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Giulio as I told you by email I agree with your conservative approach about logical into Xonar Switch vs original Asus panel, but please note that new potential feature:
when OS speakers layout /source channel is set to 6 channels (5.1 sources) or 8 channels (Games, 7.1 sources), and the Digital (SPDIF) --> Dolby Digital Live is on the run, the mixer/playback controls and equalizer / flexbass speaker size follow only the output/ analog choice. Imho this is a real bug in the original Asus control panel. There are no reasonable reasons to bond those controls analog output, that besides is disabled during DD live session, instead sources. I hope this kind of implementation could be avaiable by api layer
I believe both FlexBass and the playback part of the mixer work on the analog output section of the card, which is disabled when DDL is on.
Probably the designers expected the recipient of the SPDIF stream to handle LFE frequency routing and per-channel volume.
This is a restriction of digital audio stream. Via DDL and SPDIF the sound stream is digital and is intended to be bit perfect. Thats why u cant change LFE frequency or per channel volume within a digital audio stream because it would causing a non bit perfect stream which means you loose audio quality. Its a limitation of SPDIF for bit perfect audio stream. As SPDIF aka digital audio stream is mostly for home theater and for the use with a av-receiver you can change the parameters like LFE frequency directly within your av-receiver. In this way the stream from soundcard to receiver is bitperfect and the change of parameters is made by the receivers dsp which would cause not audio quality loss. As said before this is a limitation of bit perfect audio stream which is implemented well by Asus designers and if u want to change this parameter u have to get a good av-receiver and change the parameters on receiver.
>Thats why u cant change LFE frequency or per channel volume within a digital audio stream
I don't want to! The Flexbass and the mixer work fine with DD Live and the Xonar Dx because they work before the stream encoding.
I prefer to use the Xonar card as dsp and mixer because my Marantz avr is a good device as amplifier but I bought it several year ago and it have some limitations, For example I can't select a LFE frequency, it should be 100 HZ but it's unique value. Infact I set S-Direct mode on the Avr because in this signal configuration I don't want any further quality loss. With a Avr equipped with Audissey technology my choice become different
The question I have raised is why the mixer and the flexbass configuration are bonded to output speaker scheme instead the input one when the Dolby digital live is always encoded with 5.1 channels. It related to the logic of the controls in the Asus panel. nothing more
How do you know that? C-Media control panel?
Because I've the ears, a couple :-))
Mixer playback level and FlexBass work fine with Dolby Digital Live, but I have to set Analog output to "Rear 5.1 speakers" to get full slide controls in the mixer tab (6 channels) even if that control is disabled when Digital (SPDIF) is set to "Dolby Digital Live". If I have "Rear 2 speaker" (disabled) the mixer allow only the front channel L+R..
If OS speakers layout / source channels is set to 6 or 8 ch/s, the Mixer and FlexBass control should display full control for all these channels, (imho)
I was asking confirmation you used the C-Media Control Panel to enable FlexBass and the channel volume sliders with DDL output, since the fact you can't do that in the ASUS control panel nor in XonarSwitch is the main reason behind your initial post.
I'm using Asus Xonar Dx center, the FlexBass and mixer are active. But I have to set Analog->5.1 to have 6 channels enabled
I checked the official control panels, and both do what you describe, C-Media included.
I think it makes sense to have both FlexBass and per-channel volume available when DDL is selected, since the driver accepts the commands and they work.
What I don't think makes sense is to go with the input channels. Both FlexBass and per-channel volume are applied before DDL conversion but after DSP. What happens if the user chooses stereo for the source (2 channels) and then upmixes to 5.1 via ProLogic IIx? You would end up with 2 speakers in FlexBass and 2 volume sliders but you have 6 channels.
I think the best way to handle this is to treat it like the 5.1 analog output option. The output channels are the same, it's just that it's digital and not analog, but it seems it doesn't make any difference in this specific context.
Ok sorry for the misreading. I think i got it now 😉 . Seems to be a software limitation from the logical standpoint but maybe not cause of the design of the Xonar cards. I need to check this. To clear this up, you set the Analog Output in Xonar panel to 2 Channel Speaker and then you select DDL and you have only L+R in the mixer tab ? But because DDL is a 5.1 channel audio stream you want to have all 6 channels in the mixer tab. Is this correct? I need to investigate this more to be able to help with it. But maybe Giulio or Carved have a idea whats causing this. Maybe its caused by the driver design of the Xonars or the way they implemented digital output. But as said i need to look further into it. Last short and simple question, why dont you set it to 5.1 Analog Output and leave it there because its doing what you want?
>you set the Analog Output in Xonar panel to 2 Channel Speaker and then you select DDL and you have only L+R in the mixer tab ?
Yes
>But because DDL is a 5.1 channel audio stream you want to have all 6 channels in the mixer tab
Yes,
>Last short and simple question, why dont you set it to 5.1 Analog Output and leave it there because its doing what you want
Yes, I did of course ! and it work fine. There are no problems to let Xonar to do what I want in the daily use. The question about Xonar Switch is improve the interfaces in a better and understable way (if possible)
Ok it might be possible but only if the driver allows it. Because XonarSwitch is a user interface which sets (reflects) the settings in the driver. If the driver cant handle it in another way i dont think it could be overrided or bypassed by software or registry tweak. But i think Giulio or Carved have a better in depth knowledge at the moment about this. But i will further look into this and see if i can find something useful.
By the way its a very small problem. More a cosmetic thing in my opinion. I would rather prefer to see DTS NEO:PC / Dolby ProLogic II layout selection switching, between music and movie in XonarSwitch. So that i not have to use C-Media Panel to switch DTS NEO:PC layout from music to movie. Just like the default / dont change dropdown selection but with music and movie. Or to change the layout between music and movie for for Dolby ProLogic II within XonarSwitch as well. The greatest thing to see would be a graphic interface to adjust the music or movie layout like you can do in C-Media Panel or Asus Xonar Center. But one step after another. Layout selection would make XonarSwitch complete for me and with graphical user interface i would be able to never need C-Media panel or Asus Xonar Center. Just the the lightweight and powerful XonarSwitch.
I agree those options are necessary. They are also quite high in my priority list, together with virtual speaker position editing and the ability to save user-defined virtual speakers layouts.
For the time being, though, I'm forced to do simpler things that are lower in priority because of time constraints.
Great to hear that i am looking forward to see this when ready! 😀 As ever take the time you need. I know how hard it is to have not enough free time caused by to much work. But now it settles down and i have luckily more free time. I would let you know if you need any help / preview testing / or whatever then let me know cause i am back to support you ( I am able caused by my more free time :D) . You should have my Email if not let me know. BTW great work and nice to see every development of XonarSwitch in any way. Thumbs up!
If u make a donate option i will spend you a couple of beers for sure !
Is it possible to make some sort of application/registry file which sets the Xonar U7 USB sound card Headphones output to 7.1, not stereo? With the Phoebus and the Xonar U7, due to DHTv4, Headphones is actually set to stereo, meaning all games give stereo sound. I have been hunting a way to set the driver to 7.1, so that games that don't allow you to in-game set the audio to 7.1 still send out 7.1 due to the driver, but I have not found a way (registry, etc) to set this.
Can you please, please help me with this, it is the one issue with these cards I cannot fix that needs to be fixed?
I don't know the Xonar U7 and the Phoebus specifically, since they use a different chipset and driver compared to the hardware supported by XonarSwitch.
What I do know is that the games, since Vista, set the channels in their output from the render endpoint speakers layout.
So, try this, if you haven't already: open the sound control panel, click on the Xonar Speakers, click on configure, choose 7.1 surround as your setup and complete the wizard.
Next time you start your game, it should output an 8 channels stream. I don't know how the U7 driver will handle it, but it should use the 8 channels spatial information before sending the output to your physical transducers (headphones, speakers or whatever), also depending on the settings you have / activate.
This is the problem :). You can't select configure, it's greyed out, and the driver is locked to stereo. Dolby has said that the Surround Virtualiser is the same algorithm as Dolby Headphone, so it should be able to take 8 channels and downmix it. If I set MPC-HC to manually mix the sound and set it to 7.1, it definitely sounds like 7.1. It's just that many games don't let you manually set the speaker config, and they just use the driver as you said, which is locked to stereo.
That's weird. I have an external DAC, which only accepts stereo sound, but it still lets me hit the configure button. Of course in the wizard you only get mono and stereo as alternatives, but it's still enabled.
Also, the Xonar 8788 driver only exposes two volume sliders to the system (left and right for balance), but it still has different speaker layouts up to 7.1 surround available.
I'm afraid that was all the help I could provide. Good luck with finding a solution to your problem!
Hello, I'm currently using the latest version of your program on a Windows 7 x64 system with the Xonar Essence ST (PCI) soundcard.
I've always used your software with very good results, but since installing it on this new build of mine I've been encountering a weird problem. Basically, the icon in the system tray remains in a 'mute' state, regardless of the actual status of the volume set or any specific profile I might have selected.
Moreover, when I hover on said icon, it displays the following information string: "Master Volume: Unknown".
I'd like to be able to control and visually check the volume directly with XonarSwitch, so looking forward to hearing some possible insight on the cause of this anomaly. Thanks in advance!
In order to have a better insight about what's happening on your new build, I need to know how XonarSwitch "sees" your system.
Please do the following:
1) Right-click on the XonarSwitch tray icon.
2) Click on "About XonarSwitch..."
3) Click on the button labeled "Save Complete Diagnostic Info" and choose a file name and location.
4) Send me the saved file (instructions on how to contact me are towards the end of the post above) or paste its content here.
My main desktop PC is still dead, so I still can't test and find this out for myself...
Does this program support automatic profile switching triggered by program launch? That is, similar to per-game forced graphics settings in AMD's and Nvidia's graphics control panel.
Or is the only way to make a program shortcut that sends a CMD command and then launches said program?
The feature you are referring to (automatic profile switching based on process creation / termination) isn't currently in, although it has been on my to-do list for a long time.
It will eventually come, but not anytime soon. It depends on another system which is rather complex and allows for a great flexibility, but it requires time to develop and I don't have that time now.
What you suggest as an alternative is feasible: you can create a batch file that uses XonarSwitch command-line arguments to automate profile switching and then launches the program. It should look something like this:
XONARSWITCH_FOLDER\XonarSwitch.exe /NOUI /Profile=YOUR_PROGRAM_PROFILE
LAUNCH_YOUR_PROGRAM
When used with the /NOUI switch, the new XonarSwitch instance doesn't interfere with a possible other instance running in background in your system tray, whereas normally only one instance of XonarSwitch can run at any given time.
Another less automated alternative is to assign a global keyboard shortcut to your profile and manually switch to it when you run your program.
OK, I figured that a batch file would work - thanks for confirming though.
I was already aware of the global hot keys, but that won't really help me in terms of remembering which programs use 44.1KHz and which use 48KHz.
Question relates to having two xonar cards installed and how your xonar switch and uni drivers will react.
Posted this also on the uni xonar page also, for the uni xonar drivers.
I have a DX in the PCIe top slot of my motherboard (ASRock Z68 Extreme4), it serves the 5.1 for my external 5.1 speakers. I have a USB FREQ7 headset for gaming/comms.
I have a better set of stereo headphones coming and would like a headphone amp, just to get me going. I cannot afford the STX II, so for now I was thinking a DG (pci) or DGX (PCIe), put into the bottom PCIe lane, or the DG in the one PCI land that's free, and used for just the stereo out via its headphone amp.
So, if I install the card and then run your driver install again and this time chose the card (DG or DGX), will it install for this new 2nd xonar.
Failing this, then I thought a cheap TOSLINK headphone amp, using the optical out from the top (current) DX card. So not £22, but around £100 max.
Would an optical in cheap headphone amp be a better bet here. or can I get away with adding in the DGX.
Also with this same question, will the xonar switch see both xonar cards and allow separate config of each. (will post this in the switch thread as well)
Someone correct me if I'm mistaken here, but I think that the drivers do not support 2 xonar cards on the same setup. Haven't tried it though, just something I recall I've read on a forum somewhere.
About the XonarSwitch section of your question: XonarSwitch cannot currently control two cards at a time. The best you can do is to force it to detect the card you want it to drive, and use an official control panel with the other.
To do so you have two ways.
The first one is through the undocumented /HID command line parameter, which forces XonarSwitch to look for a card that has a Hardware ID containing a specific string. This is useful if you want to create two shortcut icons to launch XonarSwitch on one card each. Please note that you can't have two XonarSwitch instances running simultaneously.
About the command line argument, here's an example of how it looks like. Provided you want XonarSwitch to detect the DX, you should launch it this way:
XonarSwitch /HID=VEN_13F6&DEV_8788&SUBSYS_82751043
You find a list of Xonar cards and their hardware IDs here.
If you use the command above in a command prompt window or batch file, be sure to put a ^ sign before the ampersands to escape them, since the ampersand sign is used to chain commands together, otherwise you’ll get errors.
In a batch file, the command should then look like this:
XonarSwitch /HID=VEN_13F6^&DEV_8788^&SUBSYS_82751043
Please note that if you use autostart, it might be preferable to use the second method below, or you’ll have to manually edit the autostart entry each time you disable and re-enable it, as it will be recreated without the command line arguments.
The second, simpler way is to use the registry editor, navigate to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\XonarSwitch" and create a string value named "HID" and then put the hardware ID search string there.
The HID value in the registry has a higher priority than the command line switch, i.e. if two search strings are provided simultaneously using both methods, the registry string will be used.
Thanks for the reply. I think then its just not worth the hassle. I'm looking for easy and seamless.
I guess I could re-enable the onboard soundcard and use its optical out. Is the optical out the same from the motherboards onboard sound card and the xonar's.
I've now got my new Philips X1 headphones and replacement cable, removed old UNi Xonar drivers and xonar DX card, but left your switch installed. Installed the new DGX and rebooted and installed latest uni xonar with no issues (low latency-DGX). Set a new profile for the headphones out. System volume to 95%, and using J.River set a new zone, set the dgx (wasapi), 96khz, internal volume.
I just wanted to ask, I assume setting the xonarswtich to 'rear headphones' is activating the xonar dgx headphone amp.
I don't seem to be getting as much volume as I would of expected with the DGX headhone amp. I find running
Rear headphones means you are enabling your rear output (the one on the card itself as opposed to the case front panel connector) and selecting headphones as transducer type. That in turn gives you access to headphones-specific functionality like Dolby Headphones etc.
The headphone amp should be available on both front and rear outputs.
To enable it you have to click on the "AMP" button you should have next to the output combo and select a gain mode.
Thank you.
The Philips X1 headphones are 30 ohm, it auto detected the <32 option.
Any thoughts on which might be the best place to plug the headphone cable into: rear of the card directly, or using the cases (NZXT 630) HD audio cable up through the case and all its components to the front panel headphones out. The HD audio cable does have some screening, its not the best.
I usually opt for direct into the rear of the card - interference wise.
Restoring a backup causes the following error:
http://i.imgur.com/zYiqy92.png
It's even happening with backups who are just some seconds old.
If Kaspersky Internet Security 2014 is running during a restoration, Xonarswitch is even crashing with the following error (even if I give it every possible read/write-rights):
http://i.imgur.com/gTDkO9G.png
OS: Win 8.1 x64
When you restore a backup, XonarSwitch uses the file located at http://www.3dalchemy.com/xonarswitch/Backup/XonarSwitchBackup.xsd to validate its format and avoid problems due to manual edits that don't respect the backup logic.
Try and see if you can add XonarSwitch as an exception under different antivirus filters to prevent both problems. If it doesn't work you might have to send the executable to Kaspersky Labs so that they whitelist it in their signature file.
Giulio, don't forget about my problem with xonarswitch that often crash when I'm closing Windows (8.1 x64)
This is really cool!! i only got a small problem that i don't know if it can be fixed with this nice piece of software as it is. I use pro logic but i don't want the sound directed for the center speaker. in the asus software you can change the wideness of the sound. i cant seem to do it here. any help? besides that this is awesome!
Thanks for your feedback.
That feature is missing at the moment.It's planned as soon as I have enough spare time to implement it properly, along with other things.
I managed to get the Asus Essence STX2 to work in Windows 10 using a combination of the device manager and this program. Due to the way the installer works it wouldn't install windows 8.1 drivers on windows 10, so what I did was went in the device manager, told it to update from a set location (my downloads folder) and so that was the driver sorted. But it was locked to the stereo back output, so now I use this program to manage the outputs until I find a better solution. 😀
Full article in the link, I wrote about it since my twitter followers are all geeks.. 😉
Thanks for your feedback and glad XonarSwitch was useful!
Have you tried installing UNi Xonar drivers for STX II cards? Those drivers do not have the Windows version restriction.
Quick question, does XonarSwitch work with both modded and stock drivers?
Yes it does.
There's a way to fix the .exe trying to connect to internet as often?
XonarSwitch connects to the internet to check for updates. Every time it downloads about 7 bytes, so the traffic itself is negligible.
You can block any process from accessing the internet by using windows firewall:
http://superuser.com/questions/363540/how-can-i-block-a-program-from-accessing-the-internet
Keep in mind though that without internet access you won't be notified of new versions and you won't be able to restore settings because XonarSwitch needs to read a XML format file to validate the backup file.
This is awesome. Looked for something like this back when I got my Xonar to no avail but now it's here.
A little suggestion tho, could you perhaps make it possible to either hide elements in the right-click menu of the tray icon (like the asio thing) or move profiles to be bottom for quicker switching?
Thx
I guess moving the profiles at the bottom of the popup menu could make sense. Note taken, thanks for your feedback.