as a maximum and it does a very awesome job doing that. now under supported formats I can select Dolby Digital and DTS when I click on them and test them I get the sound test ding-a-ling to ALL of my 5.1 speakers but sadly when it comes to watching shows or listening to music it only ever plays out of L and R and my sub woofer.

Optionally I wouldn't mind using my on board sound if it means that I can play 5.1 surround. whichever I use the Dolby Digital test button seems to be the only thing that I can play sound from in all of my speakers.

Question : How can I get the windows 10 to play from more than 2.1 channel?

This is my sound card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4RE4VP4156&cm_re=Sound_Blaster_X-Fi-_-29-102-033-_-Product

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

You'll only get surround sound if the source music or show has been recorded in surround sound, otherwise you'll only get stereo sound.

A 5.1 sound card cannot process & separate five audio channels from a two-channel (stereo) source.

 

[Dan Bilawchuk]

You'll only get surround sound if the source music or show has been recorded in surround sound, otherwise you'll only get stereo sound.

A 5.1 sound card cannot process & separate five audio channels from a two-channel (stereo) source.

This isn't the case no matter what I play from my computer I can never get any sound from any other speakers. putting in a blu ray or playing an external 5.1 speaker test via youtube won't play any sound.

I think that the computer isn't encoding with dolby or dts. When I go to the Creative Audio Control Panel in the encoding tab I can't select dolby or dts encoding.

 

[1LiquidPC]

The audio itself has to be encoded in DTS or Dolby Digital. There may be a way to force 2.1 to play sound out all speakers, something like speaker fill. Are you using SPDIF or digital coax? If so, that's why. These cables don't support uncompressed 5.1. Have a Titanium HD myself, though currently not using. Basically, you need to use HDMI. I have my HTPC running from HDMI out on GTX 970, thru my receiver, then to my TV. I get audio out of my 5.1 speakers that way on Youtube, most games, ect. However, stereo audio is still going to be stereo.

 

[Dan Bilawchuk]

The audio itself has to be encoded in DTS or Dolby Digital. There may be a way to force 2.1 to play sound out all speakers, something like speaker fill. Are you using SPDIF or digital coax? If so, that's why. These cables don't support uncompressed 5.1. Have a Titanium HD myself, though currently not using. Basically, you need to use HDMI. I have my HTPC running from HDMI out on GTX 970, thru my receiver, then to my TV. I get audio out of my 5.1 speakers that way on Youtube, most games, ect. However, stereo audio is still going to be stereo.

I'm using an SPDIF optical cable. And I can get it to play 5.1 when I select the dolby digital setting under the windows properties and hit test. My receiver doesn't have an HDMI input otherwise I'd have swapped over to that. I did purchase an HDMI to optical output switch to see if it can help but i know that I have had this exact set up play 5.1 before.

 

[Dan Bilawchuk]

The first picture is my properties and the second is the test button that im hitting to get my speakers to play the sound.
http://imgur.com/CTQkFwh

 

[1LiquidPC]

Have you tried using the crystalizer CMSS-3D settings in creative software. There are slider settings in there there for surround speakers. I believe I used to use either stereo 3DXpand or 3D Surround options.

 

[Dan Bilawchuk]

Have you tried using the crystalizer CMSS-3D settings in creative software. There are slider settings in there there for surround speakers. I believe I used to use either stereo 3DXpand or 3D Surround options.

I'm more looking for sound to come out of my center channel as its my best sounding speaker. But this setting does nothing to add to that

 

[Dan Bilawchuk]

I'd Like to add in the audio control panel when I turn on Dolby Digital encoding or DTS encoding I get absolutely no sound at all. My Music Bee give the error (ERROR=BASS_ERROR_BUFLOST) which means the sample buffer was lost. not sure if that helps pinpoint this problem

 

[1LiquidPC]

Have to look into this further. Not sure at the moment.

 

[Dan Bilawchuk]

bump

 

[1LiquidPC]

Still the same results? I think when you force DD or DTS in audio control panel, the encoding is being switched from the 5.1 set itself to the sound card.

 

[conFIGured]

I don't know if this will help, but I have the x-fi pro from sound blaster and I had a 2 channel audio issue as well. I plugged it in via usb and it loaded the drivers correctly with no errors but it wouldn't work. So I proceeded to download the drivers manually, removed the auto installed one and then manually installed the drivers. After that, my 5.1 worked. In the properties tab the 2 and more channels plus the frequencies finally showed up.

Hopefully this will help. Auto drivers = bad.