Hi everyone,

After taking a long time to decide on an upgrade path for graphics I decided to buy a radeon HD 3870. The 8800GT is better in games, but the thing that swung it for me for the 3870 is the HDMI audio out and the UVD. My problem is that I can only get stereo sound from the HDMI out. ATI say that you can get the full HD sound true the HDMI out. I have it connecting using a HDMI cable to my receiver which can support all the HD audio formats, but whenever I try a bluray or HD movie I only get stereo output to my amp.

There is hardly any info on how to setup the HDMI audio for the 3870. I have searched the ATI forums and other forums and found nothing. The only thing I found was that people seem to be able to route all their sound through the HDMI, not just movies, but games as well. I get no audio when I play games like CS:S, and only stereo for windows. As for drivers, I can find drivers for XP, but no drivers for VISTA, and I am running VISTA.

In the sound options in the control panel I can see that it has installed a Digital output device(HDMI), when I try to configure this device it only has two speakers, there is no option to select 5.1 or anything like that. If I go into the properties of the device and then into supported formats tab I can't play any of the tests. I.E. if I click on DTS and hit test, it will tell me that this format is unsupported, same for dolby digital and wma pro. It's a microsoft uaa high defination audio device that is installed, and when I check the driver version it's really old from march 2006. Surely there is a more up to date driver for this?

I tried installing the catalyst drivers that came with the card, and then I tried installing the 7.11 drivers, and the crysis hotfix drivers, the same for all of them.

When I imagined what the HDMI audio out was going to be, I thought it was going to be like an SPDIF out. That the card routed all the audio into the HDMI cable if you selected that as your default device.

If someone out there has it working on VISTA I would love to hear how. It's driving me nuts, because If doesn't work like it says then I might as well have bought the 8800GT.

Hi

Having the same problem as u.. if u find a solution plz let me know.. its driving me crazy..

Make sure the source is 5.1.
I have not used the 3870 or HDMI.
My sister had the same kind of problem with not getting 5.1 from the radio.
When she put in a CD, by golly all the speakers worked.
Maybe this isn't helpful, but it's worth checking.

I finally got it to work on Vista.

I installed the latest ATI drivers, the Microsoft drivers then load automatically. I then installed Realtek ATI HDMI drivers (Google "ATI HDMI Audio Device" ).

Then I installed "ac3filter" (google it, it's free). I restarted after that. In ac3filter Main Tab I checked "Use SPDIF" and choose 5.1 audio out. In the SPDIF Tab I choose the formats my Surround Sound can decode (DTS, AC3, PCM 24bit) .

I turned on my receiver. In the Audio control panel choose Realtek HDMI Output as Default, choose Properties, click Supported Formats Tab, tested what formats will play (for me all but "Microsoft WMA Pro Audio" ) and do the same in Advanced (choose 24bit). After that all 5.1 surround worked great.

A few notes: the Configure button on the Sound Control Panel still doesn't show 5 speakers, just 2. That made me think 5.1 wasn't working until I tested it. Also I had "Microsoft WMA Pro Audio" checked in the Supported Formats tab and that stopped any audio going out when playing WMA files.

I hope this helps.

i quit this site since they banned me to tellitubies for 2 weeks
but i did want to tank you for your update
thank you java

Thank you for taking the time to answer you're own question to help others.

Pointing us towards the "Google "ATI HDMI Audio Device" helped fix my problem and added another menu called HDMI Output to my exsisting installed Realtek HD Audio Manager software.

My sound was working anyway using Realtek Digital Output. But as soon as I entered a game like Crysis, the sound did not!

Installing the ATI HDMI Audio Device drivers which can be found here: http://www.realtek.com.tw/download [...] Down=false

Solved my problem.

Thanks again!

Thanks javabrac this worked for me aswell my had hs been battered all day tryin to do this so THANK YOU again

Also consider this resolution:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] d-problems