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General => Installation issues => Topic started by: brent2009 on September 06, 2009, 08:09:43 pm

Title: No Dolby or DTS?
Post by: brent2009 on September 06, 2009, 08:09:43 pm
Hi I installed Kubuntu 8.10 and the latest alpha build of linuxmce. I had some trouble getting my graphics and sound working at first but once I got the drivers installed and configured everything seemed to be great.  When I run the AV wizard I get the graphics configured fine and the first part of the regular sound test goes through just fine.  When it starts the DTS and Dolby tests all I hear is garbled or fuzzy sound.  I know my sound card and receiver is cable of DTS and Dolby. My sound card is a Creative XFi hooked up via optical to my receiver. Is there any other settings I need to look for and download any additional software to make it work?

Thank you!
Title: Re: No Dolby or DTS?
Post by: colinjones on September 07, 2009, 12:12:09 am
Can you point me to where you got a Linux/ALSA driver for the Creative SB XFi card? Last time I looked (so I could convert my Win XP desktop to Kubuntu) I discovered that Creative had never made a Linux driver for that card, but had started a project to do so and gotten as far as a "beta" but then canned the project. So at that point there was no way of getting that card to work properly with Linux. Have you found something new?
Title: Re: No Dolby or DTS?
Post by: brent2009 on September 07, 2009, 06:35:10 am
Yes, of course. I got it from the Creative website - http://support.creative.com/Products/ProductDetails.aspx?catID=1&CatName=Sound+Blaster&subCatID=208&subCatName=X-Fi&prodID=17791&prodName=PCI+Express+X-Fi+Titanium+Fatal1ty+Pro+Series

The file name is XFiDrv_Linux_Public_US_1.00.tar.gz

I have the Fatality pro series which I think is the latest sound card and this driver works for all creative xfi cards and it works with 32bit and 64bit linux versions.  I was unable to get it working with linuxmce 7.10 so that is why i am now using the alpha version 8.10.  Everything is actually working great after messing around with some more stuff.  I now even have my smarthome automation lighting system working. If only I could get DTS and dolby sound working now :(
Title: Re: No Dolby or DTS?
Post by: merkur2k on September 07, 2009, 06:41:24 am
just go buy a cheap sb live. plug and play.
Title: Re: No Dolby or DTS?
Post by: colinjones on September 07, 2009, 02:29:57 pm
can't really give you any more advice, except to say that the DTS/Dolby should really be the easy bit as the sound card doesn't have to do anything, it should just be passing the digital stream straight through to your SPDIF port.... there are "passthru" options tho, have you looked into that? .... in alsamixer you need to ensure that any IEC958 channels are unmuted....
Title: Re: No Dolby or DTS?
Post by: brent2009 on September 07, 2009, 09:46:05 pm
It actually seems to be working fine now. I have tried many movies and music and they seem to be working as expected. I think it was probably a glitch with the A/V wizard originally.
Title: Re: No Dolby or DTS?
Post by: brent2009 on September 07, 2009, 09:47:24 pm
Thanks for the help by the way!