Logitech X-530/Soundblaster X-Fi tech support

[tim31]

...and yeah, I've been googling, but so far most of what I've got is 'how to plug things in'

It came with the computer, and I knew the 5.1 wasn't working properly(rears and centre are very low output), but it hasn't bothered me until just know when I'm trying to watch a movie that's formatted in 5.1.

This is the lay of the land, as thread title suggests:

Logitech X-530
Soundblaster X-Fi card

I've been tooling around in the audio panel but I can't find any reason there why the rear/centre channels are making maybe 20% of the output of the fronts. Any guesses what I'm doing wrong?

[Executor32]

So only the front left and right speakers have full volume? Try disabling CMSS 3D. If that cuts your output on the center and rear speakers to zero, then whatever you're using to play the movie is set up for stereo sound, and the only reason you got any sound at all on the other speakers was that CMSS 3D was on.

[tim31]

Just tried it. Didn't change anything other than canceling all output to the rears! Thanks though.

[Executor32]

See, that's what it should've done. CMSS 3D upmixes stereo audio to 5.1, so disabling it would only output sound from the front left and right speakers. This means, of course, that your DVD player program is only outputting stereo audio, and the only reason you got any sound out of the other speakers at all was because CMSS 3D was turned on. Make sure whatever program you're using to play DVDs is set to 5.1 mode, and that should fix the problem. For fixing the low rear volume when upmixing stereo to 5.1, go to the CMSS 3D settings and change the mode from Stereo XPand to Stereo Surround, then move the slider down to your liking. I prefer it at about 50% myself.