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Topic: Modding SoundMax drivers to allow DTS Connect/DTS Interactive that' (Read 12748 times) previous topic - next topic
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Modding SoundMax drivers to allow DTS Connect/DTS Interactive that'

I was able to modify a Soundmax Driver to enable DTS Connect/DTS Interactive for my codec that doesn't originally support it.

Background: Got a 5.1 system and it takes SPDIF in. Learned that SPDIF only carries 2ch or DTS compressed! So, foobar, youtube, games, etc. all require using Pro Logic II to get all the speakers working, or in the case of video games that do surround, require 3xAnalog plugs (which are better quality wise, but not every receiver has this input).

DTS Connect or DTS Interactive is a technology that takes 5.1 sound and encodes it realtime into a DTS stream to be sent over SPDIF coax or TOSLINK, for one-cable multichannel sound.

I found someone who modded Realtek drivers to enable DTS Interactive for every board that didn't have it by default:
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/...ractive.193148/


So, I had to do it for SoundMAX!


I have a SoundMAX A1988 variant of some sort on my motherboard, which has the following Hardware ID:
HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_11D4&DEV_198B&SUBSYS_1043829C

You can find the Hardware ID by going to Device Manager, right clicking your device, going to properties, then the Details tab, and selecting Hardware Ids from the dropdown menu.

The P5E driver from the ASUS website doesn't have the DTS Interactive option for my motherboard! It can only output 2ch, or pass an original DTS stream (from a movie for example) through SPDIF. To get a game, or foobar (with channel mixer 5.1 output for example) to be multichannel, I would have to use 3xAnalog cords.

I took the Vista 64 bit audio driver which is for a similar SoundMAX chip on a different motherboard:
http://support.asus.com/Download.aspx?SLan...amp;p=1&os=

But the installer gave me an error, saying I don't have the right device present.

So, modding is necessary:

In the driver download, open the following file with notepad:
/amd64/Vista/ADIHdAud.inf

Replace a hardware ID already present in the file with your hardware ID.

I replaced the following line:
%HdAudioFunctionDriver.ADICodec.DeviceDesc% = A19882C,  HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_11D4&DEV_198B&SUBSYS_10431495

With:
%HdAudioFunctionDriver.ADICodec.DeviceDesc% = A19882C,  HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_11D4&DEV_198B&SUBSYS_1043829C


Then, the installer gave another error, again saying I don't have the card, but it mentioned a file which was platform.cfg.

I looked at the platform.cfg file from my P5E driver. It has a section titled with the line "1043829C".

I just copied/pasted that whole section into the end of the platform.cfg file from the Striker Extreme driver.

Success! The driver installs!

I get a soundmax option in the system tray and I can enable the DTS Interactive option:



In playback devices, I have to choose DTS Interactive instead of a quality option:



My receiver indicates it is getting DTS, when any stereo computer sound plays.

What happens though, is there is no Pro Logic option available for a DTS input, on my receiver. So, foobar and other 2 channel sound is just stereo by default, and is forced to play out of only the front left/right speakers. So, for foobar I am using channel mixer to give 5.1, and video games work in surround as usual. VLC does a DTS/DD passthrough just fine when playing movies with DTS or DD audio.

If watching youtube, it plays in stereo (or mono from the centre speaker for mono videos) since there is no upmixing. The DTS Neo:PC option in the driver doesn't work however! So, stereo will stay stereo. Your receiver may have Pro Logic option for DTS input available, so use that. For the time, I don't mind youtube being stereo. I can always switch DTS Interactive off if I want to send 2ch to the receiver and use PLII on it.

Hope this method works for you too!
 

Modding SoundMax drivers to allow DTS Connect/DTS Interactive that'

Reply #1 –
That's some impressive hacking!!!

Quote
Background: Got a 5.1 system and it takes SPDIF in. Learned that SPDIF only carries 2ch or DTS compressed!
Dolby Digital (2.0 or 5.1 channels) is also very common over S/PDIF.     

Quote
Your receiver may have Pro Logic option for DTS input available, so use that.
That might be unusual since Dolby Labs and DTS Inc. are competitors.    But, maybe on some receivers  the Pro Logic decoder doesn't care where the signal comes from.

Modding SoundMax drivers to allow DTS Connect/DTS Interactive that'

Reply #2 –
Quote from: DVDdoug on
That might be unusual since Dolby Labs and DTS Inc. are competitors.    But, maybe on some receivers  the Pro Logic decoder doesn't care where the signal comes from.


I think Pro-logic recovers surround information from the stereo signals not DTS signal.

DTS and Dolby digital are like compressing multi channel signal and sending them through like two a channel signal.
But Pro Logic is like extracting surround sound using some cues from the stereo signal.

A receiver may have the Pro Logic decoder down in the chain and so it may act on the decoded DTS stream.
But still you may not get surround sound if you have sent only 2 channel audio in the DTS stream.
(I mean if you send stereo sound through 6 channel stream, the Dolby Pro Logic decoder may bypass the stream since its already multichannel)