Soundmax AD1988B onboard sound problems

[Anarchi]

Anyone else have problems with the Analog Devices High Definition Soundmax AD1988B onboard sound chip?



With my Asus P5B Deluxe Mobo, here are the issues:

1) When ever I upgrade the BIOS, the Audio chip causes a BSOD. I have to boot into safe mode, remove the SoundMax drivers and device, then reinstall the drivers in Normal mode.

2) When I lightly overclock the FSB, it blows away the SoundMax device (device manager shows a yellow exclamation/bang). It appears that this audio chip doesn't like running higher than 33MHz (PCI Bus speed), which limits overclocking ability.

3) None of the Asus P5B SoundMax drivers support EAX in games. The CPU utilization utility in RightMark shows that there is no EAX 1/2/3/4/5 and no 2D or 3D buffers.
( Download RightMark 3DSound 2.2 - RightMark 3DSound is a sound test - Softpedia )
However, they do support DTS (which I cannot use anyway).
I found some SoundMax drivers from RapidShare which don't support DTS, but do support EAX 1 and 2.
Does this mean the SoundMax cannot support DTS and EAX within the same driver?




This chip has given me many headaches.. the SB X-Fi is looking good now (EDIT: The XFI can only output 2channel stereo through SPDIF) Except for the expensive Prelude model. Looks like the Auzentech X-Plosion would be the best option

[Anarchi]

By the way, can the AD1988B output Dolby Digital AC3/Live (5.1) through SPDIF?

Basically what I want to do is output 5.1 surround sound from games (that use DirectSound3D / EAX) via Optical to my Dolby Digital AC3 Decoder Speakers (Cambridge/Creative Soundworks DTT2500).


I noticed AD1988B has DTS options but no Dolby Does this mean it can encode DTS on the fly? Or is it simply a DTS passthrough for DVD's?