5.1 Audio woes (delay)

[Nachmanowicz]

Wow I kinda need something similar!

I have a good gaming PC (RTX 4080 with 7800x3D) that I punched a hole through my bedroom wall and also connect to my TV in the living room. The TV is an LG C1 but my receiver is kinda old , tho its good, Denon 3313CI.

My AM4 motherboard had optical out but this one doesn't. So Im getting 5.1 audio from the optical out from my TV. Its finnicky, but it works *when it wants to*, although with a pretty big drawback: there's audio delay. Around 250ms. It's very noticeable. When watching a movie its no problem, I can just adjust the sync, but for games I can't do that. Even worse, my 4080 just hogs ALL the space in my motherboard and I can't install any other cards on the computer, so if I'm getting a sound card, it's gotta be USB. I've tried setting my TV to game mode, bitstream, pcm, nothing works. If I change most settings in the audio output, I wont even get 5.1 no more.

Here's my thinking: the spdif optical is a digital output, I don't have to much care about it being a super quality sound card, right? So I found these two options, would they work out fine or would I get bad sound quality?

https://pt.aliexpress.com/item/1005007123818465.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.1.f325xYBlxYBlJz&algo_pvid=acdd9d78-9939-41b7-90d7-e375d95e4880&algo_exp_id=acdd9d78-9939-41b7-90d7-e375d95e4880-0&pdp_npi=4%40dis%21BRL%2179.29%2145.20%21%21%2195.40%2154.38%21%40210318c317287810901851198e21de%2112000039478182317%21sea%21BR%21704410610%21X&curPageLogUid=Pmipulv80pNh&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch%7Cquery_from%3A

https://pt.aliexpress.com/item/1005005769305614.html?spm=a2g0o.detail.0.0.7d1bVkOrVkOr8G&mp=1&gatewayAdapt=glo2bra

 

Keep in mind, I live in Brazil so my purchasing options are kinda limited, hence Aliexpress.

[thekingofmonks]

I'm guessing you don't have enough audio cables to route straight to the amp from each audio channel on the motherboard? Honestly, both seem fine, and since you're using optical, there probably won't be audio noise from shitty manufacturing quality.

 

Otherwise, have you considered using a riser for a sound card?

[Nachmanowicz]

I haven't considered it rly, and I imagine routing all those cables to the receiver would be worst, I'd be using my motherboards DAC and I'd need to pass like 3 more cables through this tight hole...
 

At this point I've kinda given up on making it just work from the optical out of my TV. These things are cheap and I just need them to send the dolby or whatever signal to my receiver and let it do the magic. Do you reckon these can do it without rekking my audio quality?

[atarione]

I am confused why not just use HDMI from PC to receiver for audio?

[thekingofmonks]

33 minutes ago, Nachmanowicz said:

I haven't considered it rly, and I imagine routing all those cables to the receiver would be worst, I'd be using my motherboards DAC and I'd need to pass like 3 more cables through this tight hole...
 

At this point I've kinda given up on making it just work from the optical out of my TV. These things are cheap and I just need them to send the dolby or whatever signal to my receiver and let it do the magic. Do you reckon these can do it without rekking my audio quality?

Yeah, but are the AliExpress adapters' DACs better? They surely wouldn't sound awful but I doubt it. Plus, the DAC model isn't even mentioned (at least for the second one, I couldn't see the first because of region difference). What motherboard and 4080 do you have anyway?

[thekingofmonks]

23 minutes ago, atarione said:

I am confused why not just use HDMI from PC to receiver for audio?

That's actually a good point

[Nachmanowicz]

15 hours ago, atarione said:

I am confused why not just use HDMI from PC to receiver for audio?

I never could get 5.1 working on ARC, but incredibly yesterday I did..... and then the option vanished and I spent 3 hours in the middle of the night trying to get it back again. I ended up using custom resolution utility and it worked. Not sure if the audio delay issue was solved but at least it got A LOT better.

15 hours ago, thekingofmonks said:

Yeah, but are the AliExpress adapters' DACs better? They surely wouldn't sound awful but I doubt it. Plus, the DAC model isn't even mentioned (at least for the second one, I couldn't see the first because of region difference). What motherboard and 4080 do you have anyway?

Since optical is digitral I don't think DACs make a difference. The sound output should be raw, no? 

[Nachmanowicz]

I tried a cheap chinese USB audio card thinking it would solve my problems.... it didn't. It just didn't support most surround sound formats. Haalp, plzzzzzzz

[Blue4130]

On 10/15/2024 at 1:17 AM, Nachmanowicz said:

 

Since optical is digitral I don't think DACs make a difference. The sound output should be raw, no? 

Optical/toslink is compressed, not raw.

[BuzzingBee]

I would avoid optical connection for surround sound on PC. I made a mistake in the past thinking Dolby Digital Live solves the problem but also had bad audio delay. Although PCM has little to no latency, optical only supports stereo PCM so you would need to use HDMI connection. 

 

Some options I can think of. One is to upgrade your AVR with HDMI 2.1 support. Another is use niche product like this: https://www.thenaudio.com/. Third is to get older AVR that has multichannel analog connection support as your AVR doesn't have it. I'm not sure if HDMI 2.1 duplicater exist, and if it does I wouldn't be sure if it works at all. 

[Nachmanowicz]

54 minutes ago, BuzzingBee said:

I would avoid optical connection for surround sound on PC. I made a mistake in the past thinking Dolby Digital Live solves the problem but also had bad audio delay. Although PCM has little to no latency, optical only supports stereo PCM so you would need to use HDMI connection. 

 

Some options I can think of. One is to upgrade your AVR with HDMI 2.1 support. Another is use niche product like this: https://www.thenaudio.com/. Third is to get older AVR that has multichannel analog connection support as your AVR doesn't have it. I'm not sure if HDMI 2.1 duplicater exist, and if it does I wouldn't be sure if it works at all. 

oh my word, this is 368 dollars , boy oh boy.

And how did you solve it, after all? 

[BuzzingBee]

40 minutes ago, Nachmanowicz said:

oh my word, this is 368 dollars , boy oh boy.

And how did you solve it, after all? 

My solution is to use second graphics card and use its HDMI port to my AVR. My PC would detect as another monitor so I got 10 inch monitor to connect to AVR's HDMI out. 

 

As you said your 4080 is too thick and I'm afraid myself of running into same problem once I upgrade my PC. I'll think about it when time comes. 

[Nachmanowicz]

Couldnt you do that with the same video card? But well, it is so janky, needing to have another display (or no display, but the computer think there's another display) to run the audio....

it just makes me feel there's gotta be a cleaner way of doing this, right? 

[BuzzingBee]

16 hours ago, Nachmanowicz said:

Couldnt you do that with the same video card? But well, it is so janky, needing to have another display (or no display, but the computer think there's another display) to run the audio....

it just makes me feel there's gotta be a cleaner way of doing this, right? 

My main graphics card already used up all video ports. Yep, 3 DPs for 3 monitors and one HDMI 2.1 for TV.

 

I also connected my TV to AVR which both devices supports eARC and can output 7.1 LPCM audio. So I could use my main graphics card for low latency audio through eARC, BUT it would only work when my TV is on. If I want to game with my monitors only, then I wouldn't get audio without turning on my TV. So I have to resort to using second graphics card. 

 

You're kinda right about connecting AVR and PC together seems messy. Almost no one does that, many people just use stereo speakers or headphones and call it a day. Nowadays AVR with HDMI 2.1 is a step in the right direction, but if AVR supports USB connection like any other desktop DACs then it's my dream come true. 

[Nachmanowicz]

Yeah if my AVR was eARC I'd be set, but that's not the world I live in =/

 

I'm almost buying another USB sound card to try if it supports the audio formats I need.

[saintlouisbagels]

2 hours ago, Nachmanowicz said:

Yeah if my AVR was eARC I'd be set, but that's not the world I live in =/

But is it still ARC? It was introduced in 2009.

You only need eARC for higher-resolution stuff and Atmos.

[Nachmanowicz]

20 minutes ago, saintlouisbagels said:

But is it still ARC? It was introduced in 2009.

You only need eARC for higher-resolution stuff and Atmos.

Yes, its ARC. It gives me 5.1 alrite. Good quality, all channels.... but the audio delay is sometimes comical. 

[BuzzingBee]

3 hours ago, Nachmanowicz said:

Yeah if my AVR was eARC I'd be set, but that's not the world I live in =/

 

I'm almost buying another USB sound card to try if it supports the audio formats I need.

If I understand correctly (because I didn't try your connection method yet), your graphics card is connecting to your TV through HDMI, and your TV is converting LPCM to Dolby Digital which then goes to your AVR through optical. So I don't think it's the sound card is the problem as you would still output Dolby. After testing several AVRs in the past bitstream audio always have delay which is why I always stick to LPCM audio when gaming for now on.

[Nachmanowicz]

7 minutes ago, BuzzingBee said:

If I understand correctly (because I didn't try your connection method yet), your graphics card is connecting to your TV through HDMI, and your TV is converting LPCM to Dolby Digital which then goes to your AVR through optical. So I don't think it's the sound card is the problem as you would still output Dolby. After testing several AVRs in the past bitstream audio always have delay which is why I always stick to LPCM audio when gaming for now on.

The first part is right, HDMI 2.1 to the LG C1, but from the TV to the Denon I have both the toslink and ARC.

[BuzzingBee]

On 10/15/2024 at 4:17 AM, Nachmanowicz said:

I never could get 5.1 working on ARC, but incredibly yesterday I did..... and then the option vanished and I spent 3 hours in the middle of the night trying to get it back again. I ended up using custom resolution utility and it worked. Not sure if the audio delay issue was solved but at least it got A LOT better. 

Going back to "connecting PC to AVR directly" as I've missed previous posts, you meant to connect to one of AVR's HDMI input, not output with ARC support. Graphics card doesn't support ARC/eARC.

[Nachmanowicz]

no no, I know. In fact, I don't even have extra hdmi ports lol.

I said I connect from TV to AVR through both ARC and toslink.