Hey guys, I just noticed something in Windows. I have the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro USB sound card, and Windows only gives me the following options for my surround set-up: "2/2.1 Speakers", "5.1 Speakers" and "Headphones". The funny thing is, when I play back 4.0 or 4.1 files in e.g. Foobar2000 or VLC, I always gets a simulated center channel. (or, uh, stereo when I set the output to "2/2.1").
The simulation is decent enough, but I guess if I listen to quad, I want to listen to ... well, quad - not simulated 5.1.
This doesn't bug me, because I am a Ubuntu user and only have Windows for games and those times I want to extract SACD ISOs, convert DVD-A to FLAC, merge FLACs or the like. Foobar2000 and DVDA-Explorer, mostly. If I ever play 4-channel files in Windows, it's to check if a conversion went fine.
For playback in Ubuntu, I can just set my sound output settings to 4.1, and I get wonderful 4-channel sound with a silent center (if I do set it to 5.1, I get the same simulated center as in Windows).
So I'm really just curious. How do you Windows guys out there address this playback issue? Do you just have different cards whose drivers have a 4-channel option?
The simulation is decent enough, but I guess if I listen to quad, I want to listen to ... well, quad - not simulated 5.1.
This doesn't bug me, because I am a Ubuntu user and only have Windows for games and those times I want to extract SACD ISOs, convert DVD-A to FLAC, merge FLACs or the like. Foobar2000 and DVDA-Explorer, mostly. If I ever play 4-channel files in Windows, it's to check if a conversion went fine.
For playback in Ubuntu, I can just set my sound output settings to 4.1, and I get wonderful 4-channel sound with a silent center (if I do set it to 5.1, I get the same simulated center as in Windows).
So I'm really just curious. How do you Windows guys out there address this playback issue? Do you just have different cards whose drivers have a 4-channel option?