How to set up 5,1 surround on a PC?

Not sure if this is the right sub forum so please move it if its in the wrong place

Anyway a short while ago i bought some new Dali speakers for my home theater and they work just fine in 5,1 with my Oppo BDP-103D Blu-Ray player
But on the PC i cant figure out how to configure the audio so i cant get 5,1 all i get right now is all channel stereo

I have a Gigabyte X99 Ultra Gaming motherboard hooked up to a Onkyo TX-NR646 receiver and i am using the digtal out or the optcal toslink on the motherboard to send the audio signal to the TX-NR646

I have tried the windows audio options and the Gigabyte audio driver software and messing around with the TX-NR646 but its still all channel stereo

I just can figure how to get 5,1 on the PC
Do i need to plug a HDMI cable from my EVGA GTX 1080 FTW2 and use HDMI and the Nvidia software instead of the optical toslink?

Am i doing something wrong or missing something?
Any help would be much appreciated

Ummm? What exactly are you trying to output? Games or movies? For the former your soundcard (whatever that is in your mobo) must be able to perform real time encoding in either dolby or dts (whichever your receiver supports), but dolby digital live seems broken in win 10 anyway. For movies, your media player should have an option to output the raw signal which your reveiver would then decode.

You need to enable Dolby Digital and DTS from your motherboards sound software. Then it will work.

However upon further inspection.
https://us.hardware.info/product/350054/gigabyte-x99-ultra-gaming/specifications

Your motherboards sound card doesn't support DTS or Dolby live.

You have two options.

1. Connect ur HDMI out on ur gpu to the receiver HDMI in on game Blu-ray tv or whatever. Then your receiver will popup in windows control panel under sound and select it as the output for the sound and hit configure and it will bring up all the options 5.1 7.1 Atmos etc. You don't need anything other than the Nvidia gpu drivers installed with the hd audio.

2. Buy a sound card like a sound blaster z that has Dolby and use the optical out to connect to the receiver.



I'm using a receiver with a 9.2 setup and it works perfectly via HDMI or optical I have both hooked up.

Using a sound blaster and HDMI out from my gpu. I can switch between the two as well.

So i tried moving the HDMI cable that ran from the PC to the TV and ran it to the NR-646 instead
Then i installed the Nvidia audio driver and behold i now got 5,1 in the windows audio options and it now works

Thank very much!

Edit: i tried using HDMI and it drove me nuts and the reason for that is every time i turned the TV on or off the sound would disappear and the only way to get it back was to close the media player and re-open it

I went back to using optical toslink from the PC to the NR646 for sound an a HDMI cable directly from the GPU to the TV as i dont lose all sound every freaking time i turn the TV on or off

Thats totally unacceptable and extremely annoying so i guess a Creative Soundblaster is what i need?
https://www.computersalg.dk/i/970935/creative-sound-blaster-z-lydkort-24?sq=Creative+Soundblaster+Z

Or maybe this brand new one?

One way of keeping the sound with HDMI is to set-up a dummy monitor so the gpu would think that there's still a functionning screen on the other end of the cable. Don't ask me how, i've never had the chance to try it out.

A stand alone sound card that supports 5,1 via toslink might be the best way
I used to have a PCI-E Creative Soundblaster card and it was the model that came before the Z

I gave it away to a friend and he might still have it so i am going to ask him if he still has it or use it
Otherwise i will have to get a Soundblaster Z as the new Soundblaster AE5 is too expensive and comes with a lot of crap i dont want or need.

I have a similar setup. Way I have done it is simply Displayport cable into Monitor (used to be TV however DP to active HDMI 2.0 adaptor) then a separate HDMI cable into my AV system for 5.1 on the HDMI In port on the system. Both of these connections run from my top GPU in my build and works absolutely fine. I can turn the monitor off and sound still plays as normal through the sound system, and often do it that way while I am working on written documents (on those rare occasions!) and have my you tube playlist going.

As mentioned a dummy monitor is created however and in windows control panel only way it works properly is to set the desktop mode as EXTEND I find, so they are side by side, but of course the second monitor is a phantom panel. I find having the multiple display option as duplicate or show only on one screen does not work properly. My settings in most spots appear like so as a result if its of any help.

I found my old PCI-E Creative Soundblaster card and it turned out that while yes i gave it to my friend he installed it in his backup PC which he has at my place so he has something to do while he is here
I might try installing that sound card in my own PC and see if i can get 5,1 to work using that

Would be nice to get 5,1 via toslink without having to spend money buying a brand new sound card.

Edit: installed my old Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium soundcard and while i can configure the speakers to 5,1 they refuse to make any sound
Only way to get sound is to move SPDIF out and you cant configure SPDIF just like you cant configure the onboard Realtek so i am back to square one



The Soundblaster card dont sound any better or worse then the Realtek either so that was a waste of time
I got the option to either have two channel stereo or all channels stereo

Why cant you configure SPDIF to be 5,1???
HDMI works but was so irritating that i went back to SPDIF aka optical toslink or whatever you want to call it

It was so much easier back in the anlog PC speakers days!