Frost

My motherboard (ASUS K8N) has an onboard spdif out phono socket through the back plate and the Platinum Pro I/O box has an spdif input phono socket. Perfect right?.
But no, there is a smalll problem. It seems that the RealTek ALC850 chipset has a fixed unchangeable configuration set for the spdif which does not alowe the analog input to be directly send out through the spdif. However any wave file played from the media player is send out through spdif (and the normal analog audio as well).
So does anyboby know a small program which replicate an analog input into an instant streaming wave look a like.

Thanx in advance
Frost

Russ

I am not sure what you mean by the above ("normal analog audio as well"... are you saying that you can hear your analog inputs, but only when playing a wave file?).

In any case, you can try ASIO4ALL (assuming that the RealTek does not include it's own ASIO driver).

Frost

If I connect a drum machine to the analog input (blue) I am able to get the sound out through the analog output (green) but no signal/sound out through the spdif output.
If I then load a .WAV file into the mediaplayer and actvate the player i am able to hear both the .WAV file and the drum sound but only the .WAV file gets through the SPDIF.
So not being able to change whatever settings ASUS/RealTec has preassigned to the SPDIF setting, I am looking for a small utillity which will take the analog audio and move it to the SPDIF.
My goal is simply to incorporate the motherboard analog in - SPDIF out as an additional stereo channel to the system.
I tried using Audio Repeater which is a part of Virtual Audio Cable (VAC) and that is actually able to do the job but the latency makes it unusable in real life.

Russ

Ahh ok, I understand what you are saying...


What driver are you using? From taking a *quick* look at the datasheet for the ALC850 chipset, its seems that it should be possible to send analog input to the SPDIF output, so maybe it is just the driver that you are using that does not offer that option.

i.e.
Register MX6A Data Flow Control (bits 13-12) seems to set the SPDIF output source and ADC is one of the options.

Maybe you can find another driver (maybe RealTek's own driver) that includes that functionality (or a driver that allows you to access the AC97 registers, so that you can do it manually, etc.).

Of course it is just an idea (something to look into). You best bet would be to ask some questions in a forum about that chipset, etc. (and again, you could try ASIO4ALL and see if the latency is any better).

Frost

Russ
Thankyou for the response including details regarding the actual codec chip. I had kind of hoped that somebody new a small handy application which could handle my problem.
Adding to my frustration is the fact that the written user manual which came with the board contains pictures where changes in SPDIF settings are possible, but the included driver on the installation CD is a later revision and until now I haven't been able to locate the original driver version on the net.
Your suggetstion to try ASIO4ALL. Woul you please elaborate why that might be a solution

Best Regards
Frost

Russ

ASIO4All would work kind of like Virtual Audio Cable, except *maybe* with better latency (I have never tried VAC, so I am not sure how well it works). Of course you would need to use an ASIO aware application (like VSTHost ("Audio Thru" enabled)) to route the input to output.

i.e. Trying ASIO4ALL with kX and VSTHost (I mention VSTHost because it is small and will not cost you anything) I am able to get minimal latencies, so I think you should be able to do the same with the RealTek.

Frost

Ross

In short: It works, and I am very thankfull for all the help I have received from you, DJ Stick and others from this forum during the last week where I have been struggling setting up a PC based tracking / recording system utilizing whatever "kX ready" hardware available.