5.1 sound

[Flipside]

Hi

I read in an amazon.com review that you need a dolby enabled soundcard or
some type of dolby externel decoder to decode dolby surround sound.
Is this true or can you simply use software?

thx

 

[stoke]

Technically the soundcard does use imprinted software to unencode the dolby signal, so technically you could use software, but then your PC would be so busy doing that that it may not have time to do anything else.

 

[Flipside]

so what you're saying is I have to get something like that to watch
movies in surround sound?

How much do they cost?

 

[caroper]

Befor you buy a sound card, lookup your MB on the makers web site.
Most MB's produced in the last ~4 years have an AC97 chip set that includes a 5.1 decoder. If you do not have spdif out on the MB it normaly routs the decoded signal to the Line out (LF RF) Headphone (LS RS) and Mic (Center SUBW). I may have the signal outputs in the wrong order but look it up.
Could save you a few bob