Audigy + Quad Speakers = HELP!

[Pitspawn]

Strangely, I am beginning to think that Creative Labs are trying to force the use of 5.1 speaker systems.

Recently, I bought some new Sirrocco Crossfire Quadraphonic speakers (4 Satellites, 1 bigass sub and a nice amp). I bought it because a friend had one and I was very impressed. So I thought, well I better get an audigy to really show off the surround. I got it through installed it (boy did it take a long time for some reason) and changed the speaker settings to 4 speakers. I ran the test and it worked fine.

After all that, I ran the demo included with the audigy to test the surround capabilities. The first thing I noticed were that my front 2 speakers sounded very quiet. I then noticed that anything in a 45-60º angle in front of me was completely silent.

I have told the card that I am using a 4 speaker setup, but it still thinks i have a 5.1 system. HELP FFS!

I only have a couple days left before I can return the audigy, and I need the money, so i need a fix soon.

[Acko]

Hi

I can`t really help you that much but had strange probs. like yours & after reading Via forums was advised to ditch my Audigy (because of compatability issues with my chipset) & exchanged it for a VideoLogic Sonicfury "WOW" what a card!

I`ve now got stunning sound especially in my games! Great software included as well.

Acko

Asus A7V266_E
XP1600+/Alpha 8045
512 DDR Crucial
Geforce 3
30 Gig Maxtor 7200rpm 100 UDMA
Plextor 12/10/32A
19" Iiyama Monitor

[DeepScience]

Yeah, I had this happen too. The card is working fine but the demo seemed to pay no attention to what speaker set up you've got things set to. ie, the demo is recorded in 5.1 and (apparently) tries to play in 5.1 regardless of how many speakers are attached.

This is what appears to be the case anyway.
All other sound I play managed to sort itself out.

Did you change the speaker settings in the Creative surround mixer? Changing it in the microsoft speaker setup won't work.

I just checked the goldmine demo and it works fine now. Which demo are you refering to?

[Pitspawn]

No, no no. I think you have the same problem but have ignored the symptoms.

It doesnt matter what demo you use, the audigy thinks you have a 5.1 setup. I ran the goldmine demo and the front two speakers are noticably quieter than the back two. Infact, on my system the back two are almost twice as loud. The reason for this is the audigy thinks there is a center speaker, which there is not. Any other soundcard (Like the SBLive) would create a phantom channel and morph the 5.1 into quad.

I am glad i have a response from here, i have also posted at creatives official forums but got no response at all.

This is a matter of urgency. I am returning the card on Monday unless I can find a fix. Whether it be through settings or re-wiring the speakers etc etc.

I refuse to go buy 5.1 speakers just to make the audigy work. My speakers are a lot more powerful than almost all the 5.1 speakers out there. It would cost me like £500 to match my system in 5.1

If anyone else can offer advice I would be very happy.

[DeepScience]

No, I am currently getting perfect 4 way sound from the Audigy. It is NOT 5.1 like it was at the start. I can't remember what I did but you havn't answered my question.

Have you changed the speaker setup in the Creative Mixer - NOT the Microsoft mixer?

You do realise that most of the "SB Audigy Experience" demos are written specifically as 5.1 demos? ie, because of the way they are coded they over-ride any mixer settings for speaker setups that you might have. They are intended as demos for people who have 5.1 speaker setups, ie. the dude selling them in the shop.

Have you tried playing normal mp3's and normal games with surround options?

What amplifier are you using and have you tried it with other source material? Have you tried swopping the speaker connections over front to back and see if you get the same problem with the same circuits in the amplifier/speakers?

Have you done the speaker test and calibration in the SB surround mixer?

[Pitspawn]

Ok gonna give you everything I know now...

> OS = Win98SE w/ all latest updates
> Audigy Drivers are latest downloaded from creatives website (Yes i've had the same problems with the first batch, and these didnt improve it)
> I have set my speakers to quadraphonic in both Microsoft speaker setup and creative mixer
> I have tested my speakers in mixer, all four speakers read out their location fine
> Windows sound/music sounds normal
> My sound system is the VideoLogic Sirocco Crossfire which is true 100w RTS. It has 4 satellites, 1 bassbox and an amp. I have plugged all the speakers into the correct ports.
> On the audigy, my front speakers go in LINE OUT and my back speakers go in REAR OUT

I am ONLY noticing my problem in games/demos with Accelerated DirectSound or EAX1/2/3 etc. The one that most bothers me is the Audigy Experience demo under gaming surround. This has four sounds playing all at once and you can move them about around you. When you position any of the sounds directly infront of you, they go quiet.

Also I notice that the game I play the most, Tribes2 is VERY quiet. Anything from behind me is 2x as loud as what it should be. The things in front of me are almost inaudable. Infact, if i fade my speakers to bias only the front, I ONLY hear bass. This is not good (Hence the main reason I care about this problem as I am an avid T2 gamer) :(

And I STILL havent had any responses from CL official forums. This place is SOOOOO much better :)

Thanks for helping me btw.

[SeigeAkicksass]

you could re wire the speakers- it isnt that hard unless they use a normal headphone jack- RCA are easy but you gotta make sure to not let the wires touch in the tape- i taope it toghether w/ electicl talif you want eventually you could solder it-
if the problem is the center channel thing then i would buy some extra connector RCA or whtever goes in the center channel slot on you card and cut into the wires to the left and right front speaker's wires ans split it or you could by a splitter at radio shck (asn if it is a headphone jack dont try to witer it but you could buy an RCA to headphosne converter or two and wire it betweeen that and the card - taht might be expensicve) the only problem w/ this is that then the left and roight wil sound almos the same - with small differences if the left and right have any in the sound file but on a normal stereo it would only be like 1 channel in the front but not hte back

just a thought or .. thoughts .. i hope you can understand my un organized rambling- but i do actuallyknow a lot about sound stuff- not that it is hard ot get but nee way:eh?:



__________________________________________________ __
im hoping to hook up some super inexpensive car amps ( so its a littl over board) to my poc speakers and i have a nice sub but i might get some speakers and build my oe box if i can get the money i helped my freind put toghther his truck and it sounds kick ass!!!
__________________________________________________ __

[DeepScience]

nooooo don't do that! The output stage on the sound card isn't designed for the outputs to "see" each other like that. It mucks up the output resistance and, well, it could damage things.

hmmm, yeah, there's some weird stuff going on there.

I tried the demos again and the same thing still happens. The sound goes really quiet and you can't hear things directly in front because it's locked into 5.1 mode. I wouldn't bother with the demos. I think they use asio drivers which bypass windows settings AND direct x settings.

hmmm, I might fire up Tribes 2 and see if I get the same result as you on that game. Giants and HalfLife seem to work fine.

If the Creative voice testing thingy works fine then the problem has to exist in the ASIO drivers that creative use for the demo.
Kinda tupid if u ask me. I mean, producing a 5.1 implementation that doesn't automatically mix down to 4x !!!? duh

I'll load Tribes II & see what that does...

I don't play it anymore cos it's sooooo buggy it drove me nuts

[Pitspawn]

Right I dont understand what seige was on about, but it did give me an idea.

I am definately sure that all Audigy drivers are all written to do 5.1 whatever speaker settings you have. The reason for this is for maximum compatability and best surround sound. It is far better to create real 3d sound and mix it down than to synthesis it. The problem is that 5.1 -> 2.1 works fine, but 5.1 -> 4.1 doesnt.

My solution, this should work however might comprimise quality slightly (I will buy the best wiring to reduce the loss)

5.1 SOUND USING 4.1 SPEAKERS

LINE OUT------(ST)(x)----=========SPEAKERS
LFE OUT--------(ST)/......|
REAR OUT-----------(ST)/

(ST) = Stereo Wire
(x) = Splitter

So basically run a dual stereo splitter cable into the front speakers. One would be the front speaker (5.1) and the other would be the two front speakers.

Oh damn, one minute. This might not work. LFE is the center channel and bass channel. If only bass is channeled throught this port it will not work.

Anyway, im gonna try it. If it doesnt work they are going back.

[Pitspawn]

Actually, Ive just noticed a port that I never saw on my amp. It is for LFE Input. The manual says that the amp can accept a phantom channel (5.1)

The only problem is it takes a stereo male connector. I can honestly say Ive never heard of one of them but im sure my local hardware store can supply one. BTW, I dont mean the normal audio jack, im talking about the jack you get on the back of stereos (Normally they have two mono channels, one red, one white)

If I can find a gold male stereo jack to normal stereo male I should be able to get it working.

BTW I REALLY dont want to get rid of my audigy. I just checked the fps out in some games. FPS is pretty normal, but for example in Q3 i can put the sound quality to high and get absolutely no loss in fps. With my SBLive my fps would almost halve!

[DeepScience]

yeah, I use Cubase VST for audio mixing and the main cpu workload went from 95% down to 30% when I put the Audigy in for the same song.

[DeepScience]

Originally posted by Pitspawn
Strangely, I am beginning to think that Creative Labs are trying to force the use of 5.1 speaker systems.


I just loaded up Tribes II.

The in-game sound setting has no effect.
The audigy is apparently locked into 5.1 mode for all the demos and for Tribes II. Tribes II sounds like playing underwater as all the main weapon effects are straight in front of you.

Man that's stupid. I'm going to have to put that new shelf up instead of having it sitting in the floor.

[DeepScience]

This comment about EAX2 on the Audigy.

http://www.3dsoundsurge.com/reviews/AudigyEI/Audigy-p8.html

For my testing of EAX 2.0 compatibility I used Rogue Spear, Thief 2, MDK2, SoF, Descent 3 and MotoCross Madness 2. All turned out to work just fine in Windows98. Thief 2 and MotoCross Madness also worked fine in Windows 2000 while in MDK2 I was unable to notice any use of EAX and in Soldier of Fortune and Rogue Spear failed to work properly.

To be more specific in Rogue Spear the front speakers was almost completely silent while in Soldier of Fortune I only heard the reverb effect not the direct path. That is it’s like if you fired a gun in a tunnel and only heard the echo of it not the original explosion.

The MDK2 issue (no noticeable reverb) is true on all other cards in Windows2000 I tried so likely a game issue rather than a bug in the Audigy Driver. However the Soldier of Fortune and Rogue Spear have in the past worked fine with the Live drivers but in time for this article I didn’t find the time to see if that’s still the case after upgrading to the latest version of DirectX8. That is the issue may be in DirectX8 rather than in the Audigy drivers. In time of the full review I will of course test that.

As with the EAX 1.0 games I found the quality to be improved but again not any significant difference to the Live which I still think offers the second best EAX quality in the market, that is second only to the Audigy.


An audigy forum
http://www.3dsoundsurge.com/cgi-bin/wwwthreads/postlist.pl?Cat=&Board=Forum22

[Wicked Klown]

Maybe it`s just you alls cards. So far I haven't had any problems with my Audigy Gamer. I played the Goldmine demo and everything work just like it should. I'm using the 4.1 Altec Lansing speakers.

[DeepScience]

Yes, the Goldmine demo plays correctly.
The demos we were talking about are the ones under "SB Audigy Experience" Gaming/advanced 3D Audio section.

Can you run those and see what you get? I'd be interested to know if you lose sound if you move a sound source directly in front of the listener.

-------------

A solution to using the Audigy with TribesII with 4 speaker set up (sort of) is to set the driver to the miles fast 2D driver.
The sound comes out all 4 speakers. I presume it's just 2D sound though.

Every other setting forces 5.1 mode (apparently)

[Wicked Klown]

I just ran every Demo that came wit the Audigy. They all ran flawless. My Fiancee could hear it across the living room with the volume not even half way up.

[DeepScience]

Well that's rather interesting. Did you also run the one I mentioned? The one where you move little sound sources around the person and can place them directly in front of the person to test the front middle speaker effect.

How do you have your audigy connected to the speaker/amp system? Just the front and back speaker out cables going to the amplifier?

hmmm very curious

[Wicked Klown]

I have the front ran off the front out and the rear off rear out. I just ran the demo you were talking about add was still able to hear everything. When I put them all on the guy they came through every speaker. I even put the brick wall around him and place one object at a time in there and moved it around slowly and if I had it on the Front left speaker thats all it came through and so on.

[DeepScience]

And I guess you're saying that putting the object (you turn them on and off by right clicking on them) directly in front of the person resulted in the sound coming equally from both front speakers?

When I do that the sound stops and doesn't some out either front speaker cos it's looking for the middle speaker.

argghhhh. how annoying. I wonder if it's an easy fix or related to the motherboard or what. i don't know.

What OS and what DirectX version are you running?

[Wicked Klown]

OS is Windows 98S.E. and I have DirectX 8.0

[DeepScience]

It's probably WinME that's the problem then.
(well, the drivers from Creative together with WinME)

Apparently the best thing for reliable sound is to NOT install the creative play center. It can turn the sound completely off.

[Pitspawn]

Klownin, i bet any money you have settings on digital (Your speakers support digital i checked). When using digital output, the center channel and bass channel are automatically added. This is why you are not getting the problem.

I believe the problem only exists with analog setups like mine. I am not going out to buy a digital supported speaker set. Like i said before, matching my speakers in digital is going to be a task. I paid £230 for them, which is prolly approx $300 in US Dollars

It is very hard to notice the problem unless you specifically go looking for it or you are a audio nut. I really only noticed it through Tribes2. I would not use miles3d audio for two reasons...Acceleration lack of all surround support. Anyway, ive been working on a fix for the bug through hardware.

I have found a way to create a phantom fifth channel on my 4.1 speaker setup. I am working on it now, gotta get all the right wires. I've already got one channel working, but need the other working.

How i did it (and how im going to finish it)...

FRONT OUT-----------------=x=x==L&R FRONT SPEAKERS
??????????????????/-[==/_/
AC3 OUT-------[===_____LFE BASS IN AMP
REAR OUT---===L&R REAR SPEAKERS

Basically what i did is take each channel from the front output and merge them with the center channel from AC3 output. This divides both front channels in half but you get the front speaker added ontop. With this setup you have to change to surround 5.1 rather than 4.1 I have noticed a bias towards the back so I have to bias it back to the front slightly. Never the less, I can actually hear 'center' at half volume when i run the speaker test now :) When i get the rest of the wires it should all sound fine.

This is only a temporary fix until Creative Labs release drivers that work correctly.

Please note, this bug is very very major and is not really noticed that much. It needs to be pointed out across the whole community and particuarly to the Creative Labs dev team. If they do not get informed, a driver release will not fix it.

[DeepScience]

I don't understand what you've done to "fix" it. Are you driving the ouput stage of one channel into another output stage of the sound card? It's really not a good idea to do that if you are.

I've sent them an email about the problem but the likelyhood that someone would actually read it who gets paid more than $7/hour is highly unlikely :(

[Wicked Klown]

Originally posted by Pitspawn
Klownin, i bet any money you have settings on digital (Your speakers support digital i checked). When using digital output, the center channel and bass channel are automatically added. This is why you are not getting the problem.

I believe the problem only exists with analog setups like mine. I am not going out to buy a digital supported speaker set. Like i said before, matching my speakers in digital is going to be a task. I paid £230 for them, which is prolly approx $300 in US Dollars

It is very hard to notice the problem unless you specifically go looking for it or you are a audio nut. I really only noticed it through Tribes2. I would not use miles3d audio for two reasons...Acceleration lack of all surround support. Anyway, ive been working on a fix for the bug through hardware.

I have found a way to create a phantom fifth channel on my 4.1 speaker setup. I am working on it now, gotta get all the right wires. I've already got one channel working, but need the other working.

How i did it (and how im going to finish it)...

FRONT OUT-----------------=x=x==L&R FRONT SPEAKERS
??????????????????/-[==/_/
AC3 OUT-------[===_____LFE BASS IN AMP
REAR OUT---===L&R REAR SPEAKERS

Basically what i did is take each channel from the front output and merge them with the center channel from AC3 output. This divides both front channels in half but you get the front speaker added ontop. With this setup you have to change to surround 5.1 rather than 4.1 I have noticed a bias towards the back so I have to bias it back to the front slightly. Never the less, I can actually hear 'center' at half volume when i run the speaker test now :) When i get the rest of the wires it should all sound fine.

This is only a temporary fix until Creative Labs release drivers that work correctly.

Please note, this bug is very very major and is not really noticed that much. It needs to be pointed out across the whole community and particuarly to the Creative Labs dev team. If they do not get informed, a driver release will not fix it.



No my speakers are not Digital. I have the Analog ones the Digital ones came out the next year. And no I don't have my card set for Digital. By the way how did you look up my speakers to see if they were Digital if I never gave the Model #.

[Wicked Klown]

Here`s my speakers. The Model # is ACS54.

[Pitspawn]

Ok i dont know how the f**k you got it working klownin.

Also, science, i know its a bad idea to merge channels but its the only way i can get it to work.

BTW I got the wires and it partially works. My fear was right. The two front channels make the center quieter, infact 50% quieter. ATM I have 4 fully working speakers, a working bass, fully working LFE and half a center speaker (heh)

The point is, having half a center speaker is considerably better than no center speaker. I can at least hear what is going on in front of me.

However, if there is a patch released soon i will revert back. In the mean time im looking around for a proper 5th speaker to run it into. I have some really crappy ones that i tried, but the sound was unbareable.

[Wicked Klown]

What OS are you running. You never know I might have just got lucky.

[Pitspawn]

I've already said, but ill let u off as this is getting to be a really long thread.

I have Win98SE w/ all latest patch updates.

Also my audigy drivers are the latest ones.

[Wicked Klown]

Ok now I'm just as confused as you. I'm running Win. 98 S.E. and mine works but your doesn't. Have you called Creative about this yet.

[Acko]

Hi Pitspawn

It`s me again I syphathize with you but you might just have to accept that the Audigy that you have in your system is just not compatable!!

I`ve had simular probs. as you know & I exchanged my Audigy for the VideoLogic Sonicfury & have not looked back. It is a great card, read the reviews! Not only that but it will match your Croosfires perfectly, so do the right thing & save your self all this grief & ditch the Audigy.

Good Luck

Acko

Asus A7V266-E/Alpha 8045
XP1600+/512 DDR Crucial
Geforce 3
VideoLogic Sonicfury
Plextor 12/10/32A
19" Iiyama Monitor

[Pitspawn]

Yes its all very well to say ditch the audigy, but it truly is an awesome card if you minus the bugs.

I use the soundcard for gaming, streaming and composing music. It excels any other card at composing (exc real take the p**s yamaha cards) It excels other cards for acceleration. It also has new effects in it that I really like.

I cannot ditch the audigy, it is too good. I will put up with half a center speaker until I can find a 5th speaker or CL release a new driver.