Recon 3d PCIe issues, or maybe something much worse?

[mhermetz]

Up until a few days ago my Recon 3D PCIe card was outputting perfect 5.1 audio through the optical port to my receiver. That has suddenly stopped and will only output 2.1. Here are a Few things I noticed just from googling for answers:

-When Dolbly Digital Live is enabled. I would get 5.1 from games and my movies no problem. Now however if I were to enable DDL it will stutter and even the video stops and pauses a lot; all the while still only outputting 2.1. That video part I can't figure out whatsoever.

- If I go to playback devices> spdif(recon3d pcie)>properties> supported formats and do a DTS test it will play 5.1 perfectly. Also has me confused. Using the SPDIF output was my default before all this failed, so to see the test work but nothing else is annoying.

- And now this just happened when trying to run through steps so I can write it down accurately. I went back to Playback devices to re-enable Speakers (Recon3D pcie) because it was the only one that would allow 2.1 audio and proper video playback. Well I went into the soundblaster control panel to check DDL was enabled and it wasn't anymore. I clicked on it and it now says "The creative Audio service is not started. please re-installed the application". I've got this message before when tinkering, so I have actually re-installed several times, still nothing. Anyway video still plays back fine when under the Speakers (Recon3D pcie) output but now absolutely no audio 2.1 or 5.1.

I'm 4 days out of warranty, what are the chances this was just meant to crap out at this stage? or am I looking at a worse problem because for some reason video playback is also screwed up when trying to use DDL and SPDIF?

(EDIT): Forgot to mention when I was trying to rule it as my audio card being toast I disabled all Recon 3D drivers and re-enabled my old Realtek drivers from my motherboard. I know that this wouldn't give me 5.1 in video games but it would send 5.1 from my DVD movies. Unfortunately I have the same problem when using that method as well.

Thanks

 

[mhermetz]

Actually, your initial post leaves things a tad unclear for me. It sounds like your card is working fine when you use Creative's software to do a sound test, but not working when you are trying to watch a movie? Is this correct? What about having the encoding enabled while playing a video game, or just listening to music?

From my experience, when using S/PDIF output from movie playback software, you need to disable DDL or DTS Connect encoding in order for the encoded signal to be properly passed to an external decoder. Encoding on the computer essentially ties up a device, and then when the movie playback software tries to access that sound device, you get stuttering and freezing behavior. Disable the encoding if you are trying to bit-stream your audio for watching movies. It really shouldn't matter at that point how many speakers you have selected, as an external encoder should just detect the encoded stream and decode it to whatever attached speakers it has.

You do not need encoding enabled for watching movies, as the soundtrack is already encoded. If you select something other than S/PDIF pass-through, the computer is actually decoding the encoded movie soundtrack before handing off the audio.

^This. I have Recon 3D in my current build and do not need to enable the Dolby Digital Live setting for it to do S/PDIF pass-though it is done by what ever player I am using and works just fine. It seems to me that you have a codec conflict rather than a hardware problem. Do you have any codec packs installed?

Missed this post, This could be possible as I installed a codec for after effects about a week ago. I have no idea how to find them and how to check to see if there is a conflict?

 

[mhermetz]

Not all audio receivers are going to do DTS. In your Creative Labs software, do you have options for Dolby Digital Live (DDL) and DTS Connect, or just one of those two?

Just DDL

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

Codecs are only used when they are needed and take place upstream from the encoding. The codec would be used, and it's output fed to the encoder. Doubtful this has anything to do with your issues. It really sounds like a configuration issue, but I'm running out of options here.

 

[mhermetz]

well I found the codec and deleted it but still the same issue. And I'm getting the same "re-install application again" when I try and enable DDL in the Soundblaster control panel. I'm starting to think this has to be a driver issue but that doesn't really explain why I have the same problem when I switch back to using the motherboard optical out. The on board optical out should be sending Dolby Digital from a DVD to my reciever no problem too.

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

Your onboard audio out has the same need for encoding to be done on your audio for it to output DDL encoded audio. Without enabling an encoding option for your on-board sound, all you can get is 2 channel sound. SPDIF can not carry more than 2 audio channels. This is normal. This is what it was designed to do. It pre-dates surround speaker configurations. Smart engineers were able to encode multi-channel audio into the 2 channel capacity after there was a need for it. If your Creative software is saying you need to reinstall something, perhaps after you installed the drivers a 2nd time, you didn't reactivate your DDL license with Creative Labs? It's proprietary software that requires licensing, so I assume you will need to activate it after you installed your drivers.

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

If you managed to install and activate encoding software for your motherboard, is it possible it is still enabled?

 

[mhermetz]

no I un-installed it... but... I just just plugged into my spare Blu-ray. So using the optical cable from the blu-ray to my receiver I get full 5.1 dolby digital. I'm so stumped on this. It has to be that my soundcard is not sending out the proper signal.

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

I agree with you for reasons that are eluding us.

 

[mhermetz]

Well next thing I'm going to try is a clean install of windows. Hate doing that and I'll probably not do it for at least a week.

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

I have a reinstall of Windows I've been putting off myself! If you find the solution, please post back and let us know, for the benefit of others. 🙂

 

[mhermetz]

will do...

 

[mhermetz]

humm thing I just noticed... It won't even play to the Sub. so just left and right.

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

Sounds like you're using SPDIF out instead of Speaker out. SPDIF is non-encoded, and can only transmit left and right channel audio.

 

[mhermetz]

nope, i'm using speaker out.

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

I believe you, just trying to think out loud.

On the off-chance, have you right-clicked the SPDIF Out device in the Windows Playback devices window and perused it's properties?

I know that with DDL encoding turned on, I am unable to perform any tests on my SPDIF Out device, receiving an error that the device is being used by another application.

You might poke around in there and see if perhaps some of the features have been unchecked, and whether the device is in use. If it doesn't return the error of being in use, make sure your encoding is turned on, and try it again.

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

Hmm, another thing you might check, when single left-clicking on the Speaker icon in the System Notification area, by the clock, when encoding is active, you will see a volume slider for both SPDIF Out and Speakers. When encoding is not enabled, you will only see the volume slider for Speakers.

What do you get when you click your speaker volume icon the one time?

 

[mhermetz]

Had some more time to play around with this. I tested the single-left clicking on the Speaker icon.

- First while using the "speaker" output while playing a DVD. Only the "Speaker" output showed.
- Second, I tested it with "SPDIF" set to output while playing the same DVD. This time both "speaker" and the "SPDIF" showed.

I also noticed while playing around with the sound blaster control panel under the "Advanced Features" if I don't have the "play stereo mix to digital output" checked I get no sound at all for either SPDIF or Speakers!

 

[mhermetz]

Had some more time to play around with this. I tested the single-left clicking on the Speaker icon.

- First while using the "speaker" output while playing a DVD. Only the "Speaker" output showed.
- Second, I tested it with "SPDIF" set to output while playing the same DVD. This time both "speaker" and the "SPDIF" showed.

I also noticed while playing around with the sound blaster control panel under the "Advanced Features" if I don't have the "play stereo mix to digital output" checked I get no sound at all for either SPDIF or Speakers!

It's fixed! only had to do a complete clean install :/