Hello everyone. Like in the title, does anyone know if Xtremegamer can do CMSS-3D through optical? Maybe somebody owns this card and could test this? I'm building an old school PC to play some older games I have. I mainly need soundcard for its software suite and hardware accelerated sound effects for fully 3D sound and EAX(if it isn't overdone). I'm deciding between buying a used X-FI titanium(which from what I've read, can do CMSS-3D through optical) or used X-FI xtreme gamer/xtreme music, which are cheaper, but I couldn't find whether they support CMSS-3D through their flexijack. I want to use digital, because I have an external DAC and I do not want to use colored analog outputs of these soundcards. Thank you.
Hi, I do not own this card but what makes the Titanium compatible with "5.1" over optical is its capability to encode in real time sounds in DD or DTS. I do not see any driver plugin available for that card on creative support page, so I guess it does not support it.
Yea... Titanium card does support DD and DTS and it also supports CMSS-3D and CMSS for headphones, though it's more expensive and harder to get than xtreme gamer(at least where I live). I would prefer to have xtremegamer, because it's basically all I need.. Is there anyone with this card, who could test the flexijack connection and see if it can support CMSS-3D and EAX through it?
The point is SPDIF does not support more than 2 channels of uncompressed PCM data. If you want to have more channels you have to compress them. DD and DTS are the most common codecs but other exists (maybe not supported by your Amp). I know one method that use the ASIO driver to real-time compress the audio in DD but it is experimental and not maintained anymore. So using the creative build-in codecs is recommended. But it may exist other cheaper soundcards that supports AC3 or DTS real-time encoding... Anyway I noticed that you can buy AC3 and DTS encoder from creative for 5US$ and xtremegamer is in the list: http://software.store.creative.com/p/software/dolby-digital-live-and-dts-connect-pack
You guys are missing what he is asking, He wants to use CMSS-3D for headphones and route it through his external DAC first. Nothing to do with AC3 or DTS. IIRC, you can set the optical output to use the CMSS-3D. Been awhile since I messed with one of those cards. I think you can use the stereo mix. -but I cannot be 100% sure.
