I have 5.1 speaker system, worked perfectly on XP, Not VISTA

[TurkzZ]

I got Some logitec 5.1 skeaper system,

it worked perfectly with XP, where even when the Music files weret 5.1 music would come out full from every speaker.

Im using onboard SoundMax audio on a Asus M2N DH board

I upgraded to vusta, installed the drivers, 1st thing i noticed is that the actual program of Soundmax no mlonger works, it doenst come uip in control pannel as it did in XP and when i go to it in Program Files it tells me to change file assosiation or sommin like that.

Now all im left with is a 5.1 speaker set using 2 speakers only.

When i go in to Control Pannel>Speaker and set it up as a 5.1, the test sounds work, but when i play a film, or play music (i use media player 11) only 2 speakers work.

Is there a sulution to this.

I do remember on XP having to set it up through Soundmaxs own program to get it to do 5.1, but the program doesn work anymore

 

[astrallite]

Nope, none of the vendors are providing proper SPDIF passthrough drivers for Vista. Can't be helped currently.

 

[TurkzZ]

what a joke, this vista is a load of S**t, just a new looking XP that doesnt work propperly

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Get a soundcard

 

[halcyon]

Yup, but you'll find that even getting a soundcard doesn't get you relief in Vista. SPDIF passthrough still doesn't work properly. ...over the past few months I've been wondering what the motivation to move to Vista is. I'd rather patch XP and have an OS that works well.

Does anyone know what MS was attempting to achieve with Vista's audio architecture. I've not heard anything positive from anyone. Why take what was working in XP and break it? ...and pay too much money to have it broken on top of that.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

OK, Ill lay my ignorance bare here. I believe Vista was created in such a way that any hardware attachments could no longer add to the kernal. If someone can explain or correct this its much appreciated

 

[dobby]

well what are playing the fim in? go to it tool, option, sound, and see if the problem lies there. now i know vista has it faults, but if your gonna use 5.1 get a sound blaster sound card, thanks to the Xfi series, the older ones are actually quite cheap now

 

[halcyon]

OK, Ill lay my ignorance bare here. I believe Vista was created in such a way that any hardware attachments could no longer add to the kernal. If someone can explain or correct this its much appreciated

I've read that but I'm not sure how the OS and user benefit.... Is that supposed to make the OS more stable (XP's plenty stable) or was it just a way of reducing one vendor's hooks into the OS. Seriously, I know I can find these answers with some 'net research and may do some research. ...thanks for the feedback though.

 

[choirbass]

yeah... i used to like vista (still kinda do), but there were two features that i was very used to having, that vista simply does not support (i ended up ditching it until they can fix it, if they ever do)... the first is no possible spdif passthrough option with my audigy2 zs (regardless of which drivers i tried, and analog surround just doesnt cut it here), so i could watch dvds on my HT, and the second was no horizontal spanning anymore with my gpu between 2 monitors (it was actuallyone of the mian reasons i purchased the second monitor), for fullscreen widescreen games and movies

as far as spdif passthrough though, there are 2 viable alternatives to that, that will still provide 5.1... 1) is using 5.1 analog, need up to 6 different rca cables (OpenAL and cmss allow surround this way)... and 2) if youre insistant on using a coaxial/optical connection, is to get a card that supports ddl or dts interactive, so youll get 5.1, but the sound quality is compressed more too... (i stopped kidding myself that the quality was better, and started paying attention more to the actual 'sound quality', instead of the cool enveloping surround sound effect... it is cool, no doubt, but definetly more lacking, if you start to pay attention to it more)

the main reason i believe for no spdif passthrough, is because drivers i believe are not permitted to access that part of the os, to allow that, no 'hardware support' really (i believe for stability reasons, if im not mistaken), the closest you can get currently is to use something like cmss with 2 channel sound, to simulate discrete surround from all channels... there is also OpenAL support as a surround workaround though too, to allow surround with games, other than that though... maybe OpenAL can work for other things too... *shrug*

IMO this is why vista currently sucks... and will continue to suck, until these things are fixed

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

I believe it was done primarily and maybe even only, for security reasons. They closed the kernel, somewhat like apple, for protection

 

[halcyon]

IMO this is why vista currently sucks... and will continue to suck, until these things are fixed

Totally agree.

I like how Vista looks, but not enough to lose functionality. It doesn't look that good.

 

[halcyon]

I believe it was done primarily and maybe even only, for security reasons. They closed the kernel, somewhat like apple, for protection

Yeah, but OS X is not only quite secure, it works well too. MS will get there one day...I hope.

 

[choirbass]

yeah, ive just decided that there are programs you can download and use to modify the OS visually, to resemble vista (they even have aero support too, in XP, i forget what the name of the program is specifically, but there are numerous programs like that)... didnt realize again just how much slower vista was too, until i went back to XP again, (also after purchasing a second GB of memory too, lol)

 

[halcyon]

I use WindowBlinds, makes XP look good enough for my tastes and works quite well in my experience.

 

[TurkzZ]

Is so annyoing, what i can do is go to control pannel, tools and tick the speaker fill option i gt some sound from the speakers but its very low, not clear at all.

hopfully they fix it soon