Member Avatar for BastardAle

I just reformatted and reinstalled XP pro onto two 20GB WD's RAID-0'd I also have an 80G Maxtor as my backup. A7N8X Deluxe rev. 1.4. AMD 1400 512 MB PC2100. Before the reformat I d/l'd ALL the new drivers and files; nForce2 v.3.13, BIOS v.1007, GeForce v.50.03, etc....

Here's the deal. My sound wont work in surround now. I've done nothing as far as speaker connections to the mobo. Infact by using the nForce control panel applet I can tweek speaker and output settings, and I've set everything just the way it was before the reformat. When I click the "Test Sound" button, all four speakers sound off like they're supposed to (Left, Right, Left-surround, Right-surround), but Windows sounds and Musicmatch are not in surround.

Here's the real weird thing... Windows Media Player IS IN SURROUND!!! To bad I hate WMP... I've done all the obvious; like Window's system volume control and speaker setup, Musicmatch's output setups, etc...

Any Ideas???

Thanks

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by TallCool1

Dani AI

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Brief diagnosis and focused checklist

A common cause for the exact symptom described by — one player (WMP) producing multichannel while other apps emit stereo — is that different applications use different Windows audio paths. Some programs use the legacy WinMM/waveOut path (mixed through the old kernel mixer) while others (WMP/DirectShow) use DirectSound/WDM and can access the driver’s hardware multichannel features directly. (learn.microsoft.com)

NVIDIA’s nForce audio stack (NVMixer / Speaker Wizard) exposes features such as rear‑channel cloning and hardware acceleration, but those features only work when the player uses the right API (DirectSound/hardware acceleration). The nForce release notes explicitly list which apps were tested for rear‑channel cloning; MusicMatch Jukebox 8.20 is shown as “stereo only” while WMP9 and Winamp were listed as supported for cloning — this explains the different behavior between players. (nvidia.com)

Concise troubleshooting checklist (ordered):

  • Confirm the Windows playback device is the motherboard/nForce analog output (not SPDIF/digital) and run the Windows speaker Configure/Test routine so the OS exposes the multichannel layout. (learn.microsoft.com)
  • Open the nForce audio utility (NVMixer / Speaker Wizard), run the Speaker Wizard and ensure the analog channels are enabled and any SPDIF passthrough is disabled (digital passthrough often appears as stereo-only to Windows). (nvidia.com)
  • If MusicMatch has an output/device preference, switch it to any DirectSound or hardware‑accelerated output option. If that option is absent or still stereo, use a player known to support DirectSound hardware options (WMP or a Winamp build that uses DirectSound) to verify driver-level surround. (nvidia.com)
  • If NVMixer or multichannel options are missing, install the current nForce UDP/audio package and DirectX 9 (NVMixer requires the proper driver components/DirectX); follow the driver install notes and reboot as required. (nvidia.com)

Notes and cautions: installing/uninstalling nForce packages may require several reboots and a full reinstall of the audio utilities to restore NVMixer. If the MusicMatch version is old, its playback API limitations (stereo-only) are the likeliest cause; the driver is working, but the player isn’t using the multichannel path. (nvidia.com)

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Member Avatar for caperjack

Your post title is missleading ,as you have surround sound ,just not in musicmatch and windows sounds !:)I don't use either sorry,as i like WMP

Member Avatar for TallCool1

Here's the deal. My sound wont work in surround now. I've done nothing as far as speaker connections to the mobo. Infact by using the nForce control panel applet I can tweek speaker and output settings, and I've set everything just the way it was before the reformat. When I click the "Test Sound" button, all four speakers sound off like they're supposed to (Left, Right, Left-surround, Right-surround), but Windows sounds and Musicmatch are not in surround.

Here's the real weird thing... Windows Media Player IS IN SURROUND!!! To bad I hate WMP... I've done all the obvious; like Window's system volume control and speaker setup, Musicmatch's output setups, etc.

There may be some updates for Windows that enhance the nForce sound drivers that have not yet been installed, primarily the WDM stuff, which is built into WMP, but not Windows itself. Try this search.

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