Did I just get PWND by nvidia?

Nah, it's still good, just not the highest level of audio quality... Yeah, I used to have just a standard audio a while ago, my gear has evolved into something that really is very high sound quality... You can even get certain things as you go, not just all at once

regards,
RagDoll.

 

At the end of the day, via digital or analog connection, what you hear in the end is ALWAYS analog, as the signal is always converted to analog before it hits the speakers for output. So yeah, there's no difference

 

PWND!

:funny:

 

xD !!!!

 

depends more on the dac, because its always going to start digital and then go analog at some point. Outputting digital then letting my dac in my dedicated receiver handle the conversion for the speakers seems to be the best way Ive tried.

 

Well... I hope my reciever is decent enough, though i doubt it... I wish I could get a yamaha or a onkyo... but i'm stuck with this DDWG800 FTM

 

Decent sound cards have much better DACs than a consumer receiver.

 

I agree, but what if you got a X-fi conected by toslink to a reciever?

 

You will be bypassing your sound card's sound quality, unless your receiver has better specs.

so, just to edit...you are using onboard sound...so perhaps the receiver is better. You'll have to google the specs of both and figure it out.

 

And how the hell would I know :/ i'm not well instructed in matters of sound quality though I have a great "ear"

DDWG700 + asus P8Z68-V PRO's onboard sound through Digital toslink at 48khz 24 bit... (it can do 96 but some games won't support it)

 

All GTX 400+ series cards port audio from the application directly over the PCI-E bus instead of using the old S-PDIF cable that was used with the 9-200 series cards for realtek HD audio. Nvidia's Video Processor V4 (VP4) is capable of lossless formats without the need for motherboard audio. So NO. your motherboard audio is not being used and it is the actual graphics card that is producing the sound so it is of high quality which is why your getting PCM 5.1. The application just passes it over the PCI-E bus to your GPU now.

DONT SELL YOUR GPU by listening to the people who have said your stuck with 2.1. You just need to set the HDMI connection to 5.1 in the windows sound manager. Your reciever should then accept the most optimal quality of sound (5.1 channel, 24-bit sound). You just have to use your receivers settings to fine tune the audio quality from now on.

I dont have an HDMI receiver and use the DTS connect feature on my X-fi titanium to get 5.1 optical sound to my old Sony DAV-S300 sound system (which with X-fi crystalizer does sound amazing btw...), but i use the mini-HDMI connector from my GTX 480 to my 1080p LCD TV and it detects the TV is capable of 2 channel 24-bit audio in the sound manager (but i dont use it because i use the soundcard instead). Your graphics card will have as good of audio as a soundcard would have, but maybe not the fine tuning of the equalizer (thats up to your receiver to handle).

 

This may be technically true (if subjective in many cases...) provided you have good DAC's doing the conversion. If you are like most people here you are looking at onboard sound vs. hdmi through gfx card. Unless your receiver is a massive POS it will sound worlds better than onboard analog. Also, you get to sidestep the clusterfvxk that is dedicated soundcard drivers.

-sf