[SOLVED] RTX 2080 Ti: 5.1 in Movies but Not Games via HDMI

[edo101]

Hi I have a 2080 Ti on an Asrock Z490 Taichi Motherboard and its hooked up to my LG C6 TV at 4K. The TV uses ARC to my Vizio M51A soundbar so I get audio.

I have noticed I get solid 5.1 in movies and even some surround effects in my music. BUT...

When it comes to games like Halo MCC, Infinite and others, I get "fake" surround sound.

What I mean is that the dialogue and sound effects only come from the front but not from the rear. The only thing the rear speakers output is background music which I suspect is just the virtualization effect of the subwoofer workign it's magic.

The actual sound is not directional. If an enemy is coming from the rear or shooting at me, those sounds are coming from the L C R speakers in the soundbar but nothing from the rear except if there's ambient music.

This is opposite to the movies I play which have actual directional sound.

My Windows sound settings for my display via HDMI only shows 2 channels. but shows DTS and Dolby Digital as encoded formats. How can I get actual 5.1 sound via my HDMI connection. And yes my HDMI cable is working properly. Able to display 4K60 and clearly 5.1 sound via movies at 4K

I used to have a discreet but cumbersome sound system that manually took 3.5mm inputs for L,C, R, LR, RR ports and I got 5.1 that way but I'd think in 2022 I'd be able to get 5.1 via HDMI on my graphics card

 

[InvalidError]

The movie player likely sends the Dolby stream to the TV as-is while games go through Windows' sound system. You likely need to jump through hoops to tell Windows through the semi-hidden Sound Control Panel page that your TV can do 5.1 before games will use it that way.

 

[edo101]

The movie player likely sends the Dolby stream to the TV as-is while games go through Windows' sound system. You likely need to jump through hoops to tell Windows through the semi-hidden Sound Control Panel page that your TV can do 5.1 before games will use it that way.

I have no way to enable it. My other option seems to be to try hacked drivers for my motherboard soundcard or buy a card with DDL and DT S Connect

 

[InvalidError]

Looking at Google results, it appears to be a common problem and some people have solved it by hacking the monitor driver to add audio channels. This requires temporarily disabling driver signing to install the modded driver.