Now I worked long and hard w/XP MCE 2005 to get the Suroundsound to play from all my 5.1 speakers...

and now I've tried my first Vista MCE installation... and I'm back at square one again... 2ch sound on TV & Video files...

I have a X-Fi Fatality sound board from Creative(New), coupled to a 5.1 analog Creative Sound Works speaker system... Has anyone found a solution to this???

I have the most current driver installed... I have up-dated all Vista up-dates...

I even have 5.1 playing a pre-recorded DvD, just fine... I've installed the most current app and it Tests with 5.1 sounds, just fine... But MCE has 2ch TV... 2ch video & audio playback...

Creatives website says theres an issue w/Vista and MS needs to fix it... and it deals w/ thier CMSS-3D which is how they get 5.1 suround from a 2ch signal... With no solution stated...

Microsofts website doesn't even mention the issue...

I'm just stuck in the middle and want a solution, Does anyone else have this issue? and How Did you fix it? I'm realy new to Vista, so I don't quite know where everything is yet...

I seem to remenber under XP, I needed to install the PureVideo codec and choose it as my Prefered codec for video playback... Does anyone know if this codec works under Vista? How do I set it as my Prefered codec?

Are there any Audio settings for the Vista codec? My OEM ver says it comes with Mpeg2 & Dolby Digital codecs... How do I access them?

So what am I missing?

I have the same sound card and its works fine for me.

Do you have 5.1 set in the Audio console?

Also in the Audio console be sure you have enabled X-Fi CMSS-3D and be sure to have it set to "surround", not "Stereo"  and be sure you have the setting set somewhere near 50%.   if you have it set all the way to "Front" or "Surround" you'll only get sound from either the front or the rear speakers.

hoopsdavis:

I have the same sound card and its works fine for me.

Do you have 5.1 set in the Audio console?

Also in the Audio console be sure you have enabled X-Fi CMSS-3D and be sure to have it set to "surround", not "Stereo"  and be sure you have the setting set somewhere near 50%.   if you have it set all the way to "Front" or "Surround" you'll only get sound from either the front or the rear speakers.

 

Yes, I tried all the basics... It would seem I also need to set it to "Entertainment" mode as well, instead of "Gaming" mode... What I did to get it working was uninstall all drivers & hardware... and then Canceal the automatic "found new hardware" thing... Then install from my CD... and inside the MCE console, when I tried to set CMSS, it said I couldn't do that unless I was in "Entertainment" mode... Once the mode was set, it was fine... and then I updated driver, and it was still fine...

Thx for the responce...

Great, this is good information to have.

I'm not too crazy about the Creative Labs cards anymore, you have to go through too much to get them working properly.